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.