HEAD START®

Planning for Transitions

Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community

Table of Contents | Preface | Introduction | Module 1 | Module 2 | Module 3 | Module 4 | Continuing Professional Development | Informational Resources Section

MODULE 4: accessing services through community linkages

Outcomes | Key Concepts | Background Information | Activity 1 | Activity 2 | Activity 3 | Activity 4 Next Steps
Download these pdf attachments: Handout 20 | Handout 21 | Handout 22 | Handout 23 | Handout 24

Outcomes

As a result of completing this module, participants will be able to:

• Identify service gaps that occur during transitions and determine potential community resources that could provide needed services

• Coordinate transition planning efforts among early childhood program staff and community service providers

• Develop systems to follow up on the outcomes of transition planning efforts with families, community service providers, and other early childhood program staff

Key Concepts

• For various reasons, families may not receive needed services when they transition from one early childhood setting to another. For transition planning to be effective, these gaps in services and the reasons that they occur must be identified.

• Some gaps in services can be eliminated when service providers are included along with early childhood program representatives and parents on the transition planning team. Interagency planning teams can better address needs and tap into the community's resources.

• When tracking systems are easy to use, teams are better able to coordinate and refine their plans, share progress with stakeholders, and celebrate success.

Background Information

Early childhood program staff facilitate continuity of education, care and services when they plan transitions with parents and staff from other early childhood programs. However, even when these teams implement a variety of strategies to support children and families, difficulties can occur in the new setting. For example, teachers may find that parents do not understand school policies or that children have difficulty with new routines. Families may find that the progress they made in comprehensive programs such as Head Start is difficult to sustain when full support services are not continued.

Many early childhood settings do not offer the comprehensive services that Head Start provides, nor do they coordinate services within the community. This means that even when transitions are planned jointly with staff from other early childhood programs, families and children may experience gaps in services when transitions occur. Head Start staff must anticipate that families in the program may eventually transition to other settings that do not coordinate or provide comprehensive services.

By reaching out to the broader community, staff can help sustain the gains children and families have made in Head Start. Staff can work toward making services available and accessible to families in all learning and care environments by involving community service providers in transition planning teams. Interagency transition planning teams engage in the community assessment in order to provide linkages within the early childhood community.

Assessing the Community

Interagency transition planning begins with a coordinated community assessment. Staff from various programs and agencies come together to share information about the services they offer to families and the processes required to qualify for those services. As program staff exchange information, they also assess the effectiveness of their current transition practices.

For example, in many communities Head Start family advocates routinely refer families leaving the program to a community-based clothing bank. However, through the community assessment process, one of these programs discovered that its referral process was inadequate. What the family advocate did not know was that referrals were only accepted by the clothing bank if they were dated within the last three months. As a result, the referral system did not work for those families who received the referral from Head Start in June and requested services in the winter. To receive a current referral those parents had to meet with another person in their new setting. In the meantime, some children went without the warm clothes they needed.

Bridging Gaps

After developing beginning connections in an initial meeting among service providers and other program staff, the next step is to establish stronger connections. Program staff can take action steps to close the gaps in services. In this case, Head Start staff have several options for changing their referral system. With parental consent, they could identify families that may need the clothing bank referrals and share the names with staff in the receiving program before the child is transferred. The staff in the new setting could then follow through by providing the needed referral or explaining to parents the process of obtaining a referral. Alternatively, Head Start staff could meet with the clothing bank personnel and request that Head Start referrals be considered valid for a longer period of time.

Increasing Accessibility

By working together on a regular basis, diverse interagency transition planning teams are able to identify new solutions for providing continuous, accessible services to families and children. Established connections among early childhood program staff and service providers will prevent service gaps that occur because of more complex issues, such as inaccessible services or lack of resources. Some agencies place health and social service providers in school buildings. Other community programs and agencies have hired transition coordinators to conduct home visits and coordinate services. Still others meet regularly to determine how the various agencies can work together to meet family needs.

Communicating with Stakeholders

To ensure that these initiatives are continued, the transition planning team should work to build institutionalized connections such as the pooling of resources, interagency agreements, and integrated roles for frontline staff. However, the team cannot build these connections without the support of families and staff. The more stakeholders—parents, frontline workers, administrators, and policymakers—are aware of and understand the needs, goals, and strategies of interagency planning teams, the more involved they will be.

To help these stakeholders understand how transition planning affects them, the planning team can share the outcomes of their efforts. Some stakeholders will want to know how individual children are helped, others will want to know the benefits to their program, and still others will be interested in the overall efficiency of services. The interagency transition team can periodically collect information about the implementation of the plan. Planning teams can gather this information best when they work with parents and frontline workers to design user-friendly reporting systems such as simple forms, anecdotal records, or oral reports.

Sustaining Efforts

The interagency planning team can use the information gathered from the frontline to help sustain the efforts of team members as well as to gain the support of the community. The recognition of team members and celebration of success encourages all of them to continue their efforts to create new systems of providing services. As progress is recognized and more stakeholders become involved, the team may expand and diversify.

To continue to work as a team requires hard work. Members must take time to evaluate how meetings are run, how decisions are made, what resources are shared, and which community partners are involved. In addition to refining transition plans, the team must refine the implementation process.

Acquiring Funding

When evaluating progress, teams may find that they have limited resources to achieve their goals. The team may then seek funding for collaborative projects through grants. For example, the Nebraska Head Start-State Collaboration Grant funds joint staff training for Head Start and public schools. In Texas, the Langston Family Life Center, which provides a one-stop service delivery system center, received a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Readiness Initiative. In Florida, many programs were developed through a $3 million state appropriation for Early Childhood Collaboration Partnership Grants.

To take advantage of funding opportunities, a planning team must have established connections, identified resources and needs, and developed plans for collaboration. Through interagency transition planning, new possibilities are created and nurtured. Head Start staff can take the lead in initiating communitywide involvement in early childhood programs by initiating a community assessment and plan of action.

Crossroads

At the end of each workshop and coaching activity in this document, participants reach a Crossroads. There they are asked to decide how they will extend the training experience using the activity's information and resources. The trainer asks participants to organize their materials in a Planning Folder and record their ideas on their Personal Planning Log. To prepare for the Crossroads refer to Trainer/Coach Preparation Notes on page 4 of the Introduction.

Activity 4-1: Accessing Services

Purpose: In this activity, staff will assess the need for continued services and the accessibility of services in other settings.

Materials:
Handouts 8 (Module 1), 20, and 21
Digest: Planning for Comprehensive Services (Informational Resources)
Planning Folder, Personal Planning Log (Introduction)
Community Resource Directory (Optional)

Identify Potential Service Providers

1. Have staff review the individual transition priorities of a family that needs ongoing services. Help participants identify potential service providers for continuing these services after the family leaves the program. You might use a community resource directory.

Contact Providers

2. Ask staff to brainstorm specific questions they have about service delivery and referral procedures. Have them use these questions and Handout 20: Survey of Community Services to gather information from potential service providers.

Review Community Services

3. At the next coaching session, ask staff to share what they learned about the services and referral processes of those providers contacted. Ask staff the following questions and help them brainstorm appropriate action steps they might take to help the identified family:

• If services are available, is there a referral process to follow? If so, is it a process that allows the family to use records from your setting or are new forms required?

• If no referral process is in place, how can you work with the providers to simplify procedures for this family?

• If services are not available, what other providers may become involved with the family to provide needed services?

Discuss Comprehensive Services

4. Review the information contained in Digest: Planning for Comprehensive Services from the Informational Resources section. Explain that services can be coordinated for individual families on an as-needed basis, or systems can be established for all families that will need the service. To establish appropriate systems, staff need to assess what services are needed by the families in their program.

Choose Assessment Methods

5. Provide staff with several copies of Handout 21: Transition Services Request Form. Explain that this form is a tool to help staff identify the services families need during transition. Suggest that staff interview a number of families and record their transition service requests on the form or use one of the following methods to gather information.

• Review program documents such as family service records or individualized transition plans.

• Hold a special service needs assessment meeting that includes parents, service providers, and program staff.

Assess Community Resources

6. Meet again with staff and help them prioritize the greatest needs of families. Explain that once needs are established, the next step is to assess the resources available and the process of obtaining services. Then action steps can be developed.

Determine Accessibility of Services

7. Have staff plan a joint meeting of parents, staff from receiving programs, and service providers from the community to examine how current services are accessed. Use Handout 8: Key Partners from Module 1 to help them plan the following for the meeting:

• Presentation of the services families receive in each program and the process of referring families

• Summary of the greatest needs identified by program staff

• Suggested strategies for improving coordination among families, early childhood program staff, and service providers

Crossroads

Suggest that participants put Handout 21: Transition Services Request Form in their Planning Folder. Have them record their plan for evaluating the meeting on their Personal Planning Log.

Activity 4-2: Transition Resources

Purpose: In this activity, participants will involve key partners, including Transition parents, in assessing the community resources available to families in Resources transition and setting goals for the community.

Materials:
Handouts 20, 21, and 22
Digest: Planning for Comprehensive Services (Informational Resources)
Community Resource Directories (see Trainer Preparation Notes)
Planning Folder, Personal Planning Log (Introduction)

Complete Survey

1. Distribute Handout 21: Transition Services Request Form. Have participants use the second column to identify services families receive while enrolled in the program. Review Digest: Planning for Comprehensive Services from the Informational Resources section to discuss the need for services to be available and accessible as families move among programs within the community.

Identify Resources

2. Divide participants into small groups and distribute community resource directories to each group. Assign each group a scenario from Handout 22: Referrals and Applications and have them use the directories to identify possible resources for the family assigned.

Research Referral Process

3. Ask participants to brainstorm specific questions they have about service delivery and referral procedures. Have them use these questions and Handout 20: Survey of Community Services to gather information from potential service providers. Suggest that a few participants speak informally with any families willing to share their perspectives as users of the services. Participants can explain that they want to find out about the availability and accessibility of services.

Discuss Accessibility of Services

4. Reconvene the small groups and tell participants to discuss the information they gathered about the services available and referral procedures currently in place. Have them work together to complete the questions on Handout 22: Referrals and Applications (Continued).

Identify Gaps in Services

5. Have each group share their ideas with the large group. After all the groups have reported, use Handout 21: Transition Services Request Form to review the services available after transition. Ask:

• Where are the gaps in services and in which areas are efforts duplicated?

• Are the gaps occurring because of a lack of connection between senders and receivers or are services currently unavailable?

Set Goals and Action Steps

6. Work with participants to determine a long-term transition goal that addresses the gaps in services or duplication of efforts that were identified. Help them brainstorm action steps they can take to involve the whole community in working toward that goal.

Summarize Background Information

7. Use the Background Information to emphasize the importance of including families, early childhood staff, and supportive service providers in planning teams.

Crossroads

Suggest that participants put the handouts in their Planning Folder. Have them use their Personal Planning Log to record their ideas for involving community service providers in addressing the gaps in services.

Activity 4-3: Reviewing the Map

Purpose: In this activity, participants will evaluate and report their team's progress to gain and sustain the support of stakeholders.

Materials:
Assessment tools (see Coach Preparation Notes)
Handouts 2 (Module 1) and 23
Hands-on Tools: Joint Transition Practices: Formal Administrative Agreements (Informational Resources)
Hands-on Tools: Sample Transition Plans (Informational Resources)
Planning Folder, Personal Planning Log (Introduction)

Discuss Evaluation

1. In the first coaching session, explain that an important part of planning is gathering information on the outcomes of planning efforts. This helps planners to do the following:

• Address issues in implementation through problem solving

• Sustain the support of team members by acknowledging the positive outcomes of their efforts

• Gain the support of stakeholders in the community by increasing their awareness of transition issues

Identify Progress

2. Ask staff to tell about their progress in planning transitions. Review their Personal Planning Log and other documentation they brought to the coaching session. Have them repeat a previously conducted assessment and identify any progress made since then. Then have them create a success list, including progress in working as a team.

Review Plan Implementation

3. Discuss the strategies for reviewing progress listed on Handout 2: Transition Planning Framework from Module 1. Note the importance of meeting with others to discuss and celebrate progress. Next, have staff meet with frontline workers and parents to do the following:

• Gather firsthand information about how plans were implemented
• Brainstorm additional ways to systematically track progress
• Acknowledge the contributions of frontline workers and parents
• Ask for ideas on celebrating progress

Plan Progress Review

4. At the next coaching session, ask staff to share what they learned from frontline staff about their progress and their tracking systems. Review their suggestions for new tracking systems and discuss alternative ways to document progress. Discuss how celebrating and communicating their successes can help them gain new support from stakeholders as well as sustain the team's support.

Choose Communication Strategies

5. Help staff choose communication strategies from Handout 23: Expanding Support to share information on the outcomes of their plan with the team and the community during a celebration. Work with them to draft press releases, design invitations for public officials, or follow through on other communication strategies.

Review Community Involvement

6. At the next coaching session discuss all the key partners recognized at the celebration. Review the support that administrators and policymakers have provided. Help staff identify any issues in implementation that could be improved with formal administrative support.

Formalize Supports

7. Help staff use the Hands-on Tools: Joint Transition Practices: Formal Administrative Agreements from the Informational Resources section to develop a plan for formalizing support. Use the following examples to help staff choose appropriate agreements that address implementation issues identified in Step 3.

• Written transition plans (see Hands-on Tools: Sample Transition Plans from the Informational Resources section) can specify partner roles and responsibilities in implementing joint practices.

• Personnel policies can provide staff with substitutes while they attend transition planning meetings or specify that joint training will fulfill staff development requirements.

• A memorandum of agreement can stipulate how resources such as school buses can be shared among community agencies.

Crossroads

Suggest that participants keep their list of successes and handouts in their Planning Folder. Have them use their Personal Planning Log to identify who can help track the involvement and support of administrators.

Activity 4-4: Checking Back

Purpose: In this activity, participants will develop tracking systems that are easy for frontline workers to use.

Materials:
Handout 24
Planning Folder, Personal Planning Log (Introduction)

Read Scenario

1. Read Handout 24: Reports from the Field, Part One. Explain that although the planning process in this scenario involved all stages of the planning framework, the goals were not met. Ask participants to suggest why the plan failed. Some reasons might include:

• Lack of coordination during the implementation of the plan
• Lack of involvement of frontline workers and parents on the team
• Steps taken were minimal

Present Different Perspectives

2. Explain that if the planners had developed a user-friendly system of tracking progress, they could have discovered the problems earlier. Ask volunteers to read to the group the personal perspective of the kindergarten teacher, parent involvement coordinator, parent, and parent educator from Part Two of the handout.

Develop a Tracking System

3. Distribute Handout 24: Reports from the Field and ask staff to work with you to develop a user-friendly tracking system. Some suggestions might include:

• Staff give regular oral reports to supervisor
• Planning team conducts brief meetings in June and September
• Twelve-month staff conduct follow-up phone calls in the summer
• Parents record summer activities on a calendar

Test the Tracking System

4. Have participants suggest how the scenario would have changed if their tracking system was used in Hopeville. You might ask:

• When would the team have been alerted to problems?
• How would this have changed the action steps taken?
• How would these new action steps impact families and children?

Discuss Current Tracking Systems

5. Ask participants to think about their own transition plans and discuss the various kinds of feedback that might help them refine their plans. Examples of useful information include the following:

• Child's adjustment to the setting
• Family goals achieved
• Parent involvement in the program
• Services families are receiving
• Rate of retention or referral
to school specialists
• Rate of crisis referrals
• Information used by teacher or caregiver

Crossroads

Suggest that participants keep their handouts in their Planning Folder. Have them use their Personal Planning Log to identify the kind of feedback that would help them refine their own plans. Have participants identify frontline workers and families who could help develop and implement a tracking system to provide this information.

Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice

The following activities can help participants review key information, Ideas to Extend practice skills, and assess their understanding of the concepts in this Practice module.

• Participants can use Handout 21: Transition Services Request Form and Hands-on Tools: Sample Information Sharing Form: Information Release from the Informational Resources section to track the services families receive after leaving Head Start. One staff person can take responsibility for making follow-up calls or home visits. The information can be compiled and shared with stakeholders.

• To simulate current duplication of efforts and gaps in services participants can invite community representatives to take on roles of families in transition and service workers in the community. In a large room, tables can be set up to represent different programs and agencies within the community. As family members visit the various service workers around the room they will experience the difficulties that low-income families have in accessing and coordinating services. A skilled facilitator might help debrief participants and assist in developing a vision for linking services.

• Head Start staff can use their community resource directory to increase the awareness of resources and needs. Have participants use Handout 20: Survey of Community Services to update their community resource directory. The community resource directory can include sample applications for services to enable staff outside of specific programs to assist families in the application process. Participants can also use the community assessment to produce a report on the needs of the community. Refer to the Joint Transition Practices: Report Card on the Community from the Informational Resources section.

• A task force of interagency partners can review funding opportunities. Members should include individuals such as program directors or board members who are familiar with budgeting and funding programs. The task force can discuss funding sources with which they are familiar. If the group believes that additional funding needs to be identified, they can research sources such as:

  — Head Start-State Collaboration Grants
  — Title I Schoolwide Initiatives
  — State and Local Initiatives
  — Foundations and Associations
  — Even Start
  — Family Literacy Initiatives