Supporting Curriculum Implementation

Home visitors work with families to create educational opportunities for the child that take advantage of families’ daily routines and resources. Home visitors do this work within the context of their relationships with families. They work with parents to plan the child’s learning and development, using the program’s curriculum as a foundation for experiences that build the child’s school readiness skills and support the parent-child relationship. (see Ongoing Assessment and Curriculum Planning in the Home Visitor’s Online Handbook).

To support home visitors, you work with program staff and parents to choose a research-based, early childhood, home-based curriculum that delivers developmentally, linguistically, and culturally appropriate home visits and group socialization activities. All activities are designed to support parents in fostering children’s cognitive, social, and emotional growth for later success in school (45 CFR §1302.35). According to 45 CFR §1302.35(d), your chosen curriculum should also align with the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) and meet the interests and needs of your program’s children and families.

You use observation, supervision, training, and other professional development to ensure that home visitors gain thorough knowledge of early learning and development. The home visitors know how to individualize the curriculum to support children, and they know how to work with parents in a culturally responsive manner as they facilitate learning experiences and positive interactions with their child. You also consider the needs of children with disabilities and special health care needs and ensure that home visitors are prepared to work with them and their families.

Consider these strategies for supporting home visitors’ knowledge and skills related to curriculum planning and experiences.

Focus on Child Development and School Readiness

• Point out examples of child development and learning in each domain of development during joint home visits or video of home visits.
• Work with home visitors to identify teachable moments during each home visit; to integrate health principles, discussions of well-baby checks, and other health-related topics; and to connect health to children’s growth, development, and school readiness.
• Use supervision sessions to ask about specific children’s development.
• Use resources such as your state’s early learning guidelines and Program Level School Readiness Goals for Early Childhood Programs: Examples from the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning (NCECDTL).
• Use your program’s screening and ongoing assessment tools to examine domains of development and how they influence each other.
• Discuss information about school readiness for infants and toddlers with home visitors. Encourage home visitors to review the information and resources in the Home Visitor’s Online Handbook (see School Readiness in the Home-Based Option).
• Encourage home visitors to participate in ongoing training and coaching. (Additional information can be found in the Initial and Ongoing Training and the Coaching sections, Professional Development for Home Visitors, in this handbook.)
• Identify professional development opportunities, such as conferences and workshops that home visitors can attend. (Additional information can be found in the Initial and Ongoing Training section, Professional Development for Home Visitors, in this handbook.)
• Identify virtual training opportunities, including interactive modules and webinars, that allow home visitors to participate in on their own schedule and at their own pace. 

Emphasize the Importance of a Secure Parent-Child Relationship

• Share information about what secure parent-child relationships and how they benefit young children’s growth and development.
• Provide guidance on communication strategies that home visitors can use to support parent-child relationships, such as describing children’s actions and behaviors objectively; active listening; using open-ended questions or statements; inviting parents to share their perspective on the child’s behavior and development; and recognizing and acknowledging parent efforts, trial and error, discoveries, and strengths.
• Arrange training and staff development opportunities on parent-child relationships and attachment. (Additional information can be found in the Partnering with Families section of this handbook.)

Prioritize Child Learning and Development Experiences

• Brainstorm how to use materials found in the home and parent-child routines to promote child development. Encourage home visitors to review the information and resources in the Home Visitor’s Online Handbook (see Learning Opportunities).
• Explore which child development experiences may work for each family.
• Help home visitors connect individual child goals and program school readiness goals with the child-focused learning experiences they plan with parents. Use resources such as Individualizing Care for Infants and Toddlers that help home visitors make these connections.

Individualize the Curriculum

• Observation is an important part of individualizing curriculum. It is also important for ongoing assessment (see the Screening and Ongoing Assessment in this handbook). Use resources — such as Child Observation: The Heart of Individualizing Responsive Care for Infants and Toddlers and the short videos Look at Me! Using Focused Child Observation with Infants and Toddlers and Clearing Your View: Staying Objective in Observation — to help home visitors strengthen their observation skills. Work with home visitors to establish systems for observing and documenting their observations. Encourage home visitors to share observation strategies with families.
• Ensure that the curriculum your program has chosen is appropriate for a home-based program and that you are familiar with it. Home visitors should receive ongoing training and support in using the curriculum as a foundation for planning experiences with parents.
• Provide supplemental resources such as books with developmental experiences and suggestions for using home materials.
• Emphasize the parents’ role in designing and carrying out curriculum experiences.

Support Children with Disabilities, Suspected Delays, or Special Health Care Needs

• Coordinate with other program staff to ensure that no fewer than 10 percent of their children are identified as eligible for intervention services by their state or local agency providing services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C 1400 et seq.). This is part of eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance (ERSEA).
• Use your program’s tracking system to monitor the number of children with disabilities your program serves.
• Ensure that home visitors assigned to families with children with disabilities, suspected delays, or special health care needs receive appropriate information and training on the disability, suspected delay, or health condition and how best to work with the child and family. This support may come from early intervention providers, the child’s medical home or health specialist, and your program’s health or disabilities services coordinator and staff.
• Establish and maintain strong partnerships with local early intervention providers to ensure that children with disabilities and their families receive appropriate services.
• Work with home visitors on ways to adapt the curriculum as needed.
• Encourage home visitors to schedule occasional home visits with the IDEA provider so they can observe how the provider works with the parent and child and get added support for the family and child.

Experience It

Brenda Jones Harden, PhD, Institute for Child Study, University of Maryland at College Park, talks about joint planning with parents, using everyday routines for curriculum, and videotaping home visits to review in supervision.