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

MODULE 1: Identifying shared responsibilities

Outcomes | Key Concepts | Background Information | Activity 1 | Activity 2 | Activity 3 | Next Steps
download these pdf attachments: Handout 1

Outcomes

After completing this module, participants will be able to:

• Recognize the respective and shared roles and responsibilities of team members in managing their Head Start program's services for children with disabilities and their families.
  
  
• Identify how their current roles and team collaboration practices can directly affect children with disabilities and their families.
  
  
• Identify critical points in the disabilities services practices of their program where coordination among members of the management team must take place.

Key Concepts

• The disabilities services manager (DSM) has a unique role in, but not the entire responsibility for, designing a disabilities services plan and providing support to children with disabilities and their families. All managers have collective responsibility.
  
  
• Clarifying the specific roles and responsibilities of management team members, and articulating their relationship to one another and to the DSM, improves the quality of services for all children and families in the program, including children with disabilities.

Background Information

A spirit of inclusion has affected the classroom and also the management structure of Head Start programs. Over the last 10 years, Head Start management teams have increased their efforts to provide leadership in the area of disabilities services and building an integrated service plan. Today, while the DSM may be the central manager charged with designing the plan and carrying it out, other members of the management team also contribute to the plan. Moreover, in the strongest programs, the plan specifies links to those who oversee other areas, identifying particular responsibilities that they will take.

This module focuses on the roles of all members of the management team. It seeks to increase participants' understanding about the relationship between disabilities services and the program as a whole. In particular, it seeks to foster professional self-assessment and personal self-awareness. Only by seeing themselves as capable of designing an improved plan for disabilities services will management teams be able to accomplish this important task.

For an overview of the activities in this module, see At A Glance on pp. 5-8.

Activity 1-1: A Day in the Life*

Purpose: The purpose of this workshop activity is to engage participants personally and help them understand how managers' decisions affect the day-to-day experiences of children with disabilities and their families.

Preparation

Arrange for: Easel, chart paper, markers, tape, one legal-size piece of paper, and a stand to hold Handout 1-Keezia's Story

Duplicate: Handout 1-Keezia's Story (pp. 19-20): one copy

Leading the Activity

1. Explain that you will begin this activity by telling the story about Keezia, a Head Start child who has a physical disability.

2. Begin to read the story (propped on a stand, so you have your hands free). Hold the plain sheet of paper in one hand. Each time you come to an asterisk, tear off a thin strip of paper from the sheet you are holding.

3. At the end of the story, lead participants in a discussion, using the questions below as prompts. Focus on how managers' attitudes and decisions inform policy and practice.

• Overall, what reactions did you have to Keezia's story?
  
  
• What particular events triggered a diminished sense of well-being?
  
  
• In what ways do managers' decisions affect Keezia's Head Start experiences?
  
  
• What could managers do, in terms of setting policy, supervising staff, etc., to make Keezia's Head Start experiences more positive? To make Keezia's family's experiences more positive? (Think about all aspects of service delivery.)

4. After the discussion about Keezia, ask participants to think about their own Head Start program. Ask:

• Do children with disabilities experience events similar to those of Keezia?
  
  
• What are you doing as individual managers to support children and families' sense of empowerment? As a management team?

Summing Up

Summarize the session for participants by making the following key points:

• At strategic moments through the day, for a wide range of reasons, a child may “fall” from feeling fairly competent to feeling incompetent, misunderstood, frustrated, or rejected.
  
  
• Neither managers, nor teachers, nor home visitors can protect children from all the hurts or struggles they encounter. But it is the manager's job to understand how their actions (or lack of action) affect outcomes for children and families.

In promoting development with any child, it is important to know how to alter the situation to improve the child's chances for success. Improved practice grows out of a refined understanding about what the child needs and what the parent needs. It also stems from greater awareness of who, among all the staff, can be involved in addressing the need.

Activity 1-2: Setting Program Goals for Diabilities Services

Purpose: In this workshop activity, participants watch Shining Bright, a videotape that captures a Head Start program's experience developing an inclusive preschool program with their local school district. This video will be used as a springboard for helping participants set specific goals for supporting all Head Start children, including those with disabilities.

Preparation

Arrange for: Easel, chart paper, markers, VCR, monitor, and videotape Shining Bright

Preview: Shining Bright (30 minutes) at least twice. If you need to order a copy of this video, refer to the Resources section.

Leading the Activity

1. Introduce the videotape by explaining that it provides a “transportation-free” tour of another Head Start program, and a chance for participants to look into a program that is somewhat similar to their own, but not their own. This video serves as a case study that offers participants a chance to analyze some program elements and features with distance and objectivity. They can then apply this analysis to their own program.
   
   
2. View the videotape Shining Bright.
   
   
3. Facilitate a group discussion, using the questions that follow.
   
   
   • What similarities did you see between situations in the video and situations Keezia (from Activity 1-1: A Day in the Life) encountered?
     
     
   • In the video, how did the Head Start program decide to foster more inclusive practices? What specific goals did the management team set?
     
     
   • Who, within and outside the program, did the team members need to involve to reach their goals?
     
     
   • What was the most challenging task they faced? How did they resolve it?
     
     
4. Next, tell participants that you would like to shift the focus to their own program. Ask them to brainstorm:
   
   • What do we do well as a team in our efforts to serve children with disabilities and their families?
     
     
   • What challenges do we still face?
     
     
   • What goals do we want to set for quality disabilities services?
     
     List 3 major goals for disabilities services on chart paper and save for the first Next Step in Module 3 (p. 64). These goals will be used to build a disabilities services plan (DSP).
     
     
5. With participants, discuss how the goals they identified in step 4 are similar to, or different from, the goals they have for all children in the program.

Summing Up

Summarize by pointing out that the video allowed participants to look into another classroom and analyze aspects of its program. Highlight key aspects of their program, as well as the goals they have generated.

Conclude by reminding managers that these goals can be used when they review and revise their disabilities plan.

Activity 1-3: What's My Role?

Purpose: The Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities mandate that disabilities services be a program-wide effort. This coaching session will offer new managers background information about inclusion and help them identify the role they play in delivering quality disabilities services for children and their families.

Preparation

This session has three parts: 1) viewing the videotape Shining Bright; 2) reviewing the Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities, and 3) analyzing how the performance standards relate to their particular role and their program area. At the end of the session, participants will choose which Next Steps they will work on to extend their learning. To prepare for this session:

• Review all the directions and handouts for this session, the Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities, and Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice.
  
  
• Arrange for a VCR, monitor, and the videotape Shining Bright.
  
  
• Preview Shining Bright (30 minutes) at least twice. If you need to order a copy of this video, refer to the Resources section.
  
  
• Obtain copies of the Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities: one for each participant
  
  
• Duplicate Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice (p. 18): one for each participant

Conducting the Session

1. Welcome participants and briefly discuss the purpose of the session.
   
   
2. Introduce the videotape Shining Bright by explaining that it captures a Head Start program's experiences of including children with disabilities and their families.
   
   
3. View the videotape and discuss it with participants. Use the discussion to help participants identify the benefits of inclusion for children with disabilities, for typically developing children, for staff, and for families. Then focus the discussion on inclusion as a program-wide effort.
   
   

   Tip for the Coach:

   “Inclusion” may feel like an abstract concept for participants who have not had experience working in inclusive settings. You may wish to offer these participants some background information about inclusion, and concrete images of what it looks like across different program areas. The Introduction of the Disabilities Services foundation guide, Setting the Stage: Including Children with Disabilities in Head Start can help you provide participants with an overview of inclusion: what it is, and how it benefits children and families. You may also duplicate this section and use it as a handout.

   
   
4. Distribute the Head Start Program Performance Standards on Services for Children with Disabilities. Explain that these standards offer Head Start regulations and guidance for serving children with disabilities and their families. These standards also reinforce disabilities services as a program-wide effort. Ask participants to review these standards, focusing on those relating to their particular role within the program.
   
   
5. Discuss the standards with participants. Encourage participants to ask questions when they need clarification. Then use the standards to help participants identify their own roles and responsibilities in managing their program's services for children with disabilities and their families.
   
   
6. Ask participants to identify three steps they will take to enhance their contribution to quality disabilities services. Steps should be as a concrete as possible. Steps may involve, for example, coordinating with other managers or bringing the information “home” to their own staff and involving them in developing an action plan.

Wrap-Up and Next Steps

Briefly summarize the session with participants and highlight key points. Stress that including children with disabilities and their families can benefit the program as a whole. However, successful inclusion requires that everyone “own” inclusion and play a role in making it work.

Distribute and review Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice. Help participants choose the Next Step(s) they would like to pursue.

Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice

As the management team, there are ways you can extend what you have accomplished during these sessions, both as a team and with the entire staff. Ways to continue your work in this area include:

• Using Handout 1-Keezia's Story (pp. 19-20) as a preservice or inservice training activity with the entire staff, parents, and volunteers. This will engage participants personally, raise awareness, and help staff understand how their behavior affects the experience of children with disabilities.
  
  
• Inviting the DSM to give an overview of the required parts of the disabilities services plan (DSP) and an overview of the program's current plan. Emphasize that while the DSM has a unique role in designing a DSP and providing support to children with disabilities and their families, all managers have collective responsibility in this effort. Encourage group members to identify the parts of the DSP that are most relevant to their particular program area. Then, as a team, identify specific strategies each member can implement to enhance their contribution to quality disabilities services.