Environmental Evaluations: The Key to Quality in Early Head Start Classrooms

Recent advances in the study of brain development clearly indicate that early experiences dramatically shape the brain's structure and function. In particular, research indicates that the caregiving setting of young children (including the adult-child interactions, daily routines, and equipment) affects their development in profound and long-lasting ways. In order to ensure that the caregiving environment provides young children with the best possible start, it is critical to evaluate their environment.

In our program, Northern Delaware Early Head Start (NDEHS), we take environmental assessment seriously. NDEHS serves 107 infants and toddlers throughout New Castle County, Delaware. Children and families receive services from NDEHS in three ways: a traditional center-based program (i.e., all of the services are provided through a center funded by Early Head Start), a home-based program (i.e., children receive services through home visits), and a Childcare Partnership model (i.e., visiting Early Head Start developmental services are provided to local family child care or center-based programs combined with monthly home visits).

A child is served through one option at any given time. However, the program has built-in flexibility to allow children to transition from home-based services to center-based services as slots are available and as family needs change. What adds further complexity to our program is that over 50 percent of our services are offered through subcontracts with a Head Start program that offers home-based and child care partnerships services and with two other community agencies that deliver center-based services. Given the range and diversity of the NDEHS program's options, environmental assessments are key to ensuring consistently high quality services.

Assessing the Environment

The Head Start Performance Standards and the PRISM monitoring tool are used to ensure program quality. They describe the features that must be included in a program. However, since they do not explain in detail how to design and run a classroom or family day care that meets the developmental needs of infants and toddlers, NDEHS uses other environmental measures as guides to ensure program quality. These measures include the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS), the Infant and Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS) for center care, and the Health and Safety Checklist for all out-of-home care. These instruments are based on sound principles that support optimal development for young children.

NDEHS uses these measures to validate effective practices and offer guidance on ways to improve quality. All out-of-home child care placements are assessed at least once a year using the appropriate instrument. The ITERS and FDCRS use a seven-point rating scale: a rating of 1 indicates unacceptable or harmful, 3 indicates minimal quality, 5 shows good quality, and 7 represents excellent quality. Depending on the significance of the particular item and its score, we are able to prioritize needs and designate necessary resources, such as materials or staff training, for the site. We ensure that all health and safety items on the ITERS or FDCRS are scored at a level 7 before we work to improve the scores of other items.

We incorporate the instruments into training and use the evaluation of the environment as an important vehicle for staff development. In this way, providers receive information about what is expected in a developmentally appropriate program. These measures also provide information about appropriate materials and how to use them with infants and toddlers.

As staff members learn about environmental assessment, we identify training areas needing more coverage and plan future training accordingly. The staff knows well in advance that environmental settings will be evaluated and what criteria will be used. In fact, the criteria themselves are useful teaching tools.

It is important to help providers understand how the environmental assessments are tied to the outcomes we want to achieve with children in our Early Head Start program. This becomes critically important for children with special needs because we place them in natural environments (i.e., in the same program or setting the family would choose if the child did not have a disability).

Because of our commitment to supporting early intervention in natural environments, we work to maximize the extent to which IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan) goals are supported in the Early Head Start classroom, family day care, and the child's home and community. Our environmental evaluations are a useful means of identifying further modifications, materials, or arrangements that support inclusion.

Using an ITERS item as an example, the descriptor of a program getting a rating of 7 (excellent) on Number 16 (Books and Pictures) states, "Each infant/toddler given opportunity daily for at least one language activity using books, pictures or puppets. Cozy book area set up for toddlers to use independently." This item requires us to reflect on how we will modify a language activity with puppets for a child with a visual or hearing disability. It may also challenge us to assess how we can make a book area accessible to a child with limited mobility. The evaluations are used to guide our program to meet all the needs of all the children.

Challenges to Evaluation

NDEHS has offered services for only two full years. We expect that many challenges to effective environmental assessment will be overcome as our program matures. However, one of the principal challenges remains the amount of time–at least three hours–it takes to complete each environmental assessment.

Currently, the assessments are conducted by the Early Care and Education Coordinator with help from graduate students from the University of Delaware. Our goal is to establish a system of teachers and providers who conduct their own assessments under the supervision of the Coordinator.

Another challenge is changing negative staff attitudes about assessment. Some staff members believe the process will focus on what is wrong with their approach or program and result in faultfinding and blaming. We try to reframe assessment as a tool to confirm best practice and a way to target resources that will make the providers' jobs easier. Enabling the providers and teachers to conduct their own assessments will help them accept the process.

Long Range Plans

Through newsletters, parent committees, and policy council meetings, family members are kept informed of the improvements that result from our environmental assessments and the ways in which these additional resources support their child's development. In the future, we would like to train family members to participate in these assessments, as we do with the child screenings.

In our program, parents and guardians have been trained to use the child screening tool, Ages and Stages, during the child's early years. They are responsive to being involved in this process and find it both educational and empowering. They gain valuable information about milestones in their child's development, acquire tools for child observation, and learn ideas for age-appropriate activities. Involving parents or guardians in environmental assessments would teach them about critical features of their child's learning environment and build rapport between the family and caregivers.

Another long-range plan is to develop or locate a measure to assess the child's home environment. Presently we conduct a health and safety check of each family's home. We have reviewed the H.O.M.E. instrument and concluded that it does not entirely address our needs. We have not yet found instruments comparable to ITERS and FDCRS that offer guidance for improvement and confirm current practices.

Conclusions

Environmental assessments help ensure a quality program for infants and toddlers. But the job of evaluation does not end there. These measures are only useful in conjunction with assessments of program effectiveness for individual children. When combined with individualized assessments, such as developmental portfolios, environmental assessments contribute to ensuring quality services for all children.

Martha Buell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Individual and Family Studies and the Director of Northern Delaware Early Head Start. T: 302-831-6032; E: mjbuell@udel.edu.