More About NHSA

        Parent engagement is on my mind a great deal lately as we enter into another school year. How can I get parents more involved? How can I give parents more responsibility and ultimately get them more invested in the program? NHSA is still promoting the Parent Gauge for assessing parent engagement.  Another addition for parent engagement is this past week's launch of the Parents unite for Head Start Facebook Group. This group enable members to post pictures and updates about themselves or their children as alumni. These updates include posts about children that are graduating high school or college and the impact the program had on their school success.  Parents also post about job successes and personal achievements.  This page makes me realize how important Head Start is in the lives of many of our families. The ones most impacted are the parents of multiple children that spend several years in the program.  Consequently, I have been reflecting this week on increasing parent involvement especially for those families that will be with our program for many years to come.

                                                                 
       
         The common link with the families on the Facebook page and the testimonies of parents on the NHSA website is their level of involvement in the actual business of the program.  At my center, we have a lot of parent engagement activities, parent meetings, and a few overall agency policy making positions. At my local center, most of the business of the center falls on my shoulders.  One of my teachers and I are making plans to start a Volunteer Coordinator position, and Event Coordinator position, and a Parent Meeting Coordinator position.  These positions would be 'staffed' by parent volunteers of teams of volunteers.  They would be responsible for planning and completing the paperwork for their respective positions. Clearly, this takes a huge load of responsibility and time off of me but more importantly, it gives these position holders a sense of responsibility, guidance on detail oriented work, job related management skills, and potential employment.  The only thing I have to say is "WHY HAVEN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE NOW!"

                                                              

         If this approach is successful, we will have even more evidence regarding the importance of early childhood education and Head Start in the lives of families and the health of society. There are so many 'what if's' with this approach.  What if this approach enables three to four more parents to obtain employment? What if this allows these parents to have a sense of community with our school and raises their own connection level? What if this approach reveals a new skill or talent they weren't aware of previously?  Parents will be modeling the importance of school involvement to their children and it is well known that parent involvement increases child success. The impact of this approach to Head Start parent involvement for our organization is huge and can be used for advocacy to state policy makers.

Conversations on Poverty

       My conversation partner for this assignment is Natasha Bigl. She is the Family and Community Partnership Coordinator for a non profit that collaborates with local agencies to access services and assistance for children and families.  Our conversation centered around the difficulties of collaborating with community partners that have binding but arbitrary regulations guiding the community members they chose to serve.

 
       For example, there was a recent issue involving a high need for a family. All of the local agencies refuse to serve the family because they live in a area of "problems." This area consists of deep poverty and families of significant need. The agencies have a set procedure for service that involves a intake home visit. They will not serve these families because they fear the home visit to this area. However, they will not modify their intake process to exclude the home visit even with an agency vouching for the family.  This is just one of many organizations that refuse to serve this neighborhood.  This is exceptionally frustrating. The agency exists to assist and serve low income families but won't meet the needs of the neediest community in the area.

       We discussed ways of imploring agencies to change policies and procedures to allow services to areas such as these in many cities around the nation.  As many charitable assistance agencies are church sponsored and funded, there are no laws guiding discrimination against these areas. Coordinating agencies such as hers are dependent on these religious organizations to procure everything from food to furniture for families. Therefore, cutting ties with them is simply not an option. Education regarding the need, training on the community's culture, and frequent conversation is key to improving partnerships with the neediest communities.

Professional Organization Membership

I renewed my membership with the National Head Start Association as I am employed by Head Start. As a member of the NHSA, I will receive updates on advocacy opportunities to promote Head Start at state and national levels, free webinars and professional development links, and the latest information on Head Start initiatives. Head Start serves low to moderate income families throughout the United States providing a free preschool education to those that qualify for children ages three to five. There is also an Early Head Start option for children ages 6 weeks to three years with prenatal support and education for families. The National Head Start association was originally formed to combat a serious threat to Community Action Commissions, major holders of Head Start grants, during the Nixon administration. Community Action Commissions and Head Start were founded during the Johnson administration's war on poverty. In 1974, the National Director's Association was formed, and by 1975, they joined with the Head Start Parent Association, Head Start Staff Association, and Head Start Friends Association to form the National Head Start Association. 

Here is the NHSA link:
https://www.nhsa.org/

You can explore the NHSA website and view all of our initiatives for Head Start and early childhood education in the United States. The latest initiative from NHSA is the Parent Gauge. The Parent Gauge is a tool for measuring the impact of a program family engagement in six key areas including transition, child development, empowerment, parent/staff relationships, family stability, and health. the Parent Gauge was created to meet program's needs for an evidence based tool to measure family and community partnership.  The tool is not required and is a paid option. The NHSA lists its latest initiatives on the website with the option to view and participate at any level.

Establishing Connections:

Given the upcoming topics in this course, I have chosen to reach out to someone I already consider a mentor within the Head Start community.  She is the Family and Community Partnership Coordinator for Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission Head Start. Her job responsibilities range from supporting the family worker in the department she runs with emergency needs for families, coordinating collaborations with school systems and community resources, and assisting the program with comprehensive education opportunities for high risk children in poverty.  I was easily able to establish a connection with her and she has agreed to participate in conversations regarding issues and trends in our field.
Establishing a connection with another person is proving more challenging as I am looking outside my immediate circle for perspectives from other areas of the country.  I have reached out to several people via email ranging from teachers to administrators in several states. I am still awaiting communication from them.  My main target connection is a former Head Start area director in Georgia from a large north Georgia program with several hundred students.  The program is structured very differently from what I am familiar with and has had much success as a program of excellence with the Head Start program.
Both of the people I have chosen are from within the Head Start community but the Head Start mission and philosophy are thoroughly intertwined with my own. There is always room for improvement at the program level, and we can not improve without the advice and perspective of other program leaders or the perspective of those directly involved.

                                                     

As a result of my involvement with Head Start, I chose to research the National Head Start Association website.  I use this website frequently, but this time I chose to follow the links for advocacy. I discovered that Head Start has provided links for communication the importance of early childhood education with federal, state, and local officials. They also have links to professional development in CLASS and links to the Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center (ECLKC) which I use quite frequently.  My program is, of course, a member of the NHSA but I will now join as an individual.  This will allow me to receive newsletters, professional development opportunities, and advocacy opportunities.

                                      

Reference:

Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center. (2017). Retrieved from   https://eclkc. ohs.acf                 .hhs.gov/

National Head Start Association. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.nhsa.org/