Month: July 2017

Creating Your Program’s Full Community Assessment: Data-Driven Decision Making

As a Head Start or Early Head Start program, you are required to have a Community Assessment that is comprised of comprehensive data of the communities in your service area. The new Head Start Program Performance Standards designate specific data that must be included in the Community Assessment to describe community strengths, needs and resources.

Comprehensive data about your service area is one of the essential elements in your program. It is a cornerstone to program planning and is needed to meet programmatic requirements. Community Assessment data is also needed for your Refunding Application, for other grant applications and for the Recompetition grant application.

We create comprehensive Community Assessments for Head Start & Early Head Start programs as well as Community Action Agencies. They include all of the required items in the Head Start Program Performance Standards (and, for Community Action Agencies, the regulations of your CAP programs).  As all of our services are custom designed, we will include any additional data that you request.

Our Community Assessments include:

  • Aggregating and analyzing a multitude of data sources;
  • Comparing current data with past years’ data;
  • Colorful graphs and charts illustrating the data;
  • Key findings for each piece of data;
  • Highlights & considerations for each major section;
  • Survey results of your Staff, Parents, Board of Directors and Community Partners.

The Community Assessment will include an analysis of the data as well as a list of recommendations – in a user-friendly format. This will allow for data-driven decision making.

Are you looking for a Full Community Assessment in order to make critical programmatic decisions? Give us a call today at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.

Using Motivational Interviewing to Build Effective Relationships with Parents

Family Service Workers and Home Visitors have an important role that includes creating effective working relationships with parents. They form a partnership with them to guide them on their path to self-sufficiency. Home Visitors and Family Service Workers work closely with parents to identify their strengths and needs, set family goals and provide opportunities for parents to be fully engaged in the life of their child.

Finding the right approach for effective work with parents starts with an ability to extend empathy… to understand where they are and where they want to go. We believe in engaging and building connections with families by initiating “rich” conversations. Create a safe environment for families to share their strengths and open up about areas of challenge. Take the time to work with parents to create solutions and offer support in a patient and helpful way. Discover what each family is all about and what is important to them – recognizing their strengths and needs.

It’s essential that Family Service Workers and Home Visitors have the needed skills in order to create successful relationships with parents. Motivational interviewing is one of those key skills.  Motivational interviewing is the process of helping people move through the stages of change. Motivational interviewing includes:

  • Learning how to collaborate and support change using specific skill-building techniques;
  • Improving how you show empathy through reflective listening.
  • Supporting a parent’s desire to change by learning how to establish discrepancy and rolling with resistance.

This practice-based training explores the principles and stages of motivational interviewing as well as motivators of change and transformation. Motivational interviewing is a great tool to have in your toolbox when establishing effective relationships with parents. Believing that a parent can change is powerful. However, supporting a parent’s belief that they can change themselves is empowering.

Are you looking for training on “Using Motivational Interviewing to Build Effective Relationships with Parents”? Give us a call at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.