HEAD START®

Leading the Way: Disabilities Services and the Mangement Team

Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community

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

Introduction

Overview

Purpose

In 1972, Head Start began to reserve at least 10 percent of its enrollment for children with disabilities. In the years since, Head Start has become the nation's largest community-based program providing services to children with disabilities and their families. Head Start has defined a set of principles that are the foundation for Head Start services to children with disabilities and their families. These principles are:

• to provide a full Head Start program to children with disabilities
  
  
• to serve the children in the least restrictive environment
  
  
• to provide the special services needed to support parents and other family members
  
  
• to establish cooperative agreements with public schools

As with all Head Start services, a primary and ongoing principle calls for programs to involve parents as co-decisionmakers in choosing services for their children.

Disabilities services managers (DSMs) have taken the lead in defining plans for children and providing access to services and resources. At the same time, just as Head Start programs have needed to work in more formal ways with schools, DSMs find they need to work in more connected and organized ways with the other members of their management team. This guide seeks to help programs achieve that goal.

Audience

This guide will provide Head Start management teams with the skills, information, and tools they need to accomplish the following goals:

• plan and implement integrated services for children with disabilities and their families
  
  
• plan and implement policies and practices that protect the rights of all persons with disabilities
  
  
• work across areas to create or enhance their disabilities services plan (DSP)

The training approach builds on the assumption that the DSM will be a participant in the training, and also a special resource to the team, whether officially designated as the trainer-in-charge or not. This design acknowledges the work of the DSM to date, using the DSM to highlight strengths of the program's existing services and to suggest areas that need improvement. In this way, the training will support the DSM as a key contributor to the improved vision of and blueprint for disabilities services, but will acknowledge the role of all managers as well.

Performance Standards

This guide applies Head Start core values as well as the Head Start Program Performance Standards, including, but not limited to, the Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities. These standards require that all Head Start managers play an active role in including children with disabilities and their families.

Organization of the Guide

This guide contains the following sections:

Module 1: Identifying Shared Responsibilities helps participants identify how their current roles and collaboration practices as a team affect children with disabilities and their families, and the critical points where coordination among members of the management team must take place.

Module 2: A Look at ADA and 504 explains the laws that govern disabilities services policy and practice in Head Start. This module equips management teams to evaluate facilities and services and identify strategies for reasonable accommodation. It also addresses ways to adapt employment practices so that they reflect the rights and protections afforded to employees with disabilities.

Module 3: Collaborating with LEAs provides participants with information and tools to improve relationships with LEAs and other community organizations, to ensure quality services to children with disabilities and their families.

Continuing Professional Development offers participants strategies to apply new skills and extend their learning.

Resources lists print and audiovisual materials and organizations that managers can use to learn more about key issues

Organization of the Modules

In order to accommodate the needs of different grantees, each module offers two different delivery strategies. Workshops are suitable for groups of four to six management team members. Workshops can build strong site-based teams as well as help staff from multiple sites develop a program-wide identity. Coaching sessions are designed to help seasoned managers orient new managers, and provide individual flexibility and one-on-one mentoring opportunities.

Each module, organized so that facilitators can implement the activities with ease, contains the following sections:

• The Outcomes section summarizes what skills participants will learn as a result of the experience.
  
  
• The Key Concepts section provides a description of the main ideas addressed in the module.
  
  
• The Background Information section provides a rationale for the modules and describes the critical issues addressed.
  
  
• The Activities section provides workshop or coaching sessions with step-by-step instructions for trainers and coaches.
  
  
• The Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice section includes strategies to help managers apply what they have learned in the modules.

Each module is organized into specific workshop activities and coaching sessions. Some activities are supplemented by a Discussion Guide or Lecture Guide to help workshop leaders and coaches think through the key ideas of the session and anticipate possible responses of participants. Handouts appear at the end of each module.

Ideally, the modules should be used sequentially, since activities build on one another. Because the management team can not develop a vision for disabilities services in isolation, we recommend that prior to this training, the program use a tool to help Head Start staff, specialists, and families create a common vision for inclusion. The activity A Vision for Our Program, from the guide Setting the Stage: Including Children with Disabilities in Head Start, offers one way to accomplish this.

Given the pressing need for managers to know and understand the implications of this guide's content, managers should design the training to be of high intensity and short duration for optimal effect. For example, scheduling weekly or biweekly sessions over a four-month period is more suitable than meeting monthly over the course of a year or more.

Definition of Icons

Coaching - A training strategy that fosters the development of skills through tailored instruction, demonstrations, practice, and feedback. The activities are written for a coach to work closely with one to three participants.

Workshops - A facilitated group training strategy that fosters the development of skills through activities which build on learning through group interaction. These activities are written for up to 25 participants working in small or large groups with one or two trainers.

Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice - Activities assigned by the trainer immediately following the completion of the module to help participants review key information, practice skills, and examine their progress toward expected outcomes of the module.

Continuing Professional Development - Follow-up activities for the program to support continued staff development in the regular use of the skills addressed in a particular training guide. They include:

1) opportunities tailored to the participant to continue building on the skills learned in the training; and

2) ways to identify new skills and knowledge needed to expand and/or complement these skills through opportunities in such areas as in higher education, credentialing, or community educational programs.

AT A GLANCE

Modules	Activity	Time	Materials
Module 1: Identifying Shared Responsibilities	Activity 1-1: A Day in the Life (W) Participants explore how managers' decisions affect the day-to-day experiences of children with diabilities and their families.	45 minutes	Handout 1 - Keezia's Story Easel, chart paper, markers, tape, legal-size paper, and stand to hold Handout 1
	Activity 1-2: Setting Program Goals for Diabilities Services (W) Participants establish specific goals for supporting all children, including those with disabilities.	75 minutes	Video - Shining Bright* VCR and monitor Easel, chart paper, markers
	Activity 1-3: What's My Role? (C) Participants identify the role they play in delivering quality disabilities services for children and their families.	90 minutes	Video - Shining Bright* VCR and monitor Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice
Module 2: A Look at ADA and 504	Activity 2-1: What Does It Mean for Us? (W) Participants identify how ADA and Section 504 apply to program operations and practices.	75 -90 minutes	Handout 2 - The Law Handout 3 - Dayne's Story Handout 4 - Putting the Law into Practice Easel, chart paper, markers, and tape
	Activity 2-2: As Employers (W) Participants identify aspects of the law that influence employment practices.	75 - 90 minutes	Handout 5 - Title I Handout 6 - Opinion Survey Handout 7 - Six Key Aspects of Title I of ADA Easel, chart paper, markers, and tape
	Activity 2-3: Let's Take a Look (W) Participants use a checklist to assess program accessibility using guidelines consistent with the law.	90 - 120 minutes	Appendix A - Checklist for Existing Facilities Easel, chart paper, markers, paper, pencils, and tape measures
	Activity 2-4: ADA: Individual Solutions (C) Participants discuss the implications of Title III of ADA and pinpoint strategies to eliminate barriers in their program.	90 minutes	Handout 2 - The Law Handout 3 - Dayne's Story Handout 4 - Putting the Law into Practice Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice
Module 3: Collaborating with LEAs	Activity 3-1: Myths and Reality (W) Participants explore the common myths that LEAs and Head Start programs have about each other.	90 minutes	Handout 8 - Head Start/LEA Questionnaire Handout 9 - Just the Facts Easel, chart paper, markers, and tape
	Activity 3-2: Procedural Safeguards (W) Participants identify their role in empowering and advocating for parents in their program.	90 minutes	Handout 10 - Carmen and Jonathan Handout 11 - Defining Family-Centered Support
	Activity 3-3: The Role of Head Start Staff in IEP Meetings (C) A coaching adaptation of Activity 3-2: Procedural Safeguards.	60 - 90 minutes	Handout 9 - Just the Facts Handout 10 - Carmen and Jonathan
	Activity 3-4: Images of Collaboration (W) Participants examine strategies for promoting collaboration between Head Start programs and LEAs.	90 minutes	Handout 12 - Viewer's Guide Video - Getting Together* VCR and monitor

 

(W) = Workshop Activity

(C) = Coaching Activity

*Each Head Start grantee received one copy of this videotape with the initial mailing of the guide in 1997. For information about how to get a copy of the video, please see the Resources section, or call your regional Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) provider.

How To Use This Guide

As you prepare for the training, you will need to understand a few key assumptions:

• Head Start Staff as Leaders of the Activities. Head Start managers can take turns leading most of the activities. We recommend that you not automatically assign the role of leader to the Disabilities Services Manager (DSM). Sharing the role of facilitator will underscore the responsibility that all managers have to ensure that children with disabilities and their families receive the services they are guaranteed.
  
  
• Involvement of Experts. Because of the technical and evolving nature of the content of Module 2: A Look at ADA and 504, we recommend involving a consultant who is knowledgeable about the laws to lead these activities. If you are an outside trainer leading an activity, make sure you learn about the program and the audience for the activity ahead of time. In this way, you will be able to tailor sessions to the needs of the program and capitalize on its specific circumstances, strengths, and needs.
  
  
• Coordination of Leaders. Each program will need to decide which internal and outside people are best suited to lead specific activities. Each program will also need one key person to coordinate this effort.

The training approach also acknowledges that programs are at different stages in working out a comprehensive disabilities services plan. Some will not yet have a plan. Others will have a plan that is still a work in progress. Still others will have a completed plan that serves as the basis for its work. For all three, the training presented here offers benefits.