The Infant/Toddler Specialists

By Mary Shiffer

The Head Start program's extensive technical assistance system includes Quality Improvement Centers (QICs) and Quality Improvement Centers for Disabilities Services (DSQICs) in each geographic region, as well as for American Indian and Migrant Head Start programs. These centers provide training and technical assistance support to programs in the areas of program and administrative services and serving children with disabilities. Each QIC and DSQIC has Infant/Toddler Specialists who can provide valuable technical assistance on Early Head Start and infant and toddler programming.

The Infant/Toddler Specialists serve as professional resources to Early Head Start programs beginning with initial funding through an ongoing delivery of services designed to enhance quality programming for pregnant women, infants, toddlers, and their families. These services are specifically targeted to meet the individual needs of each Early Head Start program. One function of the Infant/Toddler Specialists is contacting newly funded grantees shortly after grant awards are announced. They also provide on-site technical assistance, access to local consultants, and regional training.

To contact the Infant/Toddler Specialist in your region, contact the Federal Program Specialist in your Regional Office, or look at the Early Head Start National Resource Center's Web site at http://www.ehsnrc.org.

Mary Shiffer is a Program Specialist in Region III, T: 215-861-4043.

"The Bridge Builder"
by Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going along a highway
Came at evening, cold and gray
To a chasm vast and wide and steep
With water rolling cold and deep.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim
The sullen stream held no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength with building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way,
You've crossed the chasm deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said.
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that was naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be:
He, too, must cross in twilight dim –
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

This poem appears on a plaque on a bridge over the Connecticut River between Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont. It was contributed by Judith Jerald.