Introducing NHSA’s Touchpoint
May 2021
Transcribed below:
Hello, NHSA! It’s so great to be with you, Dr. B here, and I’m super excited to reach out to the Head Start and Early Head Start community every month through NHSA Touchpoint. This is a new way that NHSA is working hard to connect with you, and we hope you enjoy this different way of receiving some of our information.
A Love Note
Of course, we like to start with, I start with a love note, so I am going to send a love note out to Southeast Kansas Community Action Program and their neighborhood community health center for joining NHSA in a joint webinar around COVID vaccines. They came together, talked about collaboration, we had folks from OHS, we had folks from HRSA. It was a really great webinar. I hope you got to enjoy that. And hopefully, you’re seeing your own vaccination process happening smoothly in your community. I know it’s a heavy lift.
This Month’s Theme
So today of course is our first Touchpoint. And it’s also May, and it’s Head Start and Early Head Start’s birthday. So we have to make this, the theme of today’s Touchpoint. This year, Head Start turns 56. And Early Head Start turns 26. And you know, as a parent of adult children, I couldn’t help but make the connection that it’s almost like Early Head Start is Head Start’s child that’s all grown up and ready to be independent and stand on its own two feet.
You know, Head Start has been a way for children to find access to quality care, and families to find the support they need, and when Early Head Start came along 26 years ago, it opened that up to pregnant women and infants through age three. And we see Head Start as serving both of those communities, of course, but Early Head Start is a special thing.
It has the ability to intervene early, to really influence moms while they’re pregnant, and hopefully support that whole process to see a real streamlined support system for children and their families until children go to school. So we came up with Early Head Start Rising, which is a new effort to really bring Early Head Start to the forefront. We want to make sure those of you serving Early Head Start programs get the support you need. And for those of you who are serving Head Start children, and maybe thinking about getting into the Early Head Start space, either through a new partnership or conversion, we want to support you as well. We’re going to dig a little deeper to provide some really interesting connections to the professional community.
And we’re going to start with a six-part series called Early Head Start Rising Summer Learning Series. It is six parts and taps into some of the greatest resources in the country, and they are all going to be incredible.
So look at the content, check it out, sign up. We’d love to have you with us. We see child care in general in just such a high need for quality child care and Early Head Start is the bellwether. It is an example of what quality child care should look like. So we want to really Take Early Head Start, raise it up, give it some attention. And we hope you’ll join us.
Do that in honor of Early Head Start and Head Start 56th and 26th birthday. I have written a little song for you, so I hope you’ll humor me. This one is just for you: Happy birthday, Early Head Start and Head Start.
♪♪ It’s Head Start’s Birthday.
Early Head Start’s too, yeah.
It’s Head Start’s Birthday.
We’re going to have a good time.
It’s Head Start’s Birthday.
Early Head Start’s too, yeah.
It’s Head Start’s Birthday.
Happy Birthday to you.
We’re going to have a good time.
I’m glad it’s your birthday.
Happy Birthday to you. ♪♪
Happy birthday, Head Start and Early Head Start. 56 and 26.
I hope you enjoyed that.
In Case You Didn’t Know
Leadership Education and Development Summit (LEADS)
And now of course, “In Case You Didn’t Know.” I’ve got a lot of “In Case You Didn’t Know’s today. So, in case you didn’t know, NHSA’s Manager and Director Academy has now become LEADS, the Leadership Education and Development Summit. And that may seem like a subtle change. Like, “why change the name?” But it’s actually really important.
And it’s coming soon in June, we changed the name because we realized that leadership reaches beyond management. It reaches beyond directors. Leadership sits in a lot of different spaces in Head Start and Early Head Start. And we want you to dig into your programs, find those leaders, give them the support they need to develop their leadership skills.
So we’re going to be doing some content, but we’re also going to be doing some really good stuff around general leadership. I know we have Belinda Rinker coming. She is retired from OHS (Office of Head Start) and is willing to come to our conference to share with you some really good information about spending your CARES Act money and other new monies that have come about.
So you don’t want to miss that. That’s some good content. And then we’ve got lots of different general support for leadership. We have a former superintendent from Allentown Public Schools, Dr. Thomas Parker, who is also a Head Start kid, and he’s now working for the Mott Foundation. And he’s going to join us and just talk about leadership in general. I met him as I was visiting the Allentown Early Head Start/Head Start program that worked beautifully with the school system, and his general approach to leadership is just so inspiring and he was willing to come to talk to our Early Head Start/Head Start leaders too, to give you some tips. I hope you’ll join us for that.
There is going to be so much rich content. And what was really exciting is early on, we saw a whole program signing up. We have a program that signed up 60 of their staff. They saw in their staff potential for 60 leaders. How incredible is that? And we know that virtual delivery makes it more accessible. It’s certainly more affordable.
So we want to invite you to join us for LEADS. We’re already filling up quickly. So I hope you’ll take advantage of that and I’ll see you there. I’m going to do a session, join mine.
Upcoming SEL Training with Teachstone
I’ve got another “In Case You Didn’t Know,” because I’m super excited about this. We worked with Teachstone and they are coming to the Academy. They will be doing a series welcoming kiddos back to the classroom post-COVID, or maybe not post COVID, but as we sort of ease back into the classroom, still sort of dealing with COVID, what are we going to do? We know that children, the social-emotional piece of child development is important in any environment, but it’s going to be infinitely more important this program year.
So we invited them to come in and they crafted some classes just for us related to applying the class to support SEL as children come back into the classroom. And that isn’t just about supporting the kids. It’s about supporting the teachers so that they’re prepared to support the children. And we know when teachers are prepared and feel confident and successful, they really rise to the occasion. When they’re not, when they feel less supported, it’s much more stressful for them.
So we invite you to check out this series, we’re going to have two tracks. We’re going to run one track for directors, but we’re going to run another track for site leaders. You know, I have a special place in my heart for what I call site leaders. They have different names in different programs, but those folks who work in our program, buildings, the ones who see the teachers every day, often aren’t the Head Start director.
So we have two different tracks. We invite you to join us. Invite your staff who are appropriate to join us for that second track who are really going to be working with teachers, and get a boost for the new program year. And, we’re timing this so that they’ll take place towards the end of May and they’ll go through June. It’s nice because they’ll round out the program year. Set you up for summer preparation work and then you’ll be ready to go in the fall for the new program year. So lots going on.
That’s my Touchpoint, first Touchpoint here at NHSA and I’m excited to do this every month with you.
And don’t forget: Head Start is access to the American dream. Go make dreams happen!
Dr. Deborah Bergeron has spent over thirty years working to support the growth and development of children. She led the Office of Head Start and the Office of Early Childhood Development at the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services from 2018–2020. As the Deputy Director of Community Engagement and Innovation at the National Head Start Association, she aims to bring the Head Start and Early Head Start community together, provide the necessary support to ensure high-quality programming, and be a constant reminder to the folks on the ground that they are the backbone of Head Start and Early Head Start.
