Creating Incentives to Partner
Head Start and community-based child care centers have mostly existed in the same communities and neighborhoods as different facets of the early childhood field. Their connections, until the need for full-day care for working families arose, were minimal. Initial efforts to “partner” focused mainly on a wraparound model with Head Start often transporting children between the two sites as they each served the children for a part of the day. While this helped to meet parental needs for child care during work hours, it was not an ideal solution for three and four year old children.
Head Start, no matter how hard it tries not to, makes extra demands on partners. Therefore if the two programs are really going to partner to serve children in a way that is best for them, it is necessary to create incentives to attract and retain child care partners.
Training
Head Start provides excellent training for its staff and in some instances can even provide resources for college attendance. Child care center directors place as high a value on training for their staff but have much less, in terms of resources, to provide training opportunities. Head Start sharing training, especially if they can include center staff members beyond those working in partnership classrooms can be a real incentive to the center director to enter into a partnership.
Classroom Materials
Child care centers run on very tight budgets. Directors often hold several fund raisers per year just to provide basic furniture, art materials, manipulitives etc. They often can’t stretch to purchase things like teacher resources or systems to assess and track child development. They are very limited in what they can offer it terms of benefits for staff. The goal in the TECPI partnership was to determine what could be added to the partnership classrooms that would really enhance the learning environment for the children, provide resources for teachers and add a research-based curriculum for the centers. This approach can not only enhance the setting for the children who will be considered to be dually enrolled in the center and Head Start, it frees up the more of the center budget to be spend on improvements in the non Head Start classrooms where siblings of the Head Start children may be. In this way the entire center sees quality improvements.
Financial Incentives
Head Start eligible families who need child care in order to work will likely qualify for state subsidy to cover a good portion of the child care fees. An impediment to partnerships in the past has been the fact that it was considered double dipping to collect the subsidy if Head Start paid any type of per child fees to the center. The result was that many centers were quickly frustrated with the fact that they took on extra requirements for Head Start but really didn’t end up any further ahead financially.
In Michigan a determination was made several years ago by the Department of Human Services that in partnerships, if Head Start eligible children were in the center because they needed child care in order that their parents could work and Head Start provided comprehensive services, (e.g. curriculum oversight, health, dental, vision, staff training/mentoring, literacy etc.,) in the child care setting, Head Start may provide resources to enhance the child care program but does not reimburse the provider for child care services. Then child care provider can bill for all hours that the child is physically in the child care setting and otherwise eligible. (State of Michigan, FIA Memorandum L-01-112 CDC, issued 4/16/01 and verified with Melody Sievert as still applicable on 10/22/04).
In this way, extra funds really do come into the center that can be dedicated to quality enhancement. This truly creates an incentive to partner.
Head Start, no matter how hard it tries not to, makes extra demands on partners. Therefore if the two programs are really going to partner to serve children in a way that is best for them, it is necessary to create incentives to attract and retain child care partners.
Training
Head Start provides excellent training for its staff and in some instances can even provide resources for college attendance. Child care center directors place as high a value on training for their staff but have much less, in terms of resources, to provide training opportunities. Head Start sharing training, especially if they can include center staff members beyond those working in partnership classrooms can be a real incentive to the center director to enter into a partnership.
Classroom Materials
Child care centers run on very tight budgets. Directors often hold several fund raisers per year just to provide basic furniture, art materials, manipulitives etc. They often can’t stretch to purchase things like teacher resources or systems to assess and track child development. They are very limited in what they can offer it terms of benefits for staff. The goal in the TECPI partnership was to determine what could be added to the partnership classrooms that would really enhance the learning environment for the children, provide resources for teachers and add a research-based curriculum for the centers. This approach can not only enhance the setting for the children who will be considered to be dually enrolled in the center and Head Start, it frees up the more of the center budget to be spend on improvements in the non Head Start classrooms where siblings of the Head Start children may be. In this way the entire center sees quality improvements.
Financial Incentives
Head Start eligible families who need child care in order to work will likely qualify for state subsidy to cover a good portion of the child care fees. An impediment to partnerships in the past has been the fact that it was considered double dipping to collect the subsidy if Head Start paid any type of per child fees to the center. The result was that many centers were quickly frustrated with the fact that they took on extra requirements for Head Start but really didn’t end up any further ahead financially.
In Michigan a determination was made several years ago by the Department of Human Services that in partnerships, if Head Start eligible children were in the center because they needed child care in order that their parents could work and Head Start provided comprehensive services, (e.g. curriculum oversight, health, dental, vision, staff training/mentoring, literacy etc.,) in the child care setting, Head Start may provide resources to enhance the child care program but does not reimburse the provider for child care services. Then child care provider can bill for all hours that the child is physically in the child care setting and otherwise eligible. (State of Michigan, FIA Memorandum L-01-112 CDC, issued 4/16/01 and verified with Melody Sievert as still applicable on 10/22/04).
In this way, extra funds really do come into the center that can be dedicated to quality enhancement. This truly creates an incentive to partner.
