Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Observing and Interacting With Families of the Children in Your Setting


     As mentioned in my previous Blog posts, my internship is at Matrix Human Services in Detroit Michigan which services children from birth to adults and seniors 100 plus years of age.  I have met with the Director/Vice President of Education, one of her Assistant Directors, the Disability Specialist and the Nutrition Specialist.  In this module, I have learned about the Outcomes Data that they compiled for Time 2 for the 2011 – 2012 program year.  It appears that the data that was compiled from the teachers collecting data using the High Scope Child Observation Record (COR) and anecdotal notes.  The data showed a high gain of .87% in most domains areas and include physical health and development language, literacy, approaches to learning, science, social studies, math, creative arts, social studies, and social and emotional development.   The Disability Specialist went over the results from the Brigance Screening results and the Response to Intervention plan.  She continues to struggle with get about 144 children she has about half of them.  She said that she has been in this position for many years and finally got a waiver.  Because my research is on Childhood Obesity and that is where my advocacy action plan will be next quarter, I went back to the Nutrition Specialist to see if there were any new concerns in the Nutrition Content area and she said that she has been so busy seeking new grant opportunities that she was not focused or had not done any additional work on her Childhood Obesity project.  Further, when I asked about the Wigglers Win project, she said that the grant was over and it was sponsored by Weight Watchers, Chef Isabella from Weight Watchers and Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  She because the director wanted to keep the program that she does it once a month as the Family Night activity.  In the Wigglers Win project the children were initially selected based on the Height and Weight Growth Charts and includes the BMI and her assessment of the child’s Nutrition History form from the enrollment.  Other people that I interacted with in the past two weeks was the Vice President of Marketing who is trying to Brand the Matrix name in an effort to get the community to know them by their logo which is a triple heart symbol.  There are about 20 programs under the Matrix umbrella which includes a run-a-way shelter, senior program, mental health services and the Head Start program.  I also interacted with a few parents who are involved in the policy making body and their concerns as to the direction of the program and fears that the program will lose its quality services because of the re-competition of programs who have areas of the non-compliance based on a number of factors. 
     From this experience, I learned that the Nutrition Content area has a lot of aspects that I was not aware of all of the components that make up the Nutrition Content area.  I understand that changing the dairy products to low fat and going from homogenized milk to 2% to skim milk was the nutritionist way of slowly cutting down on fluid milk.  She further provides the parents with what the children will be eating for breakfast and lunch and snack in an effort to allow them to allow her to make changes based on need.  Some of the things that she has done is changed the menu for a child who has food allergies when accompanied by doctor’s  note on recommendation;  she also makes food substitutions based on religion, one of the things that she does is maybe provide a peanut butter, tuna or cheese sandwich for children who does not eat beef.  Another insight that I gained is that when a company is trying to get their company name in the community, they put the companies’ main name in the individual program name in an effort for the community to know them by their name, logo and quality services.


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Interacting with the Program Director(s) and Other Administrative Staff


    For the past 2 weeks, I have been interacting with the Program Director/Vice President of Education Ms. D. Spring of Matrix Human Services.  This agency has been in operation for over 100 years per Ms. Spring.  She stated that when the program is at full capacity, the youngest person served is in the womb and the oldest person is ninety plus.  She said that she is not at full capacity because she lost one of her programs due to the loss of funding.  It was a program that targeted Hispanic pregnant females and children under one year old but was open to anyone.  The reason that Hispanic females was its targeted group was because many on=f them only spoke Spanish and that was they found the need to be the greatest.  She thought that it would be fitting to first give me the things that were accomplished in 2011 and they are as follows:
1)      They launched a CDA program in 2009 which was to assist Assistant Teachers in meeting the new Head Start mandates that will take effect in 2013.  She stated that it will be coming to a close sometime in June with 90% of the attendees nearing successful completion.  For the benefit of those who may not know what a (CDA) Child Development Associate is  a credential that certifies that associates meet professional standards in early childhood care and education (http://www.ehow.com/facts_5554229_cda-credentials.html#ixzz1mP8MXTb8).

2)      She was also particularly proud of the fact that since her program has begun a child tracking system that there is 100% of the data into the system making it easier to do reports and access statistical information.  Some of the statistical information that they now have access to is a child’s average daily attendance which is significant because the Head Start program is required to maintain 85% of its daily attendance on a daily basis.

3)      A monitoring system has been put into place to measure the accuracy and efficiency of the delivery of services to families.  Ms. Spring stated that this system keeps her program centers in compliance with federal, state and local regulations.

4)      Finally, she thought that their community outreach efforts provide sharing of space and resources to collaborate on community events.  One such event was their 2nd Annual Trunk or Treat (instead of Trick or Treat) which is family friendly activity that is a recruiting event for her program on or around Halloween.
We also talked about the fact that all of her administrative team is required to a senator, city of Detroit, council person to allow them to keep such persons abreast of the issues and concerns of the Head Start Program to assist them with how to proceed with advocacy issues in the future.  She is greatly concerned with the Head Start Programs in the City of Detroit, Michigan.  Therefore, she is considering being in the running of the re-competition by writing her own grant to ensure that the Head Start programs stay in the City of Detroit. I like the way she seeks the input of her administrative team in an effort to look at their area of expertise and consider how it should look, thus allowing individuality take the forefront because all centers have their own culture.

     I also spoke briefly to the Nutrition Specialist of this program and asked if she had any insights or considerations that I should explore on my topic Childhood Obesity.  She has family nights once a month to deliver new information and meal and snack suggestions and/or food demonstration.  She has several demonstrations from Chef Isabella from Weight Watchers.  She started this program to break the cycle of Childhood Obesity.

     In conclusion, I have gained a wealth of resources as she gave me some information on some websites that would assist me in writing my paper.  She started the Wigglers Win from a grant she wrote after she assessed the obesity of the nearly 1400 children in the Head Start program.  It started in 2010 or 2012 and has gotten some positive feedback from families.  I have learned that being a Program Director is often a job with a lot of responsibility and complications and decisions that affect the lives of many.