Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

A PARTNERSHIP AT WORK

The Scene

You are in Central City, USA, where the Head Start program, Central Child and Family Services (CCFS), has decided to form a partnership with a Central City child care center to provide full-day, year-round, comprehensive services for 40 children beginning in September, 2000. In the next few hours, you will be living in this partnership. You’ll assume the role of a key program manager to help you experience the ups and downs, joys and frustrations, and immediate tasks of a community early education partnership being developed to better meet the needs of today’s children and families.

THE HEAD START PROGRAM

? CCFS, a Head Start program that has operated for over 20 years, serves 300 three-and four-year-old children in a part-day program in six centers (three in Central City and three spread throughout Central County). They are a program known across the county for their high-quality services to children and families and for their capacity to promote professional development among their staff through a link with the local community college. Although in the past they have had excellent parent participation in classroom activities, since more and more of the program’s parents are now working or in training during the school day, this involvement has dwindled.

The recent community assessment confirmed what the program management team, staff, board of directors, and policy council already surmised: nearly 60% of all parents enrolled in the program or on waiting lists need full-day or off-hour child care services because they are working or enrolled in training or education programs. The Head Start program has decided that beginning September 2000, they will serve 30 children in full-day, full-year Head Start through a contract with a Central City child care center. The CCFS management team and board expect that this partnership will begin to solve some of the families’ full-day, full-year needs, as well as to address the need for additional classroom space as the program continues to expand.

In January 2000, CCFS issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) and selected one center that was interested in developing a Head Start-child care partnership program—Sunshine Day Nursery.


SUNSHINE DAY NURSERY

Sunshine Day Nursery is the oldest child care program in Central City. It is a non-profit agency that was originally established to serve low-income children through a combination of state subsidies, a sliding-scale income fee schedule for parents, and United Way funding. They serve 150 preschool children, in both part- and full-day programs. They have a long history of serving Hispanic families (40-60% of their families in a given year). Because of the program’s diverse and bilingual staff, Sunshine is the community program that Hispanic families have traditionally come to for child care.

Although United Way funding has enabled them to address some families’ social service and health needs, recent efforts have been minimal due to funding decreases. Through United Way funding, the center has employed a full-time MSW to work with families on various social service issues. Recent financial difficulty and the decrease in United Way funding has resulted in the elimination of this position, although the director has assumed some of these responsibilities.

Although professional development has been challenging for them due to the long hours and days teachers work, Sunshine prides itself on the fact that one-third of their teachers has degrees in early childhood and two other teachers have their CDA. Sunshine Day Nursery has begun the process of NAEYC accreditation this year.

Sunshine Day Nursery proposes to serve 30 Head Start children at one of their sites beginning in September 2000.

INSTRUCTIONS

Over the next hour or so you will be involved in three situations that will focus on planning and developing the partnerships between Central Child and Family Services Head Start (CCFS) and Sunshine Day Nursery. You will pose questions, solve problems, develop points for the other group to consider, and negotiate with each other to develop the best possible partnerships to launch in September.

Remember, partnerships are hard work, but can result in many rewards—and fun!



Scene One: Identifying Issues (15 minutes)



Scene Two: Identifying Roles & Resources (15 minutes)



Scene Three: Negotiating Solutions (20 minutes)



Curtain Call: Reviewing Performance and Learnings (15 minutes)












SCENE ONE: IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES (15 minutes)

YOU ARE THE CENTRAL CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES (CCFS) HEAD START MANAGEMENT TEAM


Task 1: Assign any roles you think are appropriate—Head Start director, education coordinator,
etc. (3 minutes.) Make sure everyone has a role.


Task 2: Choose a meeting facilitator and recorder. (1 minute)


Task 3: Determine the following as you begin to plan your partnership with the local child care
center—Sunshine Day Nursery.


1. What strengths/assets does CCFS Head Start bring to this partnership?





2. What strengths/assets does Sunshine Day Nursery bring?





3. What programmatic areas might you need to consider differently as a result of the partnership?





4. What might be your program’s biggest challenge as you enter into partnership?





5. What does the partnership need to provide to solve these issues? What do you hope to gain?




SCENE ONE: IDENTIFYING THE ISSUES (15 minutes)

YOU ARE THE SUNSHINE DAY NURSERY LEADERSHIP TEAM



Task 1: Assign any roles you think are appropriate—executive director, head teacher, board
member, parent, etc. (3 minutes.) Make sure everyone has a role.


Task 2: Choose a meeting facilitator and recorder. (1 minute)


Task 3: Determine the following and you begin to plan your partnership with the local Head
Start program.


1. What strengths/assets does Sunshine Day Nursery bring to this partners





2. What strengths/assets does Head Start bring?





3. What programmatic areas might you need to consider differently as a result of the partnership?





4. What might be your program’s biggest challenge as you enter into partnership?





5. What does the partnership need to provide to solve these issues? What do you hope to gain?




SCENE TWO: IDENTIFYING ROLES & RESOURCES
(15 minutes)


Identify one of your issues that can be solved within your program internally.



· What are the possible causes?






· What are some possible solutions?






· What might we do differently?






· What resources are needed to solve the issue?






· How shall we discuss this issue with our partner? What negotiation strategies might we employ? What’s our bottom line?








SCENE THREE: NEGOTIATING SOLUTIONS (20 minutes)


For the next 20 minutes, you, the Head Start Management Team and Sunshine Day Nursery’s leaders will meet to problem solve and negotiate around the issues identified as most pressing.

Task 1: Assign someone to report back to the larger group


Task 2: Present your issues and ideas


Task 3: Develop specific steps to take/clarify expectations—who will do what, what resources are needed, how will you identify accomplishments, and what timeframes will you establish?
CURTAIN CALL: REVIEWING THE PERFORMANCE & LEARNINGS

Answer the following:


What were some of your internal solutions?
What did you choose to negotiate?
What was most intimidating about entering into negotiations with the partner?
What were the results of your negotiation?
Do you feel you were successful? Why or why not?
What do you think your team needs to do next?
In reflecting on the negotiation, what would you have done differently?
Did the negotiations result in greater clarity for all?
Did you feel the negotiations resulted in a win-win for all?
How can you apply the learnings from this exercise to your partnership work back home?