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Management Institute in Every Region and Central Office

By Frankie Hoover Gibson, Parent Involvement Program Specialist, Social Services and Parent Involvement Branch, Head Start Bureau

The challenges faced by local Head Start programs have multiplied in size, scope, and complexity in recent years. DHHS and local grantees must ensure that the managers of local Head Start programs have what they need to lead programs effectively in a changing world, such as knowledge, skills, management and leadership, and the support and infrastructure they need to manage effectively.

The Advisory Committee on Head Start Quality and Expansion recommended that all Head Start directors and management staff receive training in fiscal management, planning, supervision and staff support, parent involvement in all components, and other topics related to the overall administration of the program.

In its efforts to enhance training of staff, the Head Start Bureau has initiated three stages of a management training initiative.

The first stage, Phase I, was the National Head Start Management Institute in August 1991 in Washington, DC, which provided a baseline of skills and competencies required for quality management that grantee and delegate directors could examine their skills against.

Phase II offered management team conferences in each of the 12 Regions under the leadership and direction of Regional Offices and training and technical assistance contractors.

Over 1,000 Federal staff and local Head Start program management team members participated in Phase III Management Institutes from October 1995 through May 1996. A pilot, Training-of-Trainer session, and 12 Institutes were held in Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York City, Kansas City, Denver, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

The training curriculum, "Mastering Change," builds upon the in-depth knowledge of management and leadership innovation that began in the prior phases of Head Start's management effort, and offers an opportunity for professional skills development by creating for teams a "new lens" to see how leadership can be more effective.

A focus of the following four main themes runs throughout the training:

1. Improving communication: strengthening the ability to ensure accurate, sensitive, two-way communication in group meetings, supervision sessions, and written exchanges;
   
   
2. Changing mental models: strengthening the ability to understand, articulate, and challenge the core beliefs that drive program operations;
   
   
3. Using systems thinking: strengthening the ability to recognize that a Head Start program is a living, dynamic, interconnected system; and
   
   
4. Setting a vision for the future: strengthening the capacity to look beyond today's problems, and considering possibilities for the future.

The general consensus from those who participated in the Institutes was that the experience was positive, valuable, and fun. One participant said that the curriculum was "engaging, rigorous, fast moving, provocative, and insightful."

For more information on the "Mastering Change" curriculum, contact your Regional Office Program Specialist or TASC liaison, your Regional TASC, or Frankie Hoover Gibson, Head Start Bureau, PO Box 1182, Washington, DC 20013.

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