Early Childhood Reform in Seven Communities: Front-Line Practice, Agency Management,
and Public Policy
October 1996
Tom Schultz, National Association of State Boards of Education
Elena Lopez and Mona Hochberg, Harvard Family Research Project
V. Cross-Site Analysis
Management Strategies: Fundraising and Building High-Quality Services
These seven managers work in different types of organizations in terms of history,
size, complexity, and structure. Their agencies range from the century-plus
heritage of Sheltering Arms to initiatives such as FACE and Covington, Kentucky's
center, which have been in business for only a few years. Some projects are
sophisticated, multimillion-dollar enterprises, while others operate smaller,
less complex operations. Four managers are executives in independent, nonprofit
organizations, two are middle-level managers within school systems, and one
is a teacher-director who works with children as well as handling administrative
duties. However, regardless of their job setting, early childhood administrators
balance energy and attention between two central functions:
- Raising money and managing relationships with varied government agencies
and private sector supporters.
- Providing leadership to program quality, primarily through nurturing, training,
setting standards, and inspiring the efforts of program staff members.
The Context of Program Management: Competing Audiences and Design Dilemmas
Our present public system for funding early childhood programs involves a variety
of sponsoring agencies, a varied set of categorical, discretionary funding streams,
and a lack of entitlement by families or institutions. Analysts count as many
as 90 different federal funding streams, in agencies as disparate as the IRS,
the Departments of Education, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services (Government
Accounting Office, 1989). The programs are diverse as to the form of service
they provide, the target group of children and families, and the mechanisms
which are used to allocate and disburse resources. Two other central features
of early childhood funding are that programs serve only a portion of the total
eligible families and children which fall within their definition of need, and
fiscal commitments are discretionary. Thus, local agencies continue only if
they are successful in competitive public funding. By contrast, our nation's
K–12 education system presumes that every child is entitled to a free education,
regardless of where they live or their family's income, and school districts
enjoy permanent legal status and dedicated sources of public revenue.
Along with a competitive, complex funding environment, managers face dilemmas
in designing program services and staffing systems. As detailed in research
findings cited in Chapter II, the core function of nurturing and educating young
children requires intensive, responsive practice trained, caring adults. Thus,
as described by Gwen Morgan, early childhood policy (and local management) involves
a “trilemma” of costs, access, and quality. The trilemma construct
posits conflicts among the important goals of keeping costs affordable to parents
and government, expanding access to programs, and providing quality which will
maximize the healthy development and school readiness of all children. Underlying
the trilemma is research which demonstrates that optimizing quality involves
a well-trained staff, working within a certain range of ratios of staff to clients.
Further, we know that obtaining and retaining a well-trained staff requires
competitive salaries. These facts create a set of difficult judgments for local
managers as they plan budgets and allocate resources.
We now turn to an analysis of management strategies in the realms of fundraising
and fiscal management, and leadership in program quality. We begin by describing
three strategies employed by local program leaders in raising and managing funds:
- Managers seek support for agency services from a wide variety of state
and federal programs.
- Local leaders mobilize local voluntary and private sector funds to complement
public sources of program support and to build community ownership for early
childhood services.
- The diversity of revenue sources used by early childhood agencies demands
sophisticated management skills by program directors.
Next we will outline three management strategies related to issues of program
quality:
- Local managers set the stage for program quality by crafting staffing and
compensation systems for their agencies.
- Administrators place a priority on supervision and professional development
and supervision as central strategies in building quality front-line services.
- Early childhood administrators are leaders in promoting quality services
beyond the boundaries of their own agencies.
Program Management Strategies
1. Managers seek support for programs services from a wide variety of state
and federal programs.
“About three years ago, we started facing a deficit because the Department
of Education funding was not increasing, but our costs were escalating. We
looked into diversifying our funding base and we have succeeded in a proposal
for a comprehensive child care program, and an infant and toddler center.
But today, I received a letter from the United Way announcing a potential
cut of one-third in their support, so it's like you can't take a step forward
without having to take two steps backwards. Instead of being able to focus
on the quality of our program, we're always putting out fires which threaten
our funding.”
Local managers are pressed to work on fundraising for a variety of reasons.
While many of these initiatives have expanded substantially in recent years,
most still have long waiting lists of families who would like to enroll their
children, or requests from communities to create new centers. Another cause
for fundraising is the desire to serve different types of community needs or
new client groups, such as teen parents or families with infants and toddlers.
Finally, managers need to cover increasing costs in the face of level funding
from core sources and to anticipate contingencies such as reductions or instability
in their present mix of supporters. For example, Child Development Inc. has
quadrupled its budget over the last six years, moving from nearly total reliance
on federal Head Start funds to a wider range of public, private, and parental
fee-based services. Effects of this expansion include:
Serving more children. Head Start funding currently supports 891 children,
through their other resources the agency serves more than 1,100 additional
families.
Serving a wider age span of children. While Head Start focuses on
services to three- and four-year-olds, CDI's other funding sources allow them
to provide programs for children from infancy through school age.
Serving children from families with a wider range of incomes. Head
Start eligibility is based on federal poverty guidelines, while CDI's participation
in other state and federal programs allows partially-subsidized service for
families with incomes up to $26,000, as well as openings for more affluent
families through their fee-based child care option. This shift increases the
diversity of children in classrooms and creates a greater sense of serving
entire communities, rather than only children “at-risk.”
Addressing special needs and populations. Diversifying funding allows
agencies to create new forms and components of services to meet a wider range
of family needs, as in CDI's home-based, family literacy, teen parent and
family day care home service programs.
Child Development Inc. has learned how to sustain a service strategy over time
by using different sources of funding. They have provided home-based programs
since the mid-1970s with a sequence of support including federal Head Start
funds, Arkansas-based foundations, the Department of Labor's Job Training Partnership
Act, and, most recently, the state's Act for Better Child Care Program. Similarly,
the Sheltering Arms agency has been able to access a new state department of
education preschool program to fund classrooms for four-year-olds which in prior
years absorbed United Way and other core agency funds. As the state department
of education funds have come into the agency, resources previously directed
towards this age group have been shifted towards younger children.
Directors confront a fiscal environment with elements of stability and uncertainty.
When new state or federal programs are announced (such as recent initiatives
in Kentucky and Arkansas or Project FACE in the Bureau of Indian Affairs), managers
know that their proposals will be competing with many other contenders. However,
once an agency establishes a relationship with a state or federal program, chances
are that funding will be continued in the future, assuming that performance
is satisfactory. For example, Head Start continuation funds are guaranteed for
incumbent grantees as long as they pass muster in their fiscal audits and compliance
with performance standards as assessed by external monitoring teams. However,
managers also need to be alert to signs of restructuring or new priorities within
existing funding streams. As one manager comments, the episodic nature of competition
leads to a stance of eternal “vigilance”:
“Fundraising is a big source of pressure for me. The Board of Directors
expects me to do it. I never know when one source of funds will drop off and
create a need to find new support for programs, staff, and services. For example,
coming up in our fourth year of Even Start is a shift in management from the
federal to the state level, and we're worried that this will increase the
competition for those funds. Another huge change we weathered was when the
state changed its system for funding child care from provider contracts to
individual vouchers. We thought the change would wipe us out, but we've ended
up with four times as much revenue as we had under the contract system.”
Administrators employ a variety of strategies in raising money. They seek involvement
in state, regional, and national conferences, advisory groups, and proposal
review assignments to learn about potential new sources of revenue and the interests
of decision makers. They create collaborative relationships, learn to accept
a pattern of hits and misses in submitting proposals, and take the view that
persistence will eventually be rewarded:
“Our literacy coordinator served on a health committee in Dardanelle
some six years ago, looking at teen pregnancy problems. We tried to fund a
project through a federal Sex Equity program and then through vocational education
as a nontraditional school. Neither of those routes panned out, so we are
now using those ideas and relationships to approach a new Rockefeller Foundation
initiative.”
The combination of a varied set of funding sources and entrepreneurial local
managers leads to a developmental pattern as agencies mature, beginning with
initiation through a single state or federal program, and expanding to offer
a more diverse array of services by gaining access to a wider range of public
and private funding sources. Examples of the initial pattern of funding include
FACE initiatives, depending on Bureau of Indian Affairs support, and Covington,
which relies primarily on state department of education dollars. More mature
agencies include Child Development, Inc. with 15 different funding sources,
Inn-Circle, with some 20 federal, state and local “investors,” and
Sheltering Arms, with dozens of private and public contributors. Elaine Draeger,
Executive Director at Sheltering Arms, explains an added benefit of diversified
funding, which is greater local autonomy in designing program services and definitions
of program quality:
“Other agencies ask how we can afford to provide our range of services
and level of quality. Our position is you don't design your program based
on the resources which are available; rather you go out and raise funds to
support your vision of quality. And you realize that no single funding source
will do it.”
Programs in this study seek to go “beyond the usual suspects” in
seeking early childhood funding. Agencies are seeking support from economic
development agencies, job training and vocational education programs, and welfare
reform initiatives. For example, the Inn-Circle enterprise illustrates the potential
for expanding early childhood services within a larger community development/family
service strategy. The largest funding source for Inn-Circle is HUD's Supplemental
Assistance to Aid the Homeless fund. Child care for the preschool population
is funded by a combination of Head Start, state at-risk child care funds, state
department of education preschool program, and the Child Care and Development
Block Grant program. Head Start funds two family living counselors for the overall
adult development strategy; a Department of Human Service Family Protection
Fund supports additional home visiting staff for Head Start.
By selecting agencies known for their quality and innovativeness, this study
uncovered many success stories in fundraising. However, even these experienced,
relentless marketing experts encounter difficulties. For example, a coalition
of foundations in Northern California gave birth to the Parent Services Project
(PSP) strategy and continued their support over a substantial time span to refine
program strategies, conduct an impact evaluation, and create materials and strategies
to disseminate the model in other settings. PSP Director Ethel Seiderman and
colleagues led three successful campaigns to pass legislation for state funding,
but the bills were vetoed by three different governors. PSP has experienced
good success in funding from national foundations to replicate their model in
other states and communities. However, some of the original program sites have
struggled in efforts to sustain a full range of PSP family support services.
The competitive funding market can also have a detrimental effect on relationships
among different community agencies serving young children. The Covington program
and several FACE sites have experienced some tensions in relationships with
Head Start, due to competition for similar target groups of families.
2. Managers mobilize local voluntary and private sector funds to complement
state and federal program support and to enhance community ownership of early
childhood services.
All agencies in this study involve parents in fundraising to help supplement
budgets, to give parents the opportunity to contribute to the agency, and to
develop organizational and social skills which strengthen parents as potential
employees and community members. Child Development, Inc. keeps accounts on roughly
$1 million in various forms of in-kind contributions and volunteer services
each year. Covington draws the majority of its nonworking parents into its substantial
training program in how to volunteer in an early childhood classroom, and receives
over 3,000 days of volunteer service annually. Inn-Circle operates its infant-toddler
child care center as a parent cooperative, since public funds are insufficient
to provide quality staffing for the range of hours of operation which parents
require.
Agencies also draw on local community resources to complement state and federal
program resources. For example, Inn-Circle has also placed a premium on soliciting
resources and contributions from local groups, to give residents a stake in
the initiative and exposure to the problems of homelessness. Local companies
and voluntary organizations were invited to donate $2,000 in cash or 1,000 hours
in volunteer time to cover renovation costs of a single apartment unit. Sponsor
organizations are recognized by plaques on the doors of each apartment.
The Jersey City early childhood initiative was begun with state department
of education resources, but has expanded primarily through increased allocations
of local school funds for staffing and facilities. The first year (1989–1990)
enrollment of 150 children was funded by New Jersey's Urban Preschool Pilot
Program, but by 1992 local district funds were supporting 310 slots while the
state dollars covered only 99 children. Program Coordinator Pat Noonan helped
build the case for local funding by holding a highly publicized annual lottery
for parents seeking to enroll their children in her program. Another important
strategic decision was to allow all children in the community to be eligible
to participate in locally funded classrooms. The lottery began in 1990, when
350 families applied to enroll in four classrooms funded by the local school
district. In recent years, more than 700 parents have applied to participate
in the district program, which offers approximately 300 slots. This method assures
parents that decisions are made on an equitable basis, but it also dramatizes
the demand for early care and education to community and school leadership.
The Jersey City school district has also made major investments in facilities,
including $300,000 to renovate two apartments in a public housing project to
use as classrooms. Similarly, the Covington Public Schools spent $1.8 million
to purchase and renovate a facility for its early childhood program and the
school system provides in-kind fiscal management, transportation, and maintenance
services to the program.
The Sheltering Arms agency illustrates the potential of a sophisticated strategy
to draw on corporate and private sector resources. As a founding member of the
United Way, the agency has a history of connections with corporate leaders and
local foundations. They employ a former board member as a consultant to seek
out resources from local foundations and corporations, a task which involves
some 64 different businesses, 26 local foundations, and more than $350,000 in
funds in 1993. Sheltering Arms uses its United Way funding to support its central
administrative operation and for a scholarship fund which bridges the gap between
the rates of reimbursement from public vouchers and parental fees and the costs
of Sheltering Arms services. Scholarships are awarded to all but 80 of the agency's
1,300 families, ranging from a $10 per week subsidy for families earning above
$50,000 per year and upwards to $75 per week for families with incomes below
$11,000 annually, against average tuition rates of $100 per week. Sheltering
Arms helped to initiate a particularly innovative public-private partnership
among area corporations, the United Way and the state's welfare reform initiative,
Positive Employment and Community Help (PEACH). Corporate funds were solicited
to increase the state government's ability to draw on matching funds for child
care from the federal government. From the private sector $150,000 was donated
through the United Way to county human service offices, allowing an increase
of roughly $400,000 in child care services following the federal matching contribution.
Sheltering Arms served an additional 53 children through this arrangement and
also trained 12 PEACH participants for employment in child care.
Several managers in these programs spend considerable time working to raise
funds to purchase or construct facilities, concentrating on HUD and economic
development funding sources as well as local corporations. The agency gains
more attractive and appropriate space and reduces costs for renting or leasing
space from other owners (e.g., Sheltering Arms spent $250,000 to rent facilities
in 1993).
Private sector resources offer an income stream to complement parental fees
and public funding and create important community connections with early childhood
services. On the other hand, the success of individual agencies has not led
to community-wide improvements in the quality and availability of early childhood
services. For example, while the United Way of metropolitan Atlanta funds a
variety of child care agencies, they cannot afford to subsidize every early
childhood program to the extent that they support Sheltering Arms.
3. The diversity of revenue sources used by early childhood agencies demands
sophisticated management skills by program directors.
Early childhood managers contend with a “hassle factor” of administrative
complexity and a “hustle factor” of competition in dealing with the
current constellation of early childhood funding streams. Diversification of
funding sources creates administrative complexity as an agency creates commitment
to multiple sources, each with different timelines, reporting and refunding
requirements, definitions of eligibility, and standards for allowable and quality
services. Administrators need to juggle the requirements of different external
funders, and work to prevent he possibility of balkanizing the overall agency
mission and fragmenting services.
When early childhood agencies capture resources from parent fees, a voucher
system managed by their local department of welfare, Head Start funding from
a federal regional office, contributions from local corporations, and United
Way funds, managers must learn the intricacies of very different systems of
funding, as well as how to combine resources in supporting common program services.
These challenges begin with recruitment of families, determining eligibility
for the funding source which is most relevant to family needs and most advantageous
to the program:
“Our biggest frustration is figuring out how to help families work through
the different requirements and eligibility standards for all the different
child care funding streams. We need more systematized eligibility. Why can't
a family have one case manager for PEACH, Transitional Child Care, Title IVA
At-Risk Child Care, food stamps, and the Child Care Block Grant? Right now,
the different case workers don't even talk to each other.”
Since agencies combine children from different programs in the same classrooms,
managers also need to calculate the overall mix of funding sources across a
center:
“I look at the amount of income from different human service child care
voucher programs that each center was able to earn last year, then plug in
the likely contributions from parental fees. Then I work with the numbers
so that I can provide the maximum amount of scholarships for those families
who are most at risk and still balance my budget. Each center director receives
an annual budget which we track through a weekly report on revenue and enrollment.
We make adjustments in staffing patterns and hours based on enrollment and
if a family is really in a bind, we will know if we can lower their fee temporarily
and still be okay.”
Fee-based revenue sources, such as child care vouchers and parental fee income
require careful monitoring by program managers:
“Child care voucher reimbursement rates vary by county, based on the
average rates charged by centers in each county. Since we maintain the same
salary scale and staffing pattern in all centers, we ‘make’ or ‘lose’
money in different sites due to differential rates. Each voucher must be billed
individually and we must be on time with our reports or we'll go broke in
a hurry!”
Administering multiple categorical programs also creates complications in the
areas of supervising staff and services:
“The Department of Human Services will not reimburse us for the costs
of all the services we provide in Head Start, and families who pay fees aren't
going to pay for all these things either. So our assessment system for upper
income families only covers basic health and child development questions,
while Head Start families are asked for more detailed information on social
service and other family needs and goals.”
Different programs also have different standards for quality services in areas
such as staff credentials and staffing patterns. For example, Head Start's guidelines
for home-based early childhood services call for a staff to family ratio of
1:10, the Even Start program allows ratios of 1:20, and Arkansas's state early
childhood initiative uses a standard of 1:15.
Finally, directors struggle to maintain an overarching sense of mission among
staff funded from a variety of sources:
“We need to work hard to keep our staff cohesive under the CDI umbrella.
We learned in the early 1970s in demonstration projects that the ‘feds’
try to split you off by having separate conferences, technical assistance,
and guidelines. We stress teamwork through common staff training, our overall
mission statement, and using a single director for each center who manages
staff funded from different programs.”
4. Program managers set the stage for program quality by crafting staffing
patterns and compensation systems for their agencies.
The most crucial choices of local managers involve setting up staffing and
compensation systems. These choices are shaped by external mandates in staff/child
ratios, credentials, and service components, and indirectly by rates of funding.
However, local administrators have considerable discretion in how they meet
standards for the quality, frequency, and intensity of services.
“Our staffing strategy has been to not hire custodians or bus drivers—nor
do we have a large staff of family service workers at the center level. We
expect the center staff to do more things and then we can pay them more.”
Projects also vary in the caseloads they set for family support staff and their
approach to the dimension of intensity of services, e.g., policies on the frequency
of home visits.
Agencies also take different approaches in levels of compensation and credentials
for staff members. For example, Covington, Kentucky school district's partnership
with Children, Inc., calls for the child care agency to hire, supervise, and
pay the classroom staff, using a compensation system which is less costly than
the salaries and fringe benefits paid by the school district. Teachers under
the Children, Inc. subcontract earn $18,250 per year (rates similar to those
paid to staff under Children, Inc.'s other child care programs). In contrast,
a special education teacher is carried at a salary level of $24,752 on the Board
of Education's portion of the budget. This arrangement has allowed Covington
to devote more resources to parent training and activities—a choice which
they believe has increased the effectiveness of their center. By contrast, in
Jersey City, the school district compensates preschool teachers on the same
salary schedule as regular elementary school staff members.
Another factor in the design of compensation systems is the market of opportunities
for staff offered in other early childhood agencies, as noted by a local child
care director:
“Our salaries are not commensurate with schools or other agencies. Within
the past two years I have lost several key employees to Head Start, which
has caused a lot of consternation. They can work part-time for Head Start
and make as much or more than they make working full-time in our centers.”
Another major challenge for managers administering multiple programs is how
to resolve disparities in rates of reimbursement as they affect staff compensation.
For example, for Child Development, Inc., their per child revenue from child
care vouchers is substantially less generous than Head Start funding rates.
In response, they have created an eight-tiered system of teaching staff positions,
with wages ranging from $4.30 to $11.20 per hour, with categories at the lower
levels supported by child care voucher revenue (capped at roughly $6.50/hour),
and the higher paid positions via Head Start. New staff members tend to enter
employment at the lower levels of qualifications and move up the ladders over
time. This strategy allows teachers to continue working in one agency and allows
CDI to retain experienced staff. However it has the detrimental effect of creating
higher rates of staff turnover in infant-toddler classrooms funded from child
care voucher revenue.
5. Administrators place a priority on professional development and supervision
as central strategies in building quality front-line services.
The skills and dedication of staff members are the lifeblood of early childhood
services. For example, the FACE program in Torreon, New Mexico serves many teenage
mothers with a staff of home visitors who are young mothers from the community.
They serve as credible role models when they encourage parents to pursue an
education. They go the extra mile in recruiting families who lack telephones
and they brave difficult road conditions to reach homes every week:
“One mom's house was cold and she had young kids and a baby, so we brought
her a truckload of wood, which we chopped ourselves.”
This level of commitment can't be defined by a job description or inculcated
in a training package. However, agency systems for hiring, training, supervising,
and managing staff are a key lever in influencing program quality.
“Sheltering Arms is good to their employees; they treat us as professionals.
It's important for parents and children to have continuity in relationships,
so it's important for the staff to not be gypsies. The training the staff
receive keeps them feeling valued, gives them a reason to stay, and helps
them work better in different situations.”
Each early childhood program provides substantial staff development because
many staff members enter the field without extensive college training or certification.
The prevalence of on-the-job training and a career ladder approach to staffing
distinguishes most early childhood programs from the public schools:
“It's very difficult to hire staff with teaching certification at the
salaries we're able to pay. Either we have people who are almost overqualified
in education, but lacking experience with young children, or they don't even
have a high school diploma. So we've developed our own in-service training
program that essentially allows us to take individuals with little prior training
and within two years to qualify them for a Child Development Associate (CDA)
credential. We've also used the CDA strategy with staff who had been with
us for many years and had participated in years of training, but who had earned
no credential.”
Even those agencies that rely on certified teachers include extensive professional
development, as can be seen in the example of Jersey City Public Schools. New
Jersey's present teacher credentialing system includes a birth-grade eight certificate,
which has led to job candidates with little experience in working with children
below the age of five. Accordingly, staff in the Jersey City program participate
in at least 10 days of training per year, including a week-long summer institute.
Agency managers attempt to optimize their use of training resources from across
different programs and funding streams:
“We try to coordinate training agency-wide. For example, we have three
major infant-toddler programs with staff in different locations. The Parent-Child
Center funding provides the most generous support for professional development,
so we open all their events to the entire staff. For home visitors, every
other Friday we have a full day of training on topics like paperwork, personal
skills, child abuse, spouse abuse, or problems such as a father making sexual
advances. We've also started a mentor system among our 10 home visitors who
are funded by Head Start.”
Early childhood programs also support staff and strengthen program quality
through oversight and support from peers and supervisors. Agencies also use
their experienced teachers as mentors for newer staff. Evaluations are carried
out by local center directors, based on an observational system which teachers
also use to rate themselves and their peers. Smaller programs such as FACE have
the advantage of working with a small staff team in small communities. Weekly
staff meetings of a half-dozen people allow a high level of exchange of information
about children and parents and opportunities to make decisions collaboratively.
Larger agencies have a more complex challenge to provide oversight and consistency
in a large number of geographically dispersed centers. For example, Sheltering
Arms has a small central office team of eight people to oversee its network
of 11 local centers, with a total of more than 200 staff members:
“When I first came here we had only three or four centers and now we
are about to have 12. So it's difficult to observe regularly at each site.
The majority of my time is spent doing centralized training. We try to use
surveys and observational checklists to see if our training is making a difference.
However, center directors are the primary people who work with teachers in
implementing the education program.”
Child Development, Inc. uses a similar approach and also supports consistency
in program quality through a voluminous procedures manual, containing forms
and guidelines for functions, ranging from recruitment to behavior management
to food services. They balance the values of consistency and flexibility through
emphasizing the role of local site managers:
“Our current emphasis is to give center directors and home visitor supervisors
more management responsibility. We eliminated a tier of center supervisors
from our central office and used the savings to increase salaries of center
directors. We work one-on-one with them as much as possible, emphasizing leadership
development through modeling a coaching perspective. If we see recurrent patterns
of problems, we try to ask why.”
The central staff includes specialists in component areas such as health, mental
health, education, special education, and family support. This team works to
oversee and support the local site managers:
“We have a weekly meeting of all coordinators, reviewing each center
which has been visited with observations on strengths or concerns. We use
a written form to follow up with center directors. Once a month we meet with
the center directors and hear from them and every year we have a management
retreat for about 50 managers and supervisors.”
Covington operates with an innovative dual management team and deals with a
staff which has increased from 23 to 50 members in the first year. A two-day
planning retreat is held annually to involve all the staff in creating a framework
of program needs, priorities and a calendar of major events. The program holds
weekly staff meetings to provide a mixture of information, inspiration and group
decision making. In addition, family advocates and teachers meet weekly for
lunch to discuss observations and information about individual children and
their parents. Covington also involves staff members in planning and decision
making. For example, when the Superintendent wanted to pilot a new computer
and software system, he met with the staff to ask their views.
6. Early childhood administrators are leaders in promoting quality services
beyond the boundaries of their own agencies.
As busy and difficult as their jobs are, many of the program directors included
in this study contribute to improving early childhood practice in wider realms.
Sheltering Arms in Atlanta has created the IN TRAINING subsidiary to disseminate
curriculum materials and provide training and technical assistance to staff
from 400 early childhood programs in Georgia and neighboring states. The Parent
Services Project has developed training materials and a dissemination strategy
to support spread of the PSP program in other communities and settings. Foundation
funding has led to implementation of PSP strategies in family child care, Head
Start, public school, and teenage parent programs in five states.
Local managers also serve their profession and spread their ideas and influence
through a variety of personal contributions. They serve as officers and board
members in state, regional, and national organizations, they deliver conference
presentations, serve on monitoring teams, review proposals, and participate
in research and evaluation projects. Chris Carman and colleagues at Inn-Circle
have written several articles and position papers to share principles and strategies
with colleagues; Colleen Alivado and several staff members have been tapped
as part of a cadre of peer trainers to work with newly-funded FACE projects;
Elaine Draeger contributes to United Way strategies and standards which influence
other child care agencies in the Atlanta area. For example, all early childhood
agencies funded by the area United Way were charged with developing a collective
approach to addressing program assessment:
“The United Way proposed to use a pretest/posttest design to assess
children's progress, so we went through a long process explaining the weaknesses
of that design for young children. Our push from the beginning was to utilize
NAEYC's Center Accreditation standards. Initially there was hostility to our
proposal, but in the end we agreed on a goal for all agencies to be accredited
within three years.”
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