Module 3

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Ongoing Partnerships

Outcomes

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

• Analyze how parents are currently involved in making decisions that affect the Head Start program
  
  
• Broaden opportunities for parents to become partners in making decisions
  
  
• Create a plan for developing partnership teams
  
  Key Concepts
  
  
• Working in partnership with parents to make meaningful decisions helps to ensure that programs stay responsive to the interests and needs of the families within the Head Start community.
  
  
• Working in partnership with parents to make decisions also helps to build ownership in the decision itself. This makes it easier to carry out the decision.
  
  
• A partnership approach provides both parents and staff with opportunities to learn more about each other and, in the process, acquire and practice skills that can be used at home, at work, and in the community.
  
  
• The challenge for staff is to provide more opportunities for more parents to make decisions and to ensure that these opportunities are inviting and meaningful.
  
  Background Information
  
  The staff and parent decision-making process is an ongoing partnership that requires a great deal of initiative and persistence from participants. Partners in decision making need to have:
  
  
• A clear understanding of the end they want to achieve and a plan for each step to get there, and
  
  
• A commitment to include everyone who will be affected by the decision.

Head Start programs have traditionally been leaders in bringing parents into the decision-making process. The challenge for programs is to make more opportunities for more parents to make decisions and to ensure that these opportunities are inviting and meaningful.

Activity 3-1: Valuing Partnerships with Parents

Purpose: Through this activity, staff will recognize that parents become involved in decision-making partnership for a variety of reasons, all of which relate to their own values and sense of belonging.

Materials

Overhead 2: Parents Need to Feel Valued...; overhead projector; screen.

Process

Begin by stating that for Head Start programs to involve parents in decision-making partnerships, staff, and parents need to see the value in doing so. In this activity, participants will have an opportunity to see why parents become involved in partnerships with program staff.

Place Overhead 2 on an overhead projector (or post the sentence below on chart paper):

Parents need to feel valued before they are going to commit their valuable time.

First ask the parents participating in the training session to respond to the sentence. Encourage them by asking questions such as:

• Well, here you are... what made you get involved in this group?
  
  
• Why do you spend your time working with this Head Start program?
  
  
• What made the difference to you or why did you decide to join in this partnership?
  
  
  Parents may speak generally of things in the program that were positive for them,such as:
  
  
  
• "Head Start's work with children matched my goals for my own kids."
  
  
• "The program builds my self esteem and offers me the opportunity to grow."
  
  
• "When I saw that I could play a role in my child's education I over came a lot of shyness."
  
  Or, they may describe specific events that drew them in, such as:
  
  
• "When I came to my first meeting, I felt welcomed because staff recognized me by name."
  
  
• "During enrollment, I was allowed to make decisions early on which let me know what it would be like to work with the program."
  
  
• "I heard a neighbor's child speaking and I had never heard a four- year-old talk so well. When I found out that she was in Head Start I wanted to get involved with my children."
  
  As parents respond, notice the reactions among the staff. Also note similarities and differences in what parents say.
  
  Next, direct your questions to staff to find out what they learned during this exercise. Ask them:
  
  
• Was there anything that surprised you about what parents said?
  
  
• How do you see your role in making these important connections happen within the Head Start program?
  
  
• Is there anything new that you can think of to help draw parents into decision-making partnerships with you?

Debriefing

End the activity by stating that there are practically as many ways to invite parents into decision-making partnerships as there are parents - each person's values and sense of what is appealing is different. Therefore, programs need to continually ask parents what is appealing to them and look for opportunities that match their interests.

Encourage participants to increase the involvement of parents in the decision-making process by completing one or all of the activities recommended in the Next Steps for this module.


Activity 3-2: Who's Right to Invite?


Purpose: This activity will assist participants in selecting members for a decision-making team and in team planning.

Materials

Handout 15: The Take Home Reading Program; pens or pencils.

Process

Give participants the option of completing this exercise by themselves or with a partner. Tell them that this exercise is to help them think about how to create a decision-making team that represents everyone who has a stake in the decision, that is, those who will be affected by the decision. Such people are often referred to as "stakeholders." Direct participants to read the story. When they have read it through, lead a discussion on the following questions:

1. Are there any other ideas you can add to the list?
   
   
2. Who can help answer the questions on this list?
   
   
3. Who will be affected by the take-home reading program?
   
   
4. Whose help will be needed to do the take-home reading program?
   
   
5. Who would you include on the planning team?

Note that for the last question, participants are not being asked to identify specific individuals by name, but rather types of individuals, such as working parents, fathers, family workers, or teachers.


Debriefing

Summarize the activity by discussing the following:

• Working in partnership with parents to make decisions helps to ensure that programs stay responsive to the interests and needs of the families within the Head Start community.
  
  
• Involving parents in making decisions helps to smooth the way for carrying out those decisions.
  
  
• A partnership approach provides both parents and staff with opportunities to learn more about each other and, in the process, acquire and practice skills that can be used at home, at work, and in the community.

Activity 3-3: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Purpose: The purpose of this activity is assist participants in identifying how they currently involve parents in decisions that affect the Head Start program.

Materials

Handout 16: Analyzing Partnerships; Handout 17: Planning for Partner ships; pens or pencils; chart paper; tape; markers; large supply of sticky dots in three distinctive colors.

Process

Introduce this activity by stating that most Head Start programs already involve some parents as partners in decision-making efforts for some activities. The challenge is to provide more staff and more parents with more opportunities to work together and build stronger partnerships. The first step in meeting this challenge is to recognize where partnerships already exist. Then they can identify opportunities that may have been overlooked.

Begin the first part of this activity by asking the group to brainstorm answers to the following question:

In addition to decisions made by the Policy Council, what types of program decisions were made this past month?

Examples you may hear include: choosing books for the classroom, planning a family activity night, selecting a site for home-based socialization activities, or selecting a mental health consultant. Write their responses on chart paper.

When the group has finished brainstorming, ask participants to take a moment to review their list. Acknowledge that although every decision listed is important because it can affect parents, staff, and/or children in the program, the next task for the group is to select three of the decisions from the list that they feel are the most important.

Provide each participant with three sticky dots, each of a different color (for example, one blue, one red, and one green) and assign a place order for the colors (for example, blue is #1, red is #2, and green is #3). Ask participants to think about the decisions listed on the chart paper and be ready to vote for what they think are the top three decisions listed on the chart paper. Ask them to place color #1 by their first choice, color #2 by their second, and color #3 by their third.

Review the voting results with participants and identify the top decisions as voted on by the group. Ask for volunteers from the group to explain their reasons for voting as they did. Allow enough time for discussion so that participants have ample opportunity to express their views and to hear the perspectives of others.

When discussion winds down, bring this part of the activity to a close by once again identifying the top three decisions from the list. Ask participants if there is consensus among the group (that is, can everyone still support the group's selection?) or whether participants feel they need to vote again now that they have had a chance to hear and discuss other perspectives. Remind participants that re voting is acceptable and does not mean they were wrong on the first vote, but sometimes coming to consensus can take time. Repeat the voting exercise if necessary.

Provide participants with copies of Handout 16: Analyzing Partnerships .Divide into three work groups and assign each of the work groups one of the three decisions. Explain that their task as a work group is to use the questions on Handout 16 to help analyze how parents were involved in making the decision. Ask each group to identify a recorder who will be responsible for reporting on the group's discussion. Ask if there are any questions. If there are none, ask each group to begin. Allow 30-40 minutes for small group discussions.

Reconvene the large group and ask the recorders to report the highlights of their small group discussions. Allow time for participants to ask questions of other groups. Summarize this part of the activity by asking participants to respond to the following:

• Overall, how well do you involve parents as partners in decision making?
  
  
• What do you do well? That is, what strategies are your strengths?
  
  
• How can you improve? That is, what could you do differently?
  
  Ask participants to brainstorm answers to the following:
  
  
• In addition to decisions made by the Policy Council, what types of program decisions will need to be made in the next two to three months?
  
  

Write responses on chart paper. Ask participants to take a moment to review the list and then ask them to vote for what they think are the three most important upcoming decisions. Use the same procedure as in the beginning of this activity. Once everyone has voted, tally the results and identify the top three decisions.

Direct participants to return to their work groups and assign each group one of the top upcoming decisions. Ask them to use Handout 17: Planning for Partnerships to plan how they will involve parents in making the decision. Remind the group to consider what has proven to work well and what areas need improvement when planning decision-making opportunities. Have each group select a recorder and begin. Allow small groups 30-45 minutes for discussion and planning.

Debriefing

Conclude the activity by asking volunteers from each work group to pro vide a five-minute overview of where they are in their planning process.



Activity 3-4: Spreading the News

Purpose: This activity has participants profile one of the ways their program involves parents in decision-making teams. Participants will use the information to publicize the concept of partnership to other parents.

Materials

Handout 18: Spreading the News; stenographer's notebook; index cards; pens or pencils; paper; access to in-kind and meeting records.

Process

Suggest participants work in small groups of three to five to complete this exercise. To balance perspectives, groups should consist of a mixture of parents and staff.

Begin by stating that opportunities for staff and parents to work together in making decisions have always been a part of the Head Start program. Sometimes decision-making partnerships consist of two individuals (for example, a parent and staff member) and sometimes they consist of a group of people (for example, parent committees). State that both types of partnership opportunities exist in all Head Start programs, but that the quality and extent of program practices can vary.

Explain that in this activity, they will be asked to become investigative reporters. They will be reporting on how their program involves parents and staff as partners in making decisions. Like all reporters, they will have three tasks to complete:

1. Conduct background research - gather some facts for their story.
   
   
2. Gather the human interest point of view - interview some parents and staff who have worked on decision-making teams.
   
   
3. Write a story- create an article for their program's newsletter or create a flyer that helps explain the opportunities their program has to offer.

Briefly review the directions on the handout and ask if there are any questions. Lead a discussion with the group to decide how they want to proceed with this task (timelines, other resources or supports they will need, etc.). Remind participants that this is a team effort. It will require them to make a number of team decisions.

Coach Preparation Notes: It is very important to work with the group to decide how much and what type of support they will need from you at each of the steps. For example, they may need your help to obtain in-kind records of committee meetings, identify parents and staff to interview, and/or to review their article. You may also want to provide them with information on writing for parents contained in Module 3 of the Head Start Training Guide, Communicating with Parents.

Debriefing

When the group has completed the entire activity, bring them back together to discuss the following questions:

• What surprised you the most about your program's decision-making partnerships?
  
  
• What does the program do well?
  
  
• Are there any areas you would suggest be improved?
  
  
• How can you use your reporting skills for other activities?

Next Steps: Ideas to Extend Practice

• Use the process outlined in Activity 3-1 to organize a discussion with parents on how they feel about becoming partners in making decisions. Use the information you get to make opportunities more inviting and accessible to more parents.
  
  
• Make an effort to invite one new parent and staff person each time a new committee is formed.
  
  

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