HEAD START®

Effective Transition Practices: Facilitating Continuity

Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community

Table of Contents | Preface | Introduction | Module 1 | Module 2 | Module 3 | Continuing Professional Development | Informational Resources Section

MODULE 2: transition and continuity

Outcomes | Key Concepts | Background Information | Activity 2-1 | Activity 2-2 | Activity 2-3 | Activity 2-4 | Activity 2-5 | Next Steps
download these pdf attachments: Handout 12 | Handout 13 | Handout 14 | Handout 15 | Handout 16 | Handout 17

Outcomes

As a result of completing this module, participants will be able to:

• Define and understand the concepts of continuity and discontinuity

• Identify the roles of senders and receivers in facilitating continuity throughout the transition process

• Identify key partners and develop strategies for carrying out individual roles as both senders and receivers
  
  
• Facilitate continuity for individual children and families by providing supports and opportunities that build on developmental experiences, family strengths, and established support systems

Key Concepts

• Transitions challenge individuals to develop new skills and meet new expectations. If expectations are based upon the individual's experience and skills, transition becomes an opportunity for growth and development. However, when expectations exceed the individual's
  ability and are unrelated to past experiences, transitions may interfere with development.

• Continuity between settings makes possible the growth and development that can occur when individuals experience transitions. In order to ensure continuity, staff need to identify family and child strengths and existing support systems.

• When senders and receivers work together as partners, they can facilitate continuity. Their roles include sharing information and coordinating activities.
  
  
• The most successful strategy for preparing children for the changes they will encounter during a transition is to facilitate continuity throughout the early childhood community.

Background Information

Providing experiences that match the changing developmental needs of children from birth to age eight is an ongoing task for parents and early childhood professionals. Children are challenged to learn new skills when they are introduced to new activities, new curriculum, and different materials. Staff can offer new challenges within an existing program in order to provide opportunities for children to learn and grow. At home, parents can provide increased opportunities for independent activities and peer interaction.

Transitioning children to new settings is another way that parents and early childhood staff can continue to provide new experiences for children with changing developmental needs. When the new environment builds on the experiences of the child, for example, by providing similar routines or
activities, there is continuity of experience for the child. Similarly, when the new environment supports parent involvement, there is continuity of experience for parents. If the new setting provides the same services, such as health care or speech therapy, there is continuity in services. These are areas where continuity between settings is provided. Continuity enables both child and family to benefit from the challenges of change and sustain the gains they have made in previous settings.

In transition, the program staff that are transitioning children out of the program can be referred to as senders. Receivers are program staff that are transitioning children into the program. They, along with parents, staff from other programs, and community service providers, are key partners who facilitate continuity by sharing information about the transitioning child and family. The key partners also need to share information about similarities and differences in setting characteristics:

• Physical layout
  
• Availability of health and social services for families and children
  
• Kinds of activities available and curriculum philosophy
  
• Roles of parents and staff in making decisions
  
• Opportunities for parent involvement
  
• Peer relationships

When information is shared, both senders and receivers can develop appropriate strategies to provide continuity between settings. For example, when children switch from a setting in which parents provide transportation to a setting in which school buses provide transportation, the daily informal parent-staff interaction at drop-off time no longer occurs. However, staff in the new setting can still facilitate the continuity of parent involvement. They can provide communication folders or set up telephone times for staff to answer parents' questions and concerns.

Often the skills and behaviors developed in a previous setting cannot be transferred to the new setting without staff support and family and child preparation. For example, a toddler has just learned that when her primary caregiver uses a special puppet, it is time to sit quietly for a story on her caregiver's lap. This puppet is a cue or signal that a certain activity is about to take place or a specific behavior is expected. However, when the toddler moves to a new setting, she will not necessarily sit quietly for a story with a new caregiver who uses a special song as a cue for storytime. The toddler may not understand the new expectations such as sitting in a circle rather than on the caregiver's lap. The child's ability to continue to attend to storytime in the new setting depends on a joint effort among senders, receivers, and parents. When the key partners work together to gradually introduce the new cues and routines, while retaining familiar activities, the child's transition is eased. Strategies to use for this toddler might include:

• Arrange several parent-child visits to the new setting at storytime before the transition
  
  
• Have sending staff and parents introduce the special song with the puppet to signal storytime in the old setting
  
  
• Have staff in the new setting use the same or similar puppet as a familiar cue to the child
  
  
• Allow the new child to sit on the teacher's lap when storytime is offered at the new setting

If no effort is made to provide these supports, the child will experience an abrupt change that does not build on past experiences, known as discontinuity.

Discontinuity can also occur when the kind of information shared between settings is not useful. For example, if a health care professional sends complicated medical records to a child care facility, the specific methods for assisting the child may not be understood by the new caregivers. However, if the child care provider requests that the health care provider complete an evaluation form with specific care instructions, then essential information is shared. Parents or early intervention specialists could model techniques for caregivers in the new setting to ensure a continuation of necessary services.

Continuity can be facilitated and discontinuity can be avoided when parents and staff from various settings develop systems and networks to share information. Since children and families are served by professionals in numerous settings, to truly provide continuity everyone needs to recognize the importance of sharing information and working as partners to provide continuous support for families and children.

For more information on the concept of continuity, read Digest: Beyond Transition: Ensuring Continuity in Early Childhood Services located in the Informational Resources section.

Journey Point

Throughout this document, participants are asked to think of the training as a journey toward effective transition practices. At the end of each workshop and coaching activity, there is a place to stop on this journey, or Journey Point, so that participants can organize their materials and thoughts. In this module, at each Journey Point the trainer refers participants to their Journey Bag and Pocket Guide 2. These tools, and a summary of the journey, are provided in the Introductory Activity: Beginning the Journey, on page 9.

Activity 2-1: Setting Sail

Purpose: In this activity, participants will identify information to share and the vehicles for sharing it among staff from different settings.

Materials:
     Handouts 12, 13, and 14
     Digest: Beyond Transition: Ensuring Continuity in Early Childhood Services
     (Informational Resources)
     Journey Bag, Pocket Guide 2 (Introduction)
     Newsprint, markers

Introduce Concepts

1. Using the Background Information from Module 1 and this module, discuss and compare the definitions for transition, continuity, and discontinuity. Introduce participants to the key elements of continuity as discussed in Digest: Beyond Transition: Ensuring Continuity in Early Childhood Services, located in the Informational Resources section. Summarize by stating that effective transition practices provide for the continuation of comprehensive, quality programs throughout early childhood.

Discuss Sharing Information

2. Ask participants to think for a moment about how information sharing enables them to provide comprehensive services within Head Start. Ask participants how information is shared within their program and the community. Make the following points:
   
   
• Within Head Start, the systems or vehicles used for sharing information include child and family records, team meetings, joint activities, and official memorandums.
  
  
• To ensure that families and children experience continuity and are supported by all those within the community, information must be systematically shared between home, education, care, and service settings.

Discuss Senders and Receivers

3. Refer to the Background Information section to discuss the definitions for senders and receivers. Distribute Handout 12: Sharing Information and explain that this handout lists the kinds of information that can be shared between senders and receivers and ways to share it.

Small Group Activity

4. Distribute Handout 13: Scenarios. Divide participants into small groups, assigning a number from one to eight to each group, which will identify its scenario and role as a sender or a receiver. Distribute Handout 14: Senders and Receivers and ask the groups to answer questions one through three based on their scenario and role.

Illustrate Sailboat Analogy

5. Reconvene the entire group. Draw a sailboat with a mast and three sails on newsprint. Label the boat Head Start Child and the mast Family. Label the sails: Health and Social Services, Child Care, and Education. Tell participants that sailors depend on the strength of the ropes that connect the sails to each other and to the mast to navigate their boat. Like sailors on a journey, children and families depend on strong connections between settings to sail smoothly through transitions.

Draw Connections

6. Ask the small groups to list the individuals and agencies involved in each of their scenarios and record this information on the appropriate section of the boat. For example, Katie's case involved:
   
   
   • Family members (Family)
     
     
   • School health professional who conducted the screening (Health and Social Services and Education)
     
     
   • Church child care program (Child Care)

Draw connecting lines among the individuals and agencies involved in each scenario.

Combine Small Groups

7. Summarize by saying that just as a sailboat cannot sail unless the sails are linked and strongly connected to the mast, continuity cannot be established without vehicles for communicating information among community programs. Ask the senders and receivers with the same scenario to work together, comparing their answers to the first three questions of Handout 14 and answering question four on the handout. Refer them to Handout 12: Sharing Information and explain that this handout may assist them with this task.

Large Group Activity

8. Reconvene the entire group. Ask each group to report their information sharing methods. List on newsprint all the vehicles for sharing information that were identified. Once all groups have reported, ask:
   
   
   • Do these vehicles presently exist in your community? Are they used communitywide or just between specific programs?
     
     
   • What specific benefits would result if more systems and vehicles for sharing information throughout the community were developed?

Journey Point

Suggest that participants put the handouts from the activity into their Journey Bag. Refer them to Pocket Guide 2 to list new strategies for sharing information. Have participants share their ideas with a partner.

Activity 2-2: Partner Meeting

Purpose: In this activity, participants identify how transition issues are when senders and receivers share information and coordinate activities.

Materials:
     Handout 15
     Journey Bag, Pocket Guide 2 (Introduction)
     Notepaper

Introduction to Activity

1. Tell participants that children and families often make gains in Head Start due to the external supports provided. To maintain these gains after the families leave the program, staff from other programs need to be aware of the families' needs. Effective transition practices involve working with these key partners to provide a continuation of supports.

Small Group Assignment

2. Divide the participants into groups of three and distribute Handout 15: Transition Issues. Assign each group an issue and explain that they are to role play a transition meeting. Review these steps for the role play:
   
   
   • Group members choose the role they will take: sender, receiver, or recorder. Then they briefly discuss the issue assigned to their group.
     
     
   • Senders and receivers begin the transition meeting working together to resolve the issue.
     
     
   • Recorders write down difficulties that senders and receivers have in resolving issues and make note of who else should be involved in the meeting.

Identify Difficulties in the Role Play

3. After role playing for a few minutes, have participants pause. Ask the recorders if they have identified any other key partners who could assist this transition. If another partner is identified, have the recorder take on the role of the needed person. This might be a health or social service worker, school administrator, parent, or other community resource person. Remind the group that in real life the sender or receiver would have contacted the third person.

Share and Review

4. Ask each group to share the results of their role play by answering the following questions:
   
   
   • How did children and families benefit from this meeting?
     
     
   • What issues were resolved and which were unresolved?
     
     
   • What important information and strategies are added when parents and other key partners become part of the planning team?

Summarize

5. Summarize these important points:
   
   
   • To continue support for families and children, staff must identify key partners and involve them in transition planning.
     
     
   • Children and families benefit by having individualized plans that parents help develop.
     
     
   • Not all transition issues can be resolved on an individual basis. Some larger issues require ongoing joint efforts of key partners.

Journey Point

Suggest that participants put the handouts from the activity in their Journey Bag. Refer them to Pocket Guide 2 to list new strategies for coordinating the continuation of services and developmentally appropriate practices. Have them share their ideas with a partner.

Activity 2-3: Sender and Receiver Roles

Purpose: In this activity, participants evaluate the impact on continuity when senders and receivers share information.

Materials:
     Handouts 12 and 16
     Digest: Continuity of Care and the Importance of Relationships
     (Informational Resources)
     Journey Bag, Pocket Guide 2 (Introduction)

Coach Preparation Notes:

Instead of using Kendra's story you can use a true story such as one provided by a parent in your program. Ask the parent to tape-record his or her transition story. Have participants listen to the tape and discuss the transition in Steps 1 and 2.

Review Kendra's Story

1. Distribute Handout 16: Kendra's Story to participants in the coaching session. After they read it, ask them to identify factors that made this transition difficult. Help participants identify factors such as routine, curriculum, transportation, and expectations. Use the Background Information to define continuity and discontinuity for participants. Explain that Kendra is experiencing the opposite of continuity, or discontinuity.

Brainstorm Strategies

2. Ask participants to read Digest: Continuity of Care and the Importance of Relationships, located in the Informational Resources section, or you can summarize the key points for participants. Use the ideas in the article and the Background Information section to assist in brainstorming ways that Kendra's family, her kindergarten teacher, and her preschool teachers could facilitate continuity for Kendra.

Identify Recent Transition

3. Ask participants to identify a transition that was especially difficult for a child or family who recently came into their program. Examples might include a child who did not easily adapt to the routine of the program or a parent who did not understand the program's policies.
   Ask:
   
   
   • What information did you receive about the child, family, and the previous setting?
     
     
   • Did you have enough information?
     
     
   • Did the information you were given indicate that the previous setting was very different from the current one?
     
     
   • How could information have been shared?

Keep a Log

4. Use the Background Information section to define senders and receivers. Ask participants to identify program representatives from other settings who might be considered key partners to contact about an upcoming transition. Ask participants to keep a log over the next few weeks of specific information that they feel will help with this transition. Such information might include a description of the child and family, information about the program, or details about how the transition was explained to the child.

Develop a Plan of Action

5. Meet with participants after they have kept a log for one to two weeks. Help them determine the information that would be important to share with key partners and the best way to share it. Review the strategies suggested in Handout 12: Sharing Information and help participants develop a plan of action. Have them implement the plan.

Follow Up

6. Conduct a follow-up session to help participants evaluate and refine their information-sharing strategies.

Journey Point

Suggest that participants put the handouts from this activity in their Journey Bag. Refer them to Pocket Guide 2 to list new strategies for sharing information. Have them share their ideas with someone outside the coaching session.

Activity 2-4: Setting Characteristics

Purpose: In this activity, participants develop strategies for facilitating continuity between settings with multiple differences.

Materials:
     Handout 17
     Hands-on Activities (Informational Resources)
     Journey Bag, Pocket Guide 2 (Introduction)
      Newsprint, markers

Discuss

1. Distribute Handout 17: Settings and Continuity. Briefly discuss each category of setting characteristics and how each setting is unique.
   Point out:
   
   
   • Children and families can be better prepared to adapt to the new environment during transitions if new staff are familiar with the previous setting's characteristics.
     
     
   • Differences between the old and new can be minimized, while the similarities can be maximized.

Identify Setting Characteristics

2. Divide participants into four groups and assign to each group one of these four settings: home, child care, preschool, or elementary school. Tell participants to create a realistic description that reflects both the strengths and challenges of their assigned setting. Ask participants to record the setting characteristics in the appropriate column on the handout.

Role Play

3. Reconvene the large group. Ask for a volunteer to role play a parent and interview the preschool group to find out about the setting characteristics. While the interview is being conducted, have participants observing the role play list the identified setting characteristics on the handout.

Summarize Characteristics

4. Repeat the role play interview with the various settings. For the home setting, have a volunteer play the part of a staff member seeking information from a parent during a home visit. After each interview, those involved in the role play can summarize the key characteristics of each setting to make sure that observers recorded them accurately.

Trainer Preparation Notes:

In Step 5, it might be easiest for participants to compare only two settings at a time. If needed, either an example from the Background Information or one from personal experience can be used to model the following discussion. You may choose to distribute some of the Hands-on Activities in the Informational Resources section to assist small groups in this activity.

Small Group Discussion

5. Have participants rejoin their small group to compare their assigned setting with others and to discuss the differences they observed. Write the following discussion questions on newsprint and refer the groups to them:
   
   
   • How can similarities between settings be maximized and differences minimized?
     
     
   • How can staff prepare children and families for change?
     
     
   • How can parents be involved in facilitating continuity?

Large Group Discussion

6. Reconvene the whole group and have each individual group share their strategies for facilitating continuity. Ask:
   
   
   • What differences are easier to address and what differences are more difficult to minimize?
     
     
   • How can continuity be achieved even when there are many differences between the settings?

Review

7. Review by summarizing these points:
   
   
   • Sometimes simple strategies will minimize differences; sometimes more complex strategies and more time for preparation are required to achieve continuity. For example, the environment may need to be physically adapted to meet the special needs of an individual child.
     
     
   • Interviews are one method to gather information; other ways include classroom observation, school visits, and staff pairing.
     
     
   • It is important to be familiar with the different settings in your community to help parents choose the setting with the best characteristics for their child, including the least restrictive environment for children with special needs.

Journey Point

Suggest that participants put the handouts from the activity in their Journey Bag. Refer them to Pocket Guide 2 to list new strategies for maximizing similarities and minimizing differences. Have them share their ideas with a partner.

Activity 2-5: Preparing the Child and Family

Purpose: In this activity, participants develop strategies to prepare children and families for differences in settings.

Materials:
     Handout 17
     Hands-on Activities (Informational Resources)
     Journey Bag, Pocket Guide 2 (Introduction)

Identify Differences

1. In an initial coaching session, discuss the transitions of children who have recently entered the participants' program. Remind them that children face many changes when they transition. Ask participants to identify the settings where these children were previously enrolled and to think about the differences between previous settings and the participants' program. Some examples might be changes in routines, environments, and caregiving practices. Ask:
   
   
   • Did you know what all the differences between the settings were?
     
     
   • Which transitions appeared to be smoothest and which were the most difficult?

Identify Setting Characteristics

2. Using examples from the Background Information section, discuss the importance of identifying differences between settings when preparing children and families for change. Distribute Handout 17: Settings and Continuity and tell participants to complete information about their own setting and about one of the settings identified in Step 1. Recommend that they gather information about the previous setting through interviews and, if possible, a site visit.

Discuss Individual Role

3. Hold a second coaching session to discuss the differences that other children might encounter during the transition between their setting and the one they investigated. Ask:
   
   
   • What is your role in addressing differences among settings?
     
   • What more could you do?

Develop a Plan

4. Distribute copies of the Hands-on Activities, located in the Informational Resources section. Assist participants in identifying activities that they could use in their program and help them develop a plan for implementation.

Expanding Role

5. After the plan has been implemented, meet with participants to discuss the results of the activities. Point out that additional ways to maximize similarities and minimize differences include:
   
   
   • Meeting with key partners to discuss concerns and brainstorm solutions
     
     
   • Assisting parents in developing skills to determine the programs that best match their child's individual needs

Journey Point

Suggest that participants put the handouts from the activity in their Journey Bag. Refer them to Pocket Guide 2 to list new strategies for maximizing similarities and minimizing differences. Have them share their ideas with someone outside the coaching session.

Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice

The following activities can help participants review key information, practice skills, and assess their understanding of the concepts in this module.

• Meet with key partners to discuss how records are transferred to and from their programs. Explain that the purpose of the meeting is to improve the records system so that the information transferred is useful and timely. To start the meeting, ask a representative from each program to explain the program's system of records transfer and provide samples of the forms. The explanation should also include who uses the records received from other programs, what other information would be helpful to those staff members, and when they need to have the records sent to them.
  
  Then as a group, compare the systems that each program uses and the kinds of information they would like to share.

  – Are many programs asking families to provide information that could be provided by senders?

  – Are sending programs using records that are easy for receivers to use or are records overly technical or vague?

  – Are there common elements in the various program forms that might be communicated using a jointly developed transfer form?

  – Are issues of confidentiality being addressed?

  Ask participants to suggest ways to improve the records transfer system and commit to continue working together. Some strategies that partners might coordinate include:

  – Jointly developing a form that provides information in a clear and useful format

  – Providing joint staff training on records management

  – Systematically informing parents of the advantages of releasing records

  – Creating a timeline that lists dates when program records need to be transferred

• Conduct a workshop for families to help them learn the value of sharing information. At the workshop, ask former Head Start parents to explain how their child's teacher helped the child by using information the parents provided. Then have participants find partners and role play parent meetings with the kindergarten teacher. Suggest that the parents tell the teacher five things that they would like the teacher to know about themselves and their child. After the role play, summarize the kinds of information that parents can share about their child and themselves. Discuss the formal and informal times that parents can meet with teachers.
  
  Provide parents with a short form letter or writing paper. Review the kinds of information that parents can provide in a letter to the child's new teacher. Information on the form might include the child's and family's interests, strengths, and goals, as well as telephone numbers and times that parents are available to volunteer. Write a sample letter together by asking volunteers to suggest the kinds of information they would want the teacher to know. Remind parents that notes and letters to the teacher can be valuable ways to share new information about the child and family throughout the year.
  
  For more ideas on ways to help families identify personal strengths and document their achievements and milestones, refer to the training guide Family Growth: A Continuous Process in the series Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community.