Early Childhood Programs How Do I Ask a Question? Federal Offices - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Federal Perspectives and New Initiatives Related to Family-Provider Relationships in Early Childhood Programs

How Do I Ask a Question?

Federal Offices Represented

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Administration for Children and Families)

• Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood

Development

• Office of Head Start
• Office of Child Care
• Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, Children’s Bureau

U.S. Department of Education

• Office of Innovation and Improvement

Content Overview

• Commonalities across program offices
• Unique perspectives across program offices
• Guiding frameworks or principles
• Flexibility in regulations
• Innovations from the field
• Using research to facilitate effective practice
• Discussion questions
• What trends are you seeing related to family-provider relationships

in early childhood programs?

• What do you see as the top priorities for improving family-provider

relationships?

• What information do you think researchers could provide to fill in

critical gaps in knowledge?

Commonalities across Program Offices

• Importance of family-provider relationships, and

specifically family engagement

• Need for partnerships in engaging families
• Need for flexibility in creating policies, RFP criteria, and

regulations related to family-provider relationships

Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program

Moushumi Beltangady Senior Policy Analyst

Guiding Framework/Principles

Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting

• Home visiting IS family engagement
• Engagement of parents, caregivers, and families is the core

service delivery strategy

• Through positive, ongoing, and goal-oriented relationships with

families, home visitors 1) expand parent/caregiver’s knowledge and skills to nurture child development; 2) promote growth and healthy development of young children; and 3) connect families to resources in the community

• Engaging families in the home environment v. early care and

education setting

• Participation v. engagement, minimizing attrition, engaging fathers
• Home visiting model-specific family engagement strategies

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

Home Visiting in Tribal Communities

• Inter-generational families and home environments
• Community norms around child-rearing
• Role of elders
• Other cultural considerations
• Distrust of home visitors from outside the community
• Need for adaptation or enhancement of models

Innovations from the Field

Tribal MIECHV grantee innovations

• Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe (WA)
• Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) home visiting model
• Brazelton Touchpoints framework
• NFP Nurse and Family Support Specialist/Cultural

Liaison

• Fairbanks Native Association (AK)
• Parents as Teachers (PAT) home visiting model
• “We don’t think we’re better than them”
• Adaptation of PAT lessons to diverse Alaska Native

population

• Native home visitors

Department of Health and Human Services ACF Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge

INSERT LOGO HERE Richard Gonzales Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development

Guiding Framework/Principles

RTT-ELC Focused Investment Area/Selection Criteria (C)(4) – Engaging and Supporting Families

The extent to which the State has a High-Quality Plan to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate information and support to families of Children with High Needs in order to promote school readiness for their children by— (a) Establishing a progression of culturally and linguistically appropriate standards for family engagement across the levels of its Program Standards, including activities that enhance the capacity of families to support their children’s education and development; (b) Increasing the number and percentage of Early Childhood Educators trained and supported

• n an on-going basis to implement the family engagement strategies included in the

Program Standards; and (c) Promoting family support and engagement statewide, including by leveraging other existing resources such as through home visiting programs, other family-serving agencies, and through outreach to family, friend, and neighbor caregivers.

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

The progression of culturally and linguistically appropriate family engagement standards used in the Program Standards that includes strategies successfully used to engage families in supporting their children’s development and learning. Strategies must address, but need not be limited to:

• Parent access to the program
• Ongoing two-way communication with families
• Parent education in child development
• Outreach to fathers and other family members
• Training and support for families as children move to preschool and

kindergarten

• Social networks of support, intergenerational activities
• Linkages with community supports and adult and family literacy programs
• Parent involvement in decision making, and parent leadership development

Documentation that this progression of standards includes activities that enhance the capacity of families to support their children’s education and development.

Innovations from the Field

State Advisory Council Work Examples

• Maine - Examined various metrics and evaluation tools and measured the

degree of success of parent engagement strategies.

• Missouri and Georgia - Developed family engagement recommendations for

adoptive parents.

• New York - Developed certification for parent educators.
• California - Early Childhood Educator (ECE) Competencies: one of the 12

areas is Family and Community Engagement.

• Guam - Collaboration with the Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority

to conduct parent outreach activities for families who reside in government- subsidized housing.

• Nebraska - Developed core messages for engaging parents, early care and

education providers, and schools on the topics of school preparedness and prepared schools.

Innovations from the Field

Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Work Examples

• North Carolina - Head Start Hub sites will provide technical assistance, demonstration,

and coaching regarding family engagement strategies to ECE workforce in non-Head Start ELD programs; 3 counties within the Transformation Zones will implement the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program (prevent and treat behavioral/emotional problems).

• Maryland - Established and overseeing a Coalition for Family Engagement; customizing

for Maryland needs the Head Start Family, Parent, and Community Engagement Framework.

• Ohio - Revised Step Up to Quality, its QRIS, to include program standards that address

how early childhood educators are to share assessment results with families.

• Massachusetts- An affiliated site of Help Me Grow (a national program that connects

parents, pediatricians, and child care providers), has distributed the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) and ASQ-Social Emotional (ASQ-SE) toolkits to community agencies.

• Delaware - Created Parent and Community Engagement Workgroup; implementing

Engagement Plan with multiple audiences to promote Stars (TQRIS).

• Wisconsin – Development of a progression of family engagement standards used to

determine mandatory points across its TQRIS star levels.

Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Head Start

Kiersten Beigel Family and Community Partnerships Specialist

Guiding Framework/Principles

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

• Regulations are locally interpreted and locally

implemented.

• PFCE Outcomes represent groupings of regulations.
• The PFCE and TTA Resources are regulation

implementation tools.

• Programs use required community assessment and

family assessment/family report data to design services.

Innovations from the Field

• Systemic, Integrated,

Comprehensive

• Positive, Goal Directed Relationships
• Outcomes Based & Data Driven
• Understanding Family Progress

Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Child Care

Leatha Chun Child Care Program Specialist

Guiding Framework/Principles

Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)

• CCDF Federal block grant program providing funding to

States, Territories and Tribes.

• Primary funding source for providing access to child care

services and improving child care quality Twin Principles: 1) Promote self-sufficiency by making child care more affordable for low-income families 2) Foster healthy child development and school success by improving the quality of child care.

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

OCC’s Focus:

• Improving health and safety in child care
• Improving the quality of child care
• Establishing family-friendly policies

Achieve focus by working with States, Territories, and Tribes to:

• Set minimum health and safety standards for all child care

providers

• Provide more detailed provider information for parents to

allow them to make better informed child care choices

• Provide a descriptive system /transparent method of quality

indicators so parents can differentiate between the quality levels of child care providers available in their communities

Innovations from the Field

Innovative practices from States, Territories and Tribes include activities that:

• Ensure “parental choice” giving parents specific information

needed for them to make informed decisions about child care provider options available to them

• Provide information for parents about the importance and

availability of quality in early and school age child care.

• Facilitate connections with families by incorporating

Strengthening Families in QRIS standards for programs to implement and maintain practices related to strengthening families protective factors (e.g., parental resilience, knowledge

• f parenting and child development, concrete support in times
• f need; social connections; and social and emotional

competence of children)

Innovations from the Field

State Examples can be found in two newly developed information products prepared by the National Center on Child Care Quality Improvement:

• “Strengthening Families and QRIS”, May 2013;
• “Consumer Education and Child Care Options”, July

2013

Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office on Child Abuse and Neglect Children’s Bureau

Rosie Gomez Child Welfare Program Specialist

Guiding Framework/Principles

• Protective Factors Framework – 3 commonly used frameworks (the ACYF is in the

beginning stage of development)

• Essentials for Childhood CDC’s child maltreatment prevention work: Safe,

Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments

• Strengthening Families – Protective Factors
• ACYF Protective Factor Framework
• Well-being Framework
• Information Memorandum – April 2012
• To explain the Administration on Children, Youth and Families’ priority to

promote social and emotional well-being for children and youth receiving child welfare services, and to encourage child welfare agencies to focus on improving the behavioral and social-emotional outcomes for children who have experienced abuse and/or neglect.

• http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/im1204.pdf
• Comprehensive Family Assessment Guidelines for Child Welfare

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/family_assessment.pdf

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

• Flexibility in grant opportunity announcements/Program

Instructions.

• Performance Standards (grantees can use evaluations

tools/measures that best meet their population).

Innovations from the Field

• Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) Grant

Program (www.friendsnrc.org)

• State Examples
• Protective Factors Survey (English and Spanish)
• Resource Guide

Office of Innovation and Improvement

Monique Toussaint, Management and Program Analyst Office of Parental Options and Information

Guiding Framework/Principles

• Dual Capacity Building Framework - Efforts around

building the capacity of:

• Parents/families to support children’s learning and

development; and

• School leaders, teachers and other relevant staff to

build and sustain effective home school partnerships that support student learning.

Encouraging Flexibility in Standards and Regulations

• Sample language provided to various programs to tailor

as needed for program notices inviting application

• Resources for aligned technical assistance shared to assist

with program implementation, communication and

• utreach
• Suggested language provided for performance measure(s)

Innovations from the Field

• Best practices that highlight critical skills necessary to

be effective including:

• Relationship building
• Community partnerships
• Access, understanding and use of data
• Examples include:
• Academic Parent Teacher Team (Creighton, AZ)
• Parent University (Boston Public Schools)

Using Research to Facilitate Effective Practice

• Need for implementation and outcome evaluations
• Identification of tools that can be used by programs for

measuring progress

• Bi-directional communication between researchers,

practitioners, and state administrators

• Research that can be used to:
• Identify specific promising practices
• Inform what factors states/programs consider in

choosing between strategies

Discussion Questions

• What trends are you seeing related to family-provider

relationships in early childhood programs?

• What do you see as the top priorities for improving

family-provider relationships?

• What information do you think researchers could

provide to fill in critical gaps in knowledge?