(En inglés)

OHS Head Start Program Performance Standards Wednesday February 15, 2017

Colleen Rathgeb: ...you could join us today. This is Colleen Rathgeb, and I am going to introduce today's agenda and, then I'm going to turn it over to other folks here at the Office of Head Start. So today, we have in just a minute Alana Buroff is going to talk about a very exciting hot topic that I am personally very excited about, and some resources available. And then, Kiersten Biegel is going to take our monthly focus to really walk people through the Standards around family and community engagement. So that is going to be the lion's share of what we talk about today. And then, we are going to wrap up and [Inaudible] what we will be doing during next month's OHS [Inaudible] Wednesday. And so with that, I will give it over to Alana.

Alana Buroff: Thanks, Colleen. Well today, we've received [Inaudible] Performance Standards that we've been promising has started shipping. So -- [Applause] Grantees, and delegates, and centers across the country should be receiving hard copies of the Performance Standards, of the Early Learning Outcomes Framework, and for grantee and delegate offices, also the Preambles. And they started shipping last week and have been [Inaudible] by the first week of March. Now we got the addresses for how we ship them from [Inaudible] in November. And so, do be looking for those [Inaudible] coming in boxes to, to you soon. If you need more Performance Standards, we don't have the here at the central office. But you can go on to the ECLKC and download the Performance Standards in PDF, and take them to your local print shop and have them made out.

Colleen: [Inaudible] A hard copy, we are delivering to offices. So hopefully, people will be able to really use that to really continue to dig in and have them accessible to more staff throughout the program.

Alana: Right. Because what we've been talking about across these OHS Wednesdays [Inaudible] is how important it is to go back to what the standard actually says, and not remember what the standard, what you thought the standard said, because so many of us are familiar with the old Standards. And we just need to look and see what the standard actually says and don't just presume that we know. The Preamble really [Inaudible].

You can see the research, and some of the questions, the comments that came in around the MPRM. And you'll understand why we made the decisions we made based on the Preamble. We also have copies in Spanish to grantees who serve Spanish-speaking children in proportion to the number of children whose primary language is Spanish. [Inaudible] 2016 PIR. We're going to be getting copies in Spanish, as well. I'd also like to remind you that the Performance Standards are available in Spanish on the ECLKC website, as well. And you can either download the PDF and navigate them electronically.

Lastly, new videos are coming soon to [Inaudible] --

Colleen: I think Alana's talking through some of the new resources right now that are out there. Right?

Alana: Right. The Showcase videos will be coming up soon, and we'll send you an email when we have, when we have the new Showcase topics on the ECLKC. With that, I'll kick it off to Kiersten.

Kiersten Biegel: Well, good morning, and good afternoon, Head Start. It is lovely to be with you. We're so glad that you're joining us for this special discussion on family and community engagement standards. What we're going to do today is we're going to talk a little bit about family engagement and what we mean by that because, and I'm very proud of this, we have family-related standards throughout

the body of the Performance Standards. I wanted to do a couple of polls with you just to see what you're thinking about, what's on your mind, and some questions about some of the resources that we have through our National Center Parent, Family, and Community Engagement. And, as for the planning, kind of, along those lines to share some of those resources with you as far as resources that relate to implementing a particular standard that we’ll be talking about today. And also wanted to just let you know that we know about a lot of your questions.

So highlighting some questions from you around a couple of the Standards, and just letting you know how we're trying to work, with those requests here at the Office of Head Start. So for those of you tuning on to this webinar, we have been talking about [Inaudible], so you may heard a few of these areas we've seen when tuned in to other sections on the Standards. So the first is this real focus on outcomes through the Early Learning Outcomes Framework and the Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework. And it's a general, sort of, focus on, sort of what was targeting by these Standards as opposed to all those various, like, things that programs have to do. There's more a focus on, sort of, what, in general, we have to be targeting.

And so, you'll see that throughout the family-related Standards, as well. And also this commenting around data, which runs through the Standards, as well. Thinking about [Inaudible] and how to really understand the change, and the benefits of our work and our partnerships with families. And thinking about that from a bigger perspective. So, that's kind of the [Inaudible] the Standards. And then also, this idea of the, it's a generation. Right? So the Standards, we talked about [Inaudible] support, and services for our nation's youngest, most vulnerable children and families. So, you're not, you know, that is no different in these Standards, and that's, we know from a generation perspective that the more we can align the service and support that we offer children and families over time, that's actually really critical anti-poverty strategy.

And so, that's really a highlight overall in terms of the Standards, as well. So I wanted to let you know, and if you look at it from, what you call these [Inaudible] image of parent and a child that -- It was my visual depiction of how all of these standards actually are ultimately in service of supporting the parent- child relationship. And the more that we can support that parent-child relationship, the better it is for children and for families. We have a lot of ways that we do this in Head Start. And while [Inaudible], and we see them in 1301 in the Program Governance section, of course. 1302. There are many subparts in the Program Operations section that relate to families and family engagement, whether we're talking about education, whether we're talking about health, whether we're thinking about program structure, and sort of how to best to support families and children, certainly children with disabilities, families with children with disabilities, and some of the other sections that we'll talk about today. So that's really the most robust section in the, [Inaudible] and family engagement. But, you know, also in 1303 Financial and Admin section, there's information [Inaudible] around family confidentiality, and family rights around child welfare, and those kinds of things.

And then lastly, in the Federal Admin Procedures where we have our section designation renewal, there's some really strong standards supporting parents' input on school readiness goals, and kind of mimicking [Inaudible] in Subpart C, the education section, that has to deal with ensuring that parents has input on their children's learning and development. So [Inaudible] I hope I made a very good case with that. Families are central in every aspect of the regulation. Let's take a moment here, and let's hear from you all. We want to [Inaudible]. I have a few things up here. Unfortunately, I couldn't add as many as I would like. But of these five areas, one that that [Inaudible] questions for you and your programs to think about implementing them, or practice changes you're thinking about. We wanted to know that the partnership process and the family services [Inaudible], and transition regulation, thinking about family engagement and attendance, parenting curriculum. We'd like to know what, where you have your questions in your programs related to some of these. So we'll stop and give you a moment to weigh in. [Silence] Alright. So it looks like that parent curriculum and the family engagement and attendance seem to be our big -- That's interesting. The family engagement and attendance.

Colleen: I'm surprised, really.

Kiersten: It makes me think that people are really thinking about [Inaudible] in the ERSEA section. You know, the question that has come up a lot around -- Yeah. That one. That may be what people are -- And you're welcome to write in chat if you think we've got that assumption wrong, you're actually thinking no. What are some of the practices? Or what are the requirements around this particular provision? So parent curriculum has started off with a bang, and then now parent engagement and attendance is surpassing it.

Alana: We've only gotten answers from about half of -- [Inaudible] Kiersten: How many times have we asked so far? [Inaudible] Colleen: Alright. We want to encourage more people to --

Kiersten: And, you know, if you want to write into us under chat. Right? Alana: Questions. Under questions.

Kiersten: Under the questions section. If you want to add some context for us about the things that you're having, that [Inaudible] per se, but as there for us [Inaudible]. We're always needing more, sort of, nuance of questions to help us formulate what we're doing here, and how we can make sure our TA responds, and that sort of thing. So. Very open to hearing from you. [Inaudible]

Kiersten: Okay. We're going to close the poll in about 10 seconds. Do we need a countdown? Colleen: No.

Kiersten: We don't. [Laughter] All: Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Colleen: Close it out. [Laughter]

Colleen: Close it out.

Kiersten: Okay. Okay. [Inaudible]

Colleen: Okay. So everyone can see the results now.

Kiersten: This is actually -- we've asked these same questions of our Regional Offices and our TA providers, and we're all answering sort of the questions quite similarly in terms of where your questions are. So. Well, thank you for weighing in on that poll. Now I wanted to jump ahead and talk with you a little bit about Subpart C, that part education and early childhood development section. And a couple things to know here is that, you know, this section is really about how we support relations between parents and teachers, but also parents and the program in support of children's learning. So I think seven, seven, sort of, pieces in this section are articulated here. So some of which look very familiar, or should look very familiar to you. Recognizing parent roles and encouraging involvement. Obviously, that's the mainstay. Ensuring that the program has acceptable hours, and that parents are invited to volunteer. Obviously that sends an important part of our regulations. Teacher-parent communication. That's a little bit of an emphasis here on communicating about [Inaudible].

Parent teacher conferences is about child progress and program activities. [Inaudible] But just emphasis a little different on this idea of the two-way learning. So parents learning from teachers. Teachers learning from parents. Continuing on in Subpart C 13. Let's just hear [Inaudible] used to be a standard where we ask parents to be part of selecting a curriculum. With so many new standards related to that idea of curriculum, and selection, [Inaudible] research based, and assessment, and etcetera, that that is actually not very realistic. And so, of course, what is realistic is to ensure that parents get to absorb and reflect on any feedback or curriculum a program, and to give input on that material.

So that’s how that standard is looking now. The teacher-parent communication about screening and assessment, obviously, very important. And a new emphasis here on [Inaudible] about the purposes of the screening assessment and not just the what happens, or the results, but sort of the why of it. And then minimum of the two teacher home visits. What's [Inaudible] here, not just two teacher visits but the one prior to program year, the program year, wherever possible. Right? As taking, of course, as always, the parent privacy [Inaudible] into account in the home visiting.

And then, lastly, there is some new standards that really, is meant to focus on Migrant/Seasonal Head Start programs. And just to say that, yes, every effort must be made in terms of a home visit to engage families. And so, that is, is newly articulated It's always been an expectation, but it's newly articulated as a standard. So. Okay. Let's move on to Subpart E. This is sort of where some of the real nuts and bolts of family engagement occur. [Inaudible] It kind of runs like this, as you see. We have family engagement, sort of, overview, focus on parent activities that promote children's learning and development. And then, the family partnership process itself. And the fourth subsection here has to do with community partnerships in coordination within the early childhood systems.

So. Let's start with the overview. I think that this section actually, really, establishes in a way, the overarching, kind of, purpose and kind of goal of these Standards, and laying of the important groundwork for family engagement in programs. So it starts with this idea of integrating family engagement throughout program systems and services. And that's just another way of saying that when we kind of really looked at everything we're doing in our, you know, program services, and in our systems, through a lens of what it means to be effectively partnering with families that are programs are going to be more effectively partnering with families, then thereby, supporting children in their learning development.

So that's the descriptive statement, really, that you could use to kind of explain our Framework, our Parent, Family, and Community Framework, and why we've laid all of that out in our theory of change. Obviously parents are primary teachers of children in Early Head Start and Head Start, and supporters. And so that is a kind of a, almost like a relational stance, if you will, and how we respect and honor the expertise of parents. And you will see [Inaudible] similar language that I think tries to, again, to really communicate the importance of, of the way we work with our parents. Relationships that are

[Inaudible] and respectful, has always been a part of the regulation. But what's a little weird to focus on how we can enhance the environment as being really responsive to families.

Colleen: We talked a lot about the environment for children. There's more in these regs on the environment overall, on how to be responsive to family culture, and language which is not new. But to think about being more responsive to fathers, as you see here with the father engagement. And then through this new requirement where we're asking teachers and home visitors and family services to really coordinate on behalf of children and families, to create an environment with good communication and support. So

Kiersten:[Inaudible] a lot of this particular thing of father engagement, like that the old Standards didn't like pull it out specifically. But it was something that programs have really embraced for a long time, and there's been lots of different cross multiple in many, many years lots of emphasis on them. But we were kind of really codifying a lot of the things that are already being done in the Stan -- in the changes to the Standards.

Kiersten: Yeah. And I think that's true for a lot of the Standards, just because many years since we put out Standards, yet so much has happened in father engagement, father work. And so, yeah. We're sort of, we're bringing some of these things a little up to where the seal is. But also we think that it, you know, it's very important that they understand the Standards. So yeah. I'd agree with that. Okay. Here's a few resources related to some of these Standards. There's the Head Start Parent, Family, and Community Framework, which is referenced in the regs. We'll talk about that more in a minute.

There are several resources on the ECLKC that are related to building relationships, and they come in different kind of formats. The digital, the PDF, the [Inaudible]. So those are really, kind of, the concrete skills that lay that foundation for that mutual and trusting relationship. And then our father engagement work by programming by, which has a lot of great ideas and material for thinking about how to deal with both environments -- both in practice and in, sort of, day-to-day practice with fathers and father figures. So I was curious if we would go to the next poll. And I was just curious if you had have found any of the resources were highlighted here useful for these Standards, or in general. So, the PFCE Framework and Assessment Guide, there are a number of those online [Inaudible] speaking about father engagement not as much. And of course, [Inaudible] if you're not familiar with, that's really important to let us know, as well.

Colleen: Great. have people saying that they're not familiar. They're, they're still exploring it. So it's a good time. Advertisement.

Alana: About 150 people still are. There are 1200 people on the webinar today. Colleen: It's good to see that the assessment guides are all so useful tool. A useful tool.

Kiersten: I know these questions aren't as warm, so we wondered, we wonder. You know we wondered well. In some cases, maybe some of you think maybe more well known to you, and you've used them. You might see them as related to the Standards. Or not, depending on how much you kind of really delved into the Standards.

Colleen: Again, you could put into the question box how you're using them if you wanted to share.

Alana: And how you'd like to -- be walked through if you're not familiar with the resources. Then you, best for you to get some assistance in exploring these resources. So, we've heard from about as many people are required to [Inaudible] So we're about to go ahead and 10 seconds [Inaudible] last minute people.

Colleen: Do the countdown again. Alana: [Laughter] Nine.

Colleen: Eight.

Alana: Seven.

Colleen: Six. All together: Five. Four. Three. Two. One. [Inaudible] Kiersten: We count backwards at the Office of Head Start. [Laughter]

Kiersten: So, it looks like the PMFC Framework and assessment guides, most people, that's the word that went in. And then, just as -- almost just as many of you haven't really, are familiar with the resources that I mentioned so far. Thanks for sharing that. A few of you have, have used the Five Engagement Guide, and a few you have, have not really -- not [Inaudible]. And the about 18 percent of you put [Inaudible]

Kiersten: It's good. It looks like it's that, that that may be encouraging people to looking at some of the resources in one of the areas where they, you know, if they want to promote in their programs.

Kiersten: Mmm-hmm. Okay. Well, the next section is Subpart E, has to do with the parent activities. And, here we have requirements related to supporting the parent-child relationship with language-relate activities. And this is, this is really sort of that current path and current and future path that is around parent and family literacy and language development that, that's a really important part of our work.

And, along those lines, we have some Standards related to engaging families around who has program [Inaudible] language learner. So. Really sharing the benefits of bi-literacy is and bilingualism with parents. Because we know, and Sharon, you can always jump in on this, we know how important it is to support those languages -- the language at home and the language that children are learning in the program

Sharon Yandian: Absolutely. We have good research on that.

Kiersten: Yep. And then, there was some [Inaudible] area, the one where you have a lot of questions. Do you want to go back for a second, Alana? We're offering a research-based parenting curriculum. And, this is essentially ensuring that parents have the opportunity to participate in our research-based parenting curriculum. And it's within your community, you have found that the parent curriculum that you've reviewed, that ends up exactly work to support the populations that you serve in your community to work with an expert or developer of the curriculum, to think about adaptation or talk with them about what evidence or evaluation information they have about their curriculum, and who, and who, and which family and which communities have actually used the curriculum.

So just kind of gathering more information from developers when you find that there's a curriculum that is a perfect match for your families. And then, we do have a couple of resources to support some of these practices. The first one is a Compendium of Parenting Interventions. And this was developed by the National Center last year, and it will be updated probably, and eventually, will be added over time. And these particular interventions, they are not home visiting interventions, and they're also -- It's a very lovely, user-friendly guide for thinking about, to help you see which program you could implement that have to have effect on children's learning and developmental outcomes related to the ELOF. And so these are, these are sort of the high bars of evidence associated with them. And that's only folks we've developed for programs. And there are other places to go to look for parenting interventions, as well.

Colleen: Now might be a good time to remind folks, again, all of the resources that Kiersten is talking about are found on the ECLKC. So folks are writing in wondering where they can get the resources. So, that's where you can put ECLKC into Google search, and from there, you can type in some of these parenting [Inaudible] and then, that will come up for you on the website.

Sharon: Yeah, there's that page on the ECLKC that's called the "Parent, Family, and Community Engagement" page, and right now, that's where's all the resources you can find all those resources there. And the importance of home language is a really nice set, a very short brief that are really useful for sharing with families and guiding conversations between teachers and families, or family service staff and families about, about learning two languages, or two language learners.

Kiersten: Well I wanted to just let you hear some of the questions we're receiving from you and others here at [Inaudible], as well. The latest in the parenting curriculum. So, we understand that some of you are worrying about what constitutes a research-based curriculum, and we're going to define a research- based parenting curricula. The [Inaudible] database, by the way, [Inaudible] If you Google the Parenting Database, that is a, that is a database with filled with parenting curriculum that you can check out. And we're trying make some of these resources more available to your T/TA providers, so I would encourage you to reach out to them if you have questions about where you can find more information about parenting curriculum.

But I digress. Because [Inaudible] rather than try to answer them all, because we are working here at the Office of Head Start in some policy groups on how to best respond to field around these questions.

Some people wanted to know if they could offer this, that they should be offering this every center, how to make decisions about whether or not a particular person was a good match for you and your program. So, thank you for this question. We are working on them, and we might, we certainly are ensuring that our T/TA centers, the National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement. I encourage you to reach out to them if you need any help or support with this, are going to be able to provide training support around thinking about and implement -- not only select it, but have do you implement the parenting curriculum. Okay. So the family partnership services section.

It's a little different. it's a little bit broader with some more steps than the previous set of regulations. And the first thing up is that the assessment really upsets family strength and interests and needs across the seven Family Engagement Framework Outcomes. So those outcomes relate to family well-being, and the parent-child relationship, parents as their child's life-long learners, educators, I mean. And families, above, you know, supporting around their own learning interests and needs, as well as the transitions that occur across different early childhood settings and Kindergarten. Thinking about how we connect parents to each other for them to get support from each other and knowledge from each other. And, of course, our goal or outcome area around supporting family leaders.

So, those are really the main categories of practice that we, that are articulated in the Standards, as well, and are were ground in [Inaudible] ground in their goal setting and support processes with families around those outcomes. The settings of individualized goals is still, is still in the Standards. And supporting families through the use of the family partnership agreement is still in the Standards. So that is an important part of how we partner with families, and that remains in the regulation, flexibility and the design of family support services, so, like offering programs the flexibility to think about how they want to structure their family services staffing patterns, and those kinds of things based on the needs of families in their program. And then, her sending back to, sort of, idea of data and trying to figure out what's different activities and efforts are making with families, having them to track programs, program and family progress towards goals.

So that's kind of those, sort of, highlights of that section, and also just a couple of resources for you to consider here. The Family Partnership Process, the resource on the left, is a really nice, really nice guide for, especially for if you have new staff who are wondering how to do goal-setting. It's a really, critical, foundational resource. What we're really trying to do is ground the relationship building process in all of the contacts we have with families in Head Start, from intake all the way to the, kind of, transition. And also articulate different kinds of strategies for setting goals. So that's a great resource I recommend that you check out. And remember what matters is that there's a lot of resources related to, relate to thinking about our program, programs goals and family progress. And here it is again about these resources and whether or not you have found any of these resources to be useful. Same thing. Parent Compendium the Goal Setting. And then, What Matters, and same thing. None of the Above and/or you're not familiar with them. [Inaudible] [Silence]

Colleen: Wow.

Sharon: I mean I love that color for both of us. [Laughter] But actually, on the other hand, I think it's great because both are tuning in to this call, and they’re going to be getting exposure to a lot of resources that may be helpful to them in really implementing the Performance Standards. So, --

Alana: If you want to, if you need to download the slides, you can see the six resources she's talking about, you should be able to find the download presentation button your screen, and you'll have the slide deck. And you can see the different resources that Kiersten --

Sharon: That's a great idea. And the Parent Partnership, Goal Setting. Good number of people there, find that useful resource. Let's see. What else.

Alana: Getting faster with their polls.

Colleen: They're getting faster. We're still about half our group. [Inaudible] I just saw a post. Let's wait on a couple of --

Sharon: They can't see it yet. Right? Alana: That's right.

Sharon: Alright. Okay. Alana: Ten! [Laughter]

Kiersten: Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three, two one. And publish the results. Great. There's [Inaudible] you can see. More or less, their colleagues around the country.

Colleen:[Inaudible] about the curriculum, but it sounds like, the maybe people have checked it out, or they may be the people that are familiar with it and are going to check it out.

Kiersten: Yeah. You can put it that way. Expect the parent partnership and goal setting is the most commonly used, of used this group of resources. And in this case, with this poll, you're not being familiar with the resources that [Inaudible] [Laughter]

Colleen: And we also know that there are [Inaudible] all three of them, that there is only one option. Sharon: Say that again.

Alana: Say that louder.

Sharon: That they're, that they're using all three of them, that they can't, there are no option for them to, or they could. Yeah.

Kiersten: Yeah. Well, these polls do have their limit but, [Inaudible] Okay. Let's move on to the community partnerships section. And basically, I think that the thing that's kind of interesting about this section is that you know, we've always done our work in Head Start as part of the community, with the help of our community partners. And this set of regs really, it reiterates the importance of those partnerships and identifies them with e-partnerships for consideration. But also for extensive Head Start within the community, as well as within the early childhood system.

So to really, kind of, identify a couple of areas where the requirements for relationships within that state system. And the length here, kind of, break out in a [Inaudible] way, 1302.53(a) has to deal with partnering with local organizations and setting up different kinds of partnerships based on the need, the community assessment. And then, also the coordination with other programs and systems, which really highlights the regulation related to the MOU within school districts, that programs have been implementing for a while now. A new regulation related to quality rating and improvement systems, and also state education and data systems. And these regulations will probably be not sort of the central focus of this, of this webinar. We're focused more on the local. Just wanted to kind of lay that out for you so you could understand how that, that section is now set up. And I just wanted to point out to you some of the organizations that are highlighted here for your consideration. Many of which were in the previous set of regulations.

So, all of the kind of improvisers, our providers, and [Inaudible] nutrition, prenatal and postnatal, substance abuse treatment provisions. Medicaid and managed care, that works for addicts care. There's also, you know, that, sort of, set of partnerships that relate to how your program goes partnering with local school districts and educational agencies, and state schools, and interventions, and child care. The relationship between the Head Start program and your child protective state agency at the state level the local level. Of course, the importance of partnerships with libraries and museums, and agencies that support families' access to temporary assistance or past assistance, as well as job training, education, career pathways, finance capabilities, types of partners. We have the housing [Inaudible], and there's a new requirement that, that programs partner with their local educational agency identified homelessness liaison.

And that's, that's the person that the school district had identified to work with families and [Inaudible] who are children, are experiencing homelessness, and they are a good resource for Head Start programs [Inaudible] It's not related to domestic violence prevention, support, and providers, and really encouraging partnerships with your local domestic family violence [Inaudible]. I wanted to include a brief summary here of the latest personnel and staff qualifications for you related to these Standards.

Now we know family engagement-related Standards are really the job of so many different people in Head Start and different roles, but the platform here to focus on is thinking about parents and making sure that the current form of parents are considered for employment when they qualify for employment. And parents, ensure that parents have opportunities to participate as employees or volunteers. The two places, 1302.90, I believe, is the human resources section. And then, 1302.50 is Subpart B, which we have been talking about. The family engagement section.

That's where you can find those, those requirements. If you are a family services, health and disabilities management staff person, with oversight over any of these areas, then you are hired after 11/7/16, and you have a baccalaureate degree, preferably related one or more of these disciplines. So that's new. And then, there is a new requirement related to family services staff, and that's to those staff who are implementing the family partnership process need to have that credential at -- this is for hire after 11/7, also -- have to have the credential within 18 months of hire

Colleen: [Inaudible] Would that [Inaudible] for anyone that calls, a family worker, or if anyone has that in their title it, we [Inaudible]. I know we know, there's lots of different ways that programs throughout the country use their family service staff. And so, we really, purposely present [Inaudible] titles, or maybe they do more of the eligibility piece, or more of the health tracking, but that, we literally purposely with that language, we're willing it with staff that are really doing the family partnership work. Is that, you want to say anything more about that?

Kiersten: Yeah. No. I think that's right. Yeah. Alana: And, I mean --

Kiersten: I'll talk a little bit more about some of the questions we've gotten on it, as well. But before I do, I just wanted to point out that, that the credential is, is, needs to be is a minimum, of [Inaudible], but also that it's an appeal for later social work, or human services, or counseling, or family services, or related field. it's a broad set of categories highlighted there in which the credential has to relate. And then also, the thing about training and professional development in the requirements in the human resources, that part, I section also, there's a whole section translating professional development, and there are a couple of key provisions in there that really do speak to ensuring that teachers have training and professional development that equips them with some of these skills, particularly round family engagement. So, [Inaudible] around that class curriculum family engagement, ensuring that staff have [Inaudible] families, ensuring that folks and their staff do partnering with families, have training to support families with children with disabilities. it also is that there are opportunities to learn about, to support families as they transition. So, those are some of these sort of [Inaudible] and training methods for people to consider when they're thinking about staff family engagement skills.

Colleen: One of the things -- this is Colleen -- one of the things that we had to clarify also about the [Inaudible]on the demand that family has disability management, we, this is, Kiersten's talking about that the family engagement, it's about footwork we're focusing on here. We do know, again, that people

have different models that they worked with. There are some programs that the education coordinator and the disabilities manager may be the same person. They may miss the management of the different components in different ways. And we wanted to make it clear that you know this requirement that it would be the management of the disabilities, that they need to have a BA if they’ve been hired, and that preferably related to one of the disciplines they oversee. Very much it could be you have an ed manager that does one or more of these management, as well, and they have early childhood degree. So it's not really related to specifically to disability, or family, or health, and that absolutely still meets the requirements. So we're not trying to prescribe a certain way that folks are going to have to set up their management. We need to make sure to folks that they can do the job and do it well, and they have the skills they need, and that with education coordinators, they still need to have the early child-related degree based on what is in the Act. And here, they're trying to also make sure we have strong professionals leading this important work, as well. That we're not proscribing a certain way. We're not saying with education management can't place some of these functions, as well. And now, I'll stop interrupting. [Laughter]

Kiersten: That's great. Folks can just jump in. So, regarding the family services credential, and for some of the questions that have come up around that. We have been hearing from people who have a credential that, with it, in-house. Those people are [Inaudible] or larger agencies are wondering, you know, whether it fits some of the requirement. And so, things related to, you know, certificate credentials. So [Inaudible] these kind of cross topic areas that we're sorting through and working on here. And then again, we wanted to let you know, again, we are hearing from you. We do have a updated degree credentialing directory.

I'm showing you now the Family Engagement page on the ECLKC where you can get all of the resources that are talked about today. But I wanted to point out that we're hoping in early March that, something up here on the front page that will guide you to the updated credentialing directory. So you can, you are thinking, you are a program [Inaudible] you want to see what's available from distance learning, national and state, that will be resource you can use. So I know somebody had asked about that and in the question they wanted to know, they referred to that, the mention of that. And so my updates here were really helping that early March, that we will have that up.

Alana: That's right. We'll send an email around to --

Kiersten: Yeah, I think we really want to, like, fend for ourselves to let people know, you know, [Inaudible] This is the Subpart G is the transition section. And this is [Inaudible] that has to deal with precedents between Early Head Start and the Head Start early learning environments in Head Start. [Inaudible] And then we have a section that is a new provision that really has to do with the kind of scenarios where we sometimes aren't thinking about transitions. So families who are moving or [Inaudible] becoming homeless and are going through location migrants in our Head Start programs who may be leaving the area for work, and also just making families feeling [Inaudible] in particular the Head Start or Head Start program. How [Inaudible] how to support those transitions. And the reason that we've added those in and tried to really strengthen the section into its own subpart is to really support continuity.

We know that [Inaudible] that are highlighted in this section really ultimately do support children's comfort with the new environment and their happiness which is, it has a big effect obviously, on their learning, academics [Inaudible]. overtime. And obviously we know parents play a critical role in that. So

we do encourage you to take a nice, like, [Inaudible] section and see what's in there. And if [Inaudible], check out the Act, because there is a a pretty well-bought section in the Act on transitions that I think it’s pretty informative with a real, really focusing a lot on [Inaudible]language other than English, as well. Ensuring that we really [Inaudible] transitions within the family. Knowing that language can be a really big barrier for effective transition. So we do have a couple of resources here. We have some of the [Inaudible] for National Center on Development Teaching, and Learning. So stay tuned for more supports around transition processes. I lastly wanted to highlight one more section for you that I think is particularly meaningful in thinking about how we partner with and build relationships with pregnant women and expectant family members. Subpart H is now its own subpart, as well. And first, in that section, is the requirement related to ensuring that there is determination made about whether or not pregnant women were enrolled have access to or have current health insurance. And how to support to get that health insurance as soon as possible.

Also here, you will see some of the requirements related to ensuring that expected parents, pregnant women and fathers, and other family members, have access to comprehensive services that may be needed for the family, and in particular for the maternal health, the prenatal health. I've also, another piece here related to ensuring that specific information and education is provided on a whole range of different topics. We encourage you to look at those topics. But certainly things that you be used to doing if you're an Early [Inaudible] Head Start, as far as sharing information, but it related to breastfeeding, and [Inaudible] thinking about smoking effects, and substance use, as well as bouts of depression, and kinds of all the different health topics and things that really that, that [Inaudible] to a good Start. So that's another piece of this reg.

And then the section that talks about the family partnership process. And I do [Inaudible] here that at the front end of this section that has to do with the health visit. And there is a slight change in the health visit. It now says that programs must conduct, must schedule the home visit within a few weeks of the baby's birth. And that is, that is a change from actually conducting the visits. And the reason that we made that shift in the reg is to allow and support the flexibility of programs to be more responsive to culture and appropriateness of the visit for families when there is a newborn baby. So a little more flexibility there. We do have a specific reference to including making sure to include fathers and other family members. And if there are fathers around the partnership process, making sure that they get an opportunity to be a part of that.

And then also, when thinking about the Early Head Start programs, really talking with, with parents and expected parents about the options for their children for enrollment in Early Head Start and other early learning programs. So that's kind of the, the gest of the rules of pregnant women. There's some resources also on the ECLKC here -- For you to check out. And I think, you know, that's it for me. I don't know if there are other things that have come up in the course of our conversation, but I, you can certainly can download this PowerPoint, as Alana has suggested, if you wanted more information on the regs. Take a look at some of your comments. Look forward to reading your comments in chat, and learning from you about what's on your mind. So thanks for viewing, participating in that. And I wanted to get to know --

Alana: And you want to make sure you get the e-blasts related to PMFC topics. You can subscribe to those e-blasts on the ECLKC website. On top of the, at the very top of the website, there's "Subscribe."

You can subscribe for just the PMFC blasts if you don't want to get all the e-blasts we send out at the Office of Head Start.

Colleen: Thank you, Kiersten. And the folks that jumped in and interrupted. We hope this was, useful session that both outlined the Standards and to make people thought through and walk through this.

But really, also I think, highlight the resources that are available through the ECLKC. So I’m hopeful that, as we do another poll, that in another month or two, that we have fewer people in the purple, or category, so that we have some of those folks that would say that they weren't familiar, that they want to check them out, and have gone and been able to do that. So we really think there's a lot of things out there that can help programs and help your staff really implement these. And so we continue to try figure out better ways that we can fill in folks about there, and see how they can get the best use out of the materials that are up there. We know that you guys are all very busy and doing the day-to-day job, and hopefully some of this can help. And so hope people will take this as a time before you forget. Go and check out things on the ECLKC and see what's up there.

And as Alana said at the beginning, get ready to have some boxes of Standards rolling into your programs soon. So hopefully that will also kind of be a [Inaudible] again of, not being new again, but maybe being a little more a personal connection. So we had talked about when we started this that we were going to do several webinars that took us three months.

And so now next month, March 15, is the perfect month, the exact same day as today. So Wednesday, March 15 we will be doing 2-3:30 our final formal OHS Wednesday, Performance Standards Wednesday. And so we'll talk a lot about the things coming up in the future, and we could help programs internalize this and think about how they use the data to really be making the standards come alive in their programs.

So thanks everybody for joining us today, and have a great rest of your day.

Cerrar