Category: Training

Championing the Staff Who Serve Our Youngest

It’s essential to provide specialized professional development for the teaching staff who serve our infants and toddlers.  Whether you were recently awarded an Early Head Start/Child Care Partnerships grant or have had an Early Head Start program for years, providing effective training for your Early Head Start Teachers and Home Visitors is critical.

We’ve found that successful training in this area includes the following 3 points:

Offer a multitude of training topics.  Best practices in serving infants and toddlers includes providing professional development opportunities for your teaching and home visiting staff on all aspects of infant and toddler development.  These topics include:

  • Developing language in infants and toddlers
  • Supporting the individual needs of infants and toddlers
  • Managing challenging behaviors in infants and toddlers
  • Fostering the social/emotional development in infants and toddlers
  • Facilitating learning in infants and toddlers

Consider your child care partners when planning trainings.  If you have new child care partners, think about providing training such as “The ABCs of Head Start: Learning the Rules and Regulations of Head Start.”  It’s important that your child care partners know what is expected of them.  Provide training to your staff on program monitoring. Conducting ongoing monitoring activities to child care partners is a key piece to the success of your program.

Utilize a “learning by doing” training model.  Provide training that is highly interactive and engaging.  Include a lot of small group activities, role plays, question and answer sessions and interactive exercises.  Design training that is based on the principles of adult learning.  This will result in high impact learning in which training participants can take back the information that they learned and implement it immediately.

Looking for highly interactive training for your Early Head Start teaching and home visiting staff? Give us a call at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.

Key Points from the 2014 NHSA Fall Leadership Institute

In case you weren’t able to attend the 2014 National Head Start Association Fall Leadership Institute last week, below are the highlights.

50th Anniversary of Head Start:

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Head Start, it’s important to remember that it was the Cooke memorandum that began Head Start. President Johnson appointed Sargent Shriver to lead the administration’s War on Poverty. Shriver recruited his pediatrician, Dr. Robert E. Cooke, to head a committee whose recommendations led to the beginning of Head Start in 1965.

Update on the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships grant applications:

560 Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships grant applications were received.  60% are partnerships, 20% are a combination, 15% are expansion only, and 5% couldn’t be identified from the Executive Summary. The applications are being read now. The plan is to begin negotiations in December and finish the announcements by the end of March.

Update on the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards:

The Head Start Program Performance Standards have been revised and they are now in “internal coordination.” It is expected that the Performance Standards will come out for public comment this winter.

Update on Reauthorization:

It does not look like Congress is ready to start a reauthorization in the near future. It is likely that the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards need to come out and see how they work before reauthorization is going to be discussed.

Update on Recompetition:

  • 25% of all grantees have competed in Recompetition. The highest percentage of programs that have competed has been Community Action Agencies, programs that serve 200-499 children, and programs that serve Head Start only.
  • 6.9% of regional Head Start and Early Head Start programs have been in Recompetition due to CLASS.  No program has ever fallen below CLASS thresholds for emotional support or classroom organization.
  • Programs that had CLASS scores that fell into the bottom 10% tended to have Teachers with lower degrees.
  • Supervision issues continue to be a leading cause of programs going into Recompetition.
  • Outcomes of Recompetition: 72% of programs have gotten part of all of their program back; 20% lost their grant; and 8% have had their grant reposted.

Update on transitioning to the 5 year grants:

As it pertains to 5 year grant oversight, regional staff will be spending more time on addressing and correcting programs’ non-compliances. They are looking toward monthly contacts with grantees driving the agenda.

Other:

  • 70% of Head Start Teachers now have a Bachelor’s degree.
  • A complete review of all Head Start facilities will be conducted. For the next 2 years, Head Start will be taking pictures of your facilities. This information will be included in a report to Congress in order to tackle the issue of the state of Head Start facilities in a more consistent and coordinated way.

Taking a New Look at Policy Council and Board of Directors Training August 25, 2014

It’s hard to believe that summer is ending and a new school year is upon us! Along with classes and home visits starting up, it’ll soon be time for Policy Council and Board of Directors training.  While I’m sure that your governance training will include roles and responsibilities, performance standards, and leadership opportunities, consider also including the items below.

  • The history and vision of Head Start – Just as it’s important for staff to be familiar with the history of Head Start, it’s essential for your Policy Council and Board of Directors to be familiar with it as well. Knowing where Head Start came from and where it’s going is critical information as they provide governance duties to your program. In addition to the history of Head Start, the mission, vision and guiding principles of Head Start is valuable information to share as well.
  • A strong partnership with the Management Team – It’s essential that your Policy Council and Board of Directors receive training on the value that comes from a strong partnership between the Management Team and the governing bodies. Good communication, transparency and trust are key components to creating a successful partnership. A strong partnership will result in a system of effective and efficient governance of the Head Start program.
  • Making an impact – It’s often helpful to begin with the end in mind. Talk with your Policy Council and Board of Directors about what they would like to achieve for the Head Start program while they are a part of the governing body. The possibilities are endless! This will show your Policy Council and Board of Directors the tremendous value that they bring to your agency. Policy Council and Board members can leave a lasting impact on the program for many years to come.

Looking for training for your Policy Council or Board of Directors? Give us a call at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.

Mentor Coaching: A Key Ingredient of Ongoing Professional Development for Teachers

I bet you’ve just conducted – or are getting ready to conduct – many hours of training for your teaching staff.  I’m sure that the training covers a multitude of topics – curriculum, lesson planning, and ongoing assessment, just to name a few. You probably also have in-service dates scheduled for additional teacher training throughout the year. It’s important to have a plan in place to support teachers in between large and small group trainings – to provide individualized guidance to teachers as they implement what they learned in the trainings.

Mentor coaching is a critical part of a comprehensive professional development plan. It provides teachers with hands-on support that is custom designed to meet each teacher’s needs. It builds each teacher’s capacity and fosters continuous improvement. And, finally, it raises CLASS scores.

A high quality mentor coaching program includes:

  • Assessment of needs. Review the CLASS scores and other observational data and determine the teacher’s strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Setting goals. Ask the teacher what they’d like to work on. Starting with what the teacher wants to improve on will increase buy-in.
  • Ongoing observations. Either in person, or long-distance, provide ongoing observations of a variety of skills.  If this is being done long-distance, the teacher can send videos to the mentor.
  • Reflecting and sharing feedback. Through guided questions and activities, the mentor provides an opportunity for reflection as well as specific feedback.

Looking for long-distance Mentor Coaching? Give us a call at (704) 451-3255 or email us at kristinecortina@hsessentials.com.

Key Points from the Winter Leadership Institute

In case you weren’t able to attend the 2014 National Head Start Association Winter Leadership Institute in DC last week, below are the highlights.

Update on the Sequester—

  • The sequester is being restored for Head Start and the expectation is that the 5.27% will be returned to Head Start programs.  It is most likely that Head Start will be flat funded for the next few years.

 Update on Early Head Start – Child Care Funding Opportunities—

  • $500 million dollars will be made available for Early Head Start – Child Care partnerships.  The priorities for these new monies are partnerships with child cares and plans to ensure a smooth transition as children leave Early Head Start.  A big part of the application will be how much the community needs Early Head Start – which will be driven by the Community Assessment.  The minimum number of Early Head Start children to be served is 72.  Webinars with more details to come shortly.  We’re expecting a short timeline between when the grant opportunities are posted and when the grant applications will be due (60 days).

Update on Reauthorization—

  • The next Reauthorization is in the preparation stages.  It took about 5 years for the 2007 Reauthorization to be accomplished.  We are positioning ourselves to be in the driver’s seat because last time, others drove the process, and we had to fight to change important pieces of the legislation.

Update on the revised Performance Standards—

  • While several drafts of the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards have been written, the revised Standards are still “under construction” – working on best language.  The plan is for the revised version to be out for public comment in a year.

Update on Monitoring—

  • A Head Start Key Indicator Screener Tool has been developed.  The tool is a subset of the compliance measures in the federal monitoring protocol – 15 core indicators & 41 additional indicators.  This mini-monitoring tool will show if there are issues with programs – if you fail any one item, you would most likely fail the entire Review.  This screener will be used between now and May for grantees who won their grant back in Recompetition.

 Update on Recompetition—

  • NHSA has recommended to the President that some changes be made to the Designation Renewal System (DRS) system. These include: 1) to stop referring to programs in DRS as low quality, 2) to release competition details in order to improve transparency, and 3) to treat low CLASS score as a non-compliance instead of a deficiency.
  • 38% of deficiencies were non-compliances during Federal Monitoring Reviews that were not corrected.
  • Will every program will be in Recompetition at some point? This question was answered at the Institute.  Programs will only be in Recompetition if 1 of the 7 triggers occurs in their program.  If no trigger occurs, then your program is automatically renewed for 5 years.
  • The list of programs in Round 3 of Recompetition will be announced soon…….. and winners in Round 2 of Recompetition are expected to be announced in April.