Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Individualizing: A Plan for Success
Module 2
|
| Contents | Preface
| Introduction
| Module 1
| Module 2
| Module 3
| Module 4 | | Professional Development | Resources | Training Guides | |
Creating Essential Partnerships--Families and Staff Working Together
Handout 9: Building on a Family's Strengths
Instructions: Read the following vignette. Then discuss and respond to the questions on the next page. You will have 30 minutes to complete this task.
A Family with Many Strengths
The Casanova family includes Giselle and her children, three-and-a-half-year-old Nora and nine-month-old Alonzo, and Giselle's older cousin Alma and her daughter, six-year-old Lorna. The two adults and three children live in a two-bedroom apartment in a close-in suburb of a large city.Nora attends the Head Start center, and Alonzo is enrolled in the Early Head Start home-based program. Alonzo was a low birth-weight baby. At his last well-baby checkup, the doctor said that his physical development is slightly below the norm for a child his age.
When Nora first came to Head Start, she spoke only Spanish. Now she communicates in English and Spanish. Alma and Giselle each care for their own children; however, they help each other out when one needs a break or has something to do.
Alma and Lorna were enrolled in Head Start from the time Lorna was a toddler until she went to kindergarten last year. Alma was very active in the program as a classroom volunteer and policy council member. She attended computer classes offered by the Family Service Center. Now that Lorna is in first grade, Alma works full-time as a computer operator. Giselle looks up to Alma and often asks for her parenting advice. Alma has lived in the United States since she was fourteen years old.
Before moving to the United States from Guatemala, Giselle completed the ninth grade and then worked in a factory for two years. During her first year in this country, she took English classes during the day and worked on an office cleaning crew in the evening. After Nora was born, Giselle stopped working and attending classes. She would like to go back to work, but she wants a different kind of job. Her favorite subjects in school were art and music.
Ernesto, the father of Nora and Alonzo, sees the children from time to time. He is in the Job Corps, learning to be a bricklayer. He lives in a Job Corps center, but comes home about once a month. He and Giselle are separated.
Ernesto's mother, Feliz, is close to Giselle and very involved in her grandchildren's lives. She recently retired after working for twenty years as a cook at an elementary school. Giselle says, Nana Feliz has lots of energy.
Handouts
Copyright © 1999 Head Start Publications Management Center. All rights reserved.
Last Modified: