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Working in partnership to make decisions is an ongoing process. Staff and parents can continually build their knowledge of how groups work toward positive solutions in the community. One way to acquire this knowledge is to work with professional and business organizations that offer short courses and workshops on topics that may assist decision-making teams. They may be able to assist your partnership team with essential tasks such as: |
- Strategic planning.
- Team building.
- Leadership development.
Another approach is to get actively involved with formal policy and advisory bodies in the local community. Such bodies include but are not limited to:
- Community Advisory Boards.
- City or County Councils.
- Local School Boards.
Head Start parents and staff can coordinate efforts to attend meetings, provide input, and help generate solutions. By observing how decisions are implemented, staff and parents will be able to evaluate the impact policy decisions may have on the Head Start community. Working together, staff and parents can play a vital role in making decisions both within their centers and in the wider community.
The skills that staff develop in decision-making partnerships with parents are parallel to the skills needed in supervisory, monitoring and collaborative roles at Head Start. Colleges and universities offer courses and seminars that can assist program staff to further develop these skills. Local college departments of psychology, education, and public administration offer courses in the following areas of study:
- Group Dynamics: Individual relationships to groups and larger social
systems; often taught as an interactive workshop.
- Organizational Behavior: Employee attitudes, motivation, productivity,
and supervision informal and informal organizations.
- Interagency Coordination: Services across schools and community agencies including team coordination, communication, decision making, planning, and follow-up