Staffing the Effort

It was important to the partners that the model be developed with the needs of both Head Start and the community child care providers in mind. A Project Director was chosen who had considerable experience in both the child care and Head Start facets of the early education and care field. Also invaluable to the success of the model was the hiring of a Child Care Partnership Specialist who would serve as the liaison between Head Start and the center staff. She also had prior experience as a center director, trainer and mentor within the child care community. It was important that time of both staff members were dedicated to this process. The Project Director’s time was .8 FTE dedicated to concentrate on the partnerships. The Child Care Partnership Specialist was 1.0 FTE.

Head Start at the delegate agency was situated in a large early childhood department with a number of programs and services that could enrich the Head Start program. One of those was a program also funded by The Skillman Foundation called Let’s Talk, a relationship-based model for language, communication and social-emotional development for children birth through age five. The Let’s Talk model consisted of two components designed to support language and literacy development and social-emotional competence of infants, toddlers and preschoolers who attend early childhood care and education settings.

The components:

• Provider and staff training using four courses especially designed for Let’s Talk.
• On-site coaching/mentoring to strengthen implementation of course ideas and concepts

The Let’s Talk Training and Mentoring Manager and the Child Care Partnership Specialist, hereafter referred to as the mentoring team, worked closely with the TECPI staff in assessing the sites interested in partnership, training and mentoring. The Let’s Talk course became required training for all partnership staff.

Word Documents for you to use:

• SEMCA Performance Expectations For Project Director--Word Document
• SEMCA Performance Expectations For Child Care Partnership Specialist--Word Document
• SEMCA Interview Questions For Child Care Partnership Specialist--Word Document

• Home
• Getting Started
• Staffing the Effort
• Governance of the Effort
• Creating a Shared Vision
• Developing the Model
• Creating Incentives to Partner
• Recruiting Potential Partners
• Steps to Partnership
• Choosing Partners
• The Partnership Agreement
• Recruitment of Families
• Staff Development
• Mentoring
• Orienting Head Start Staff
  to Child Care Partnerships
• Final Thoughts
• Appendix A