DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 087 530 PS 006 908

AUTHOR Manthe, Karen, Ed.TITLE A Symposium on Field Staff Training for Home-Based

Early Childhood Education (Washington, D.C., March18-20, 1973). Proceedings Report.

INSTITUTION Appalachia Educational Lab., Charleston, W. Va.SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (DREW), Washington, D.C..PUB DATE Mar 73NOTE 99p.

EDRS PRICEDESCRIPTORS

MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29Adult Vocational Education; *Child Care Centers;*Child Care Workers; *Child Development Specialists;*Educational Opportunities; Family Role; Lower ClassParents; *Low Income Groups; Paraprofessional SchoolPersonnel; Parent Child Relationship; ParentResponsibility; Parent School Relationship; PovertyPrograms; Supervisory Training

ABSTRACTThe major focus of the conference described in this

report was an attempt to refine responses to three questions: (1)

What qualities should be required for Family Day Care Consultants andhome visitors? (2) How can we develop these qualities throughtraining? and (3) How can we locate the resources we need to get thetraining done as it should be? In view of the recent research whichseems to overwhelmingly confirm the gains made through-home basedearly childhood education, emphais was placed on the need tometiculously choose and train the Family Day Care Consultant. Thereport contains presentations by 10 symposium participants. (CS)

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LL.1 A Symposium On Field Staff Training

?or Home-Based Early Childhood Education

Cover/Barbara Lee of the State Training Office,

Cheyney (Pa.) State College, an absorbed participant in

Appalachia Educational Laboratory's Symposium

On Field Staff Training For Home-Based

Early Childhood Education.

Credits/Editor, Karen Manthe

Artist, Merrill Wassum

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Proceedings Report

A SYMPOSIUM

ON FIELD STAFF TRAINING

FOR HOME-BASED

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

March 18-20, 1973

Sponsored By

APPALACHIA EDUCATIONALLABORATORY, INC.

P.O. BOX 1348CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA

Introduction

By Freida Gregory

AI.

iii

If any of us involved in home-based earlychildhood programs were ever faint-hearted orskeptical about the rightness of this approach,surely the publicity given it recently has beencomforting to us. Rare is the educational jour-nal which doesn't have, at the very least, astrong commendation of the home-based concept- -even if the concept is sometimes treated as ifit were a new one.

We have even been discovered by the laypress, most comprehensively, perhaps, in theMarch 10, 1973, issue of Saturday Review. Indeed,if the agencies we represent had as many sourcesof funding as they have had published endorse-ments, then they would not be well-loved only,but exceedingly well-off.

We can either use this no-doubttransitorystate of celebrity as an excuse to hold galas ofself-congratulation, or we can use it to provideourselves a temperate climate in which we areable to define what we want to do and refine ourways of doing it. This symposium, held in Wash-ington, D. C. March 18, 20, 1973, presupposedwe should do the latter.

Appalachia Educational Laboratory, my homebase, has been working with parents and childrenat home for the past five years as part of itspreschool education system. It was less ourforesight than -"-e. geographical and financiallimitations of our region which caused us to usethis approach. Conditions virtually demanded wego to the child instead of bringing the child tous.

iv But in the course of using this approach, welearned from our research that there were suchnotable gains being made for children in the home

that we could not help but conclude that home wasnot just another kind of school, but rather a

special kind of school. More recent studiesexamining the longitudinal effects have, of course,emphasized the lasting gains attributable tohome efforts.

Because so much can be done in the home todirect and develop children, we must be meticulousin choosing and training the people who actuallywill go into the homes and whose performanceswill determine our organizations' success or lack

of it. It will require particularly sensitive andresponsive people to reach the child and parentin their natural environment.

It was impossible to pull together for thesymposium all of the people involved closely in

home-based early childhood education programs.But we tried to get a fair representation of this

field's richness and variety.

During the meeting we all encountered newideas and new twists; and we learned somethingof the people behind the different programs anddiffering philosophies. But the major outcomeof the conference was reasoned responses to thesethree questions:

(1) What qualities should be required ofhome visitors?

(2) How can we develop these qualitiesthrough training?

(3) How can we locate the resources weneed to get the training done as itshould be?

The picture is drawn.Let's start coloring it.

Symposium Participants

Dr. Roy Alford, Acting DirectorEarly Childhood EducationAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Mr. J. D. AndrewsNAEYC1834 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.Washington, D. C. 2Ci09

Ms. Kathie BrileyInformation OfficerAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Ms. Jane DeWeerdEducation Program SpecialistHandicapped Children's Early Childhood

Education ProgramBureau of the Handicapped400 Maryland Avenue, S. W.Washington, D. C. 20202

Ms. Joyce Farmer, DirectorAssociation of Day Care AgenciesMcCallie AvenueChattanooga, Tennessee 37403

Dr. James L. GonzalesEducation Commission of the StatesSuite 300-B, 2480 W. 26th AvenueDiamond HillDenver, Colorado 80211

Ms. Freida GregoryEarly Childhood Education ProgramAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Dr. Barry Guinagh520 Well HallInstitute for Development of Human

ResourcesCollege of EducationUniversity of FloridaGainesville, Florida

V

Dr. Bettye JenningsEarly Childhood Education ProgramAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Ms. Elizabeth KellyTARCOG2603-C LemanFerry Road, S. W.Huntsville, Alabama 35801

Dr. Jenny Klein, Project DirectorChild Development Associate ProgramOffice of Child DevelopmentP. O. Box 1182Washington, D. C. 20013

Mr. Dale KochState Training OfficeCalifornia State CollegeCalifornia, Pennsylvania 15419

Mr. W. Stanley KrugerSpecial Program DirectorBureau of Elementary and Secondary

EducationU. S. Office of Education400 Maryland Avenue, S. W.Washington, D. C. 20202

Ms. Barbara LeeState Training OfficeP. O. Box 129Cheyney State CollegeCheyney, Pennsylvania 19319

Ms. Pat Levin, DirectorLehigh Valley Child Development Program520 E. Broad StreetBethlehem, Pennsylvania 18042

Dr. Kathleen McNellis, DirectorOffice of Career Development1507 University, S. E.Room 300Minneapolis, Minnesota

vi

Ms. Karen Manthe, WriterAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Ms. Sonia MatlickBeekman Center for Mentally RetardedEast Lansing, Michigan

Dr. J. Michael O'MalleyNational Institute of EducationCode 600Washington, D. C. 20202

Ms. Carol OsborneOffice of Child DevelopmentDepartment of Health, Education,

and Welfare, Region III50 7th Street, N. E.Atlanta, Georgia 30323

Ms. Marion ParrSupervisor, Special EducationRoom 133-34Cordell Hull BuildingNashville, Tennessee 37219

Ms. Sandra Rooks, TeacherTARCOG2603-C LemanFerry Road, S. W.Huntsville, Alabama 35801

Ms. Barbara RuffinoKirscher Institute700 7th Street, S. W.Washington, D. C. 20024

Dr. Frank SandersDirector of PlanningAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP. O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Ms. Sara SherrellSupervisor, Early Childhood EducationTennessee Department of EducationP. O. Box 5077 TTUCookeville, Tennessee 38501

Mr. John A. Shultz, DirectorDivision of Family Resources702 Forestry TowersWest Virginia UniversityMorgantown, West Virginia 26506

Ms. Marilyn Smith, Executive DirectorNAEYC1834 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.Washington, D. C. 20009

Dr. George TrouttEarly Childhood Education ProgramAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP.O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Dr. Paul Vicinanza, DirectorOffice of Child DevelopmentDepartment of Health, Education,and Welfare, Region III

P.O. Box 13716Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19101

Mr. Rob Roy WaltersDirector of DiffusionAppalachia Educational LaboratoryP.O. Box 1348Charleston, West Virginia 25325

Ms. Jeanne WaltonRegional Training SpecialistDay Care/Child DevelopmentUniversity of MarylandHead Start Regional Resource &Training Center

4321 Hartwick Road, Room L220College Park, Maryland 20740

Dr. Esther WattenburgPrincipal InvestigatorFamily Day Care Training ProjectCenter for Urban and Regional Affairs1507 University, S. E.Mirneapolis, Minnesota

Ms. Lindy WeissmanState Training OfficeP.O. Box 129Cheyney State CollegeCheyney, Pennsylvania 19319

Notes On Participating Organizations

Bureau Of Elementary And Secondary EducationOffice Of EducationThis agency is currently establishing a system for making informationabout parent education training programs more accessible to schoolsystems. A current program concern is Education for Parenthood,designed to prepare secondary school students for parenthood throughcombined classroom instruction and actual experience working withchildren.

Office Of Child DevelopmentOCD representatives at the Symposium are currently involved in theCDA program and Consortium, aimed at designing a competency-basedtraining and credentialling system for child-care workers throughoutthe country. The program will be tested in 17 sites this year.OCD delegates also discussed the agency's involvement in trainingstaff for Home Start and home-based activities of Head Start.

TARCOG Home StartThis organization serves 120 preschool children and their familiesin Huntsville, Ala., operated by the Top of Alabama Regional Councilof Governments. TARCOG uses Appalachia Educational Laboratory'searly-childhood education prototype, television lessons and materials.

Office Of Career DevelopmentUniversity Of MinnesotaTelevision and home visitors are basic to this project, designedto train workers for family day-care.

Florida Model Parent Education ProgramUniversity Of FloridaThis program pioneered in training home visitors to teach parentshow to be more effective teachers of their young children.

Bureau Of Education For The HandicappedU. S. Office Of Educationune of the Bureau's dajor efforts currently is to serve handicappedchildren in home-based programs by providing instruction and supportfor parents.

vii

viii

National Association For Education Of Young ChildrenSome 18,000 persons involved in educational programs for youngchildren belong to this organization.

Education Commission Of The StatesA space satellite to be launched in 1974 will provide the deliverysystem for this multi-state project to train child-care workers.

Contents

Introduction iii

Symposium Participants iv

Notes On Participating Organizations vii

Symposium Presentations 1

DR. ROY ALFORD "We Are Developing A Means Of Getting 1

Early Education To The Preschool Child"

JANE DE WEERD "Parents Have The Major Responsibility 6

For Teaching Their Children"

DR. JAMES L. GONZALES "Technology Can Help People 15

Get At The Information They Need"

DR. BARRY GUINAGH "The Important Aspect Of The Train- 27

ing Is In The Interaction Between The Supervisors AndThe Parent Educators"

DR. JENNY KLEIN "We Felt That Effective Childcare 39

Workers Really Don't Need Algebra 99 And History 72"

W. STANLEY KRUGER "A Theme I Think We See Develop- 51

ing Is The Idea Of Family Focus"

SONIA MATLICK "The Main Goals Are To Help The Parents 59

Become Involved With Their Children"

DR. PAUL VICINANZA "Can You Make Or Can You Help 67

Parents Become Chief Developers Of Their Own Children?

73

89

DR. ESTHER WATTENBURG "We Regard The Family Day CareConsultant As An Essential But Presently Missing Link"

ROB ROY WALTERS "We Are Making An Effort To Tie TheEstablishment To The Thrust Of Early Childhood Education"

We are developing a

means, of getting early education

to the preschool child.'

By Dr. Roy Alford

2

Before I start on the program, I would liketo express AEL's appreciation to you for takingyour time to come to this symposium. As younoticed on the program, we had a purpose for themeeting. The purpose was to get you together sothat you could exchange ideas.

Of course there was a hidden agenda. Wewanted to know what you people were thinkingabout, and by doing it this way we can ratherquickly get a very good in-depth survey of whatis going on in this area of training paraprofes-sional home visitors. So, for that, our appre-ciation to you.

We at AEL started back in 1967 with a par-ticular target in mind. And that target was therural isolated child. We felt that for too longtoo that little had been done for the ruralchild. Even when we went to the literature tosee what we could find out about the character-istics of the rural child, we found that therewas very little in the literature. Quite a bitabout the urban and surburban middle class, quitea little about the ghetto children, but verylittle, if anything, about the rural child.

3 We went to West Virginia University and hadthem to do a couple of jobs for us. First, wehad them do a more thorough search of the litera-ture than we had been able to do, to see if wehad overlooked anything with relevancy to therural child. They told us we really hadn't;there just wasn't all that much. So then, wehad them do a study on the characteristics ofthat rural preschool child.

We limited it to 3-,4-, and 5-year oldchildren because we knew that there were veryfew rural children who had available to them anysort of preschool program, even kindergarten.And even some states that had had kindergarten,theoretically statewide, for many years werestill not reaching the rural child. Pennsylva-nia, for example, still has about 20 per cent ofits children that do not have kindergarten avail-able in spite of the long history of kindergar-ten in that state.

So we obtained this profile of the childand we got a statement of objectives written inbehavioral terms, and with this as backgroundwe went into our three element program. Oneelement of the program that we put into a three-year field test was a daily half-hour televisionbroadcast which we produced ourselves, and broad-cast over a commercial channel--because that iswhat the parents could receive in their homes.Approximately 95 per cent of our target audiencehad TV sets. Thus, we presented the programdirectly to the child..

1Wused a paraprofessional, our second ele-ment, whom we had trained and then sent into thefield to deal--not directly with the child--butrather with the parent, because we thought thiswould give us better carryover. We wanted thehome visitor to work with the child enough toprovide modeling behavior. But, we still wantedher to work with the parent so the parent wouldfeel comfortable teaching and be encouraged tocontinue throughout the week to provide educa-tional stimulus to the child we could not pro-vide otherwise.

We also felt that group experience, elementthree, was important so we provided that in arelatively small group, 12-15 children at a time,with a trained teacher and a paraprofessionalaide.

4

The three-year field test was, we feel,

very successful. I won't go into a lot of detail

on what the research showed. We did show good

gains in cognition. At home we showed some

social skills gains. And we showed a stimula-

tion of the child's curiosity, and that was a

good one. Some of you might want to ask some

questions about that one. The field test was

followed by two years of what we call "opera-

tional tests," which means that the program is

run, not by the laboratory, but by user groups.

We are now in the second year of the operational

test, and we have a couple of people here re-

presenting one of these tests. But starting

December 1 of this year, we get into a new pro-

gram. That is really what we are concerned with

now.

As we work through the previous effort, we

are developing a process, a way, a means, of

getting early education to the rural preschool

child. But we found that there is a great need

for materials and methods to be used with staff,

with children, with parents, and now we are try-

ing to develop what we call a "marketable" pro-

gram, including the production of a second gene-

ration of color video tapes. We have divided

this new effort into three work units, one of

which relates to training and implementation.

And this is the main focus of this symposium.

Before I close, let me give you a quickoverview of AEL's package of seven processmanuals for HOPE which are designed to help asystem or organization implement an early child-hood education program. The HOPE acronym standsfor Home-Oriented Preschool Education.

These manuals grow out of four years ofwork but they are not formal research and deve-lopment reports. That is something else. Thatinformation is written up as technical reportsand that sort of thing. These manuals do notdescribe what we did during our field test, butthey were written after we had gone throughthree years of field tests. We spent a yearwriting these things to try to help people whowere going to get involved in the sort of thingthat we had had to do --often by trial and error--in our three year field test. So we wroteseven manuals. The Program Overview and Require-ments Manual is for administrators who want to

5 make a decision about whether or not they wantto get into something like this. So it gives aquick sketch of what happens in the program,tells what kind of people and how many the pro-gram needs and how much money it is going tocost--the sort of thing administrators want toknow.

Then we are going to have to have someonein the field to actually operate the program.So we provide a Field Director's Manual forthe person who is on the firing line. This per-son is usually the first employed, and is re-sponsible for initiating the program.

I: assist him we provide a PlIrsonnel Train-ing Guide. It's the smallest manual, the lastone done, and the least satisfactory. And thatis a major reason we are here right now, as westart revisions on this one. Then we have theHome Visitor's Handbook. It has in it somehelpful hints, but it doesn't have a survivalguide, and I think we still need to get backto the survival guide. We have a Handbook forclassroom teachers and aides. The CurriculumPlanning Guide and the Materials PreparationGuide. And, could be considered almost thecookbook part of the package--to tell peoplehow to put the program together. And, if theychoose not to use our program, these two manualswill help them develop their own.

6

This model indicates that

parents have the major responsibility

for teaching their children.'

By Jane DeWeerd

he growth of programs for preschool chil-dren has been paralleled by an increased in-volvement of parents in the education of theirchildren. During recent years there has been aconcerted effort by Federal funding sources,such as the Office of Child Development andthe Bureau for the Education of the Handicapped,to fund programs that involve the parents ofthe children being served. This parental in-volvement could occur at various levels ofprogram development. For instance, includingparents on an advisory council, having parentswork as classroom aides, and counseling parentscould be methods of involving parents in aprogram.

The Portage Project, a home teaching pro-gram, is an attempt to directly involve parentsin the education of their children by teachingparents what to teach, what to reinforce, andhow to observe and record behavior.

There are several advantages in teachingparents in their homes to be effective agentsof behavioral change. First, learning is

7 occurring in the parent and child's natural en-vironment; therefore, the problem of trans-ferring to the home what has been learned in aclassroom or clinic does not occur. Second,there is direct and constant access to behavioras it occurs naturally. Third, the maintenanceof desired behavior will likely be enhanced ifthe behaviors have been learned in the naturalenvironment. Fourth, the training of parents,who already are natural reinforcing agents,will provide them with the skills necessary todeal with new behaviors when they occur.

The Portage Project presently serves 75handicapped children from birth to 6 years ofare. The children live within the CooperativeEducational Service Agency No. 12 area issouth- central rural Wisconsin.

"1 The project serves children who have beenpreviously diagnosed as having behavioral prob-lems or as being emotionally disturbed, mental-ly retarded, physically handicapped, vision im-paired, hearing impaired, culturally deprived,or handicapped in the area of speech or language.The prject also serves children with any combina-tion of these disabilities.

The children are referred to the project bylocal physicians, social workers, county healthnurses, public schools, local guidance clinicsand speech therapists. Public service announce-ments on local radio stations and newspaperarticles describing the project have broughtadditional referrals, many from parents them-selves.

the 150 parents contacted regarding theproject, only 6 (approximately 1 percent)refused to enroll their child. Of the 150children referred, 30 were found not to need anearly intervention program. Four of the 75parents and children enrolled in the projectwithdrew after the home visits began. Of these

4, 2 children were in families who moved fromthe area, 1 child was placed in a state hospital,and 1 parent was dissatisfied with the project.

During the planning phase, as children werebeing identified, it was evident that a classroomsituation could not be provided. The inter-

mediate agency serves 23 school districts andcovers a geographical area of 3,6000 squaremiles. To transport these preschool handi-capped children to one central location wouldnot have been either practical or possible. Even

when several children had been identified with-in a smaller area, i.e. one school district,their handicaps and/or their chronological agesvaried so greatly that it was not to the chil-dren's advantage to place them in a group.

The project's administrative staff decidedthat, due to these problems, a home teachingmodel would be the most feasible deliverysystem to provide educational services. An

educator--a home teacher--was provided to eachchild and his family 1 day per week for 1 1/2

hours for a period of 9 1/2 months. This sche-dule of home visits was met 92 percent of thetime, which takes into account cancellationsdue to inclement weather, illness, family vaca-tions, and hospitalizations. During the 6 daysthe home teacher was not present, the parents

served as the child's teachers by implementingprescribed curriculum and recording the child'sprogress.

After a child had been referred to theproject, a home teacher. assessed the child todetermine if he needed an early interventionprogram. The project does not serve childrenfunctioning at or near their chronological agein the developmental areas. However, the pro-ject has never refused service because a childhad too many handicaps or had handicaps oftoo great a degree.

The developmental scales and intelligencetests were administered in order to provideobjective data concerning gains in mental ageand IQ; however, the teaching staff was notconcerned with labels or IQ scores. The concernwas the behavior of the individual child. Know-ing that a child is a mongoloid or has an IQ of50 or is brain damaged does not tell a teacherwhat the child can already do, what next toteach, nor how to teach it. Each child wasprovided with an individualized curriculumbased on his present behavior, not his disabilitylabel.

8

9Er certified special education teachers

and three paraprofessionals were hired andtrained to serve as home teachers. Certifiedpersonnel served an average of 12 children; theparaprofessionals had an assigned caseload of10 children. Preservice training included in-struction in child development, assessment tech-niques, precision teaching, and behavior modifi-cation (Shearer, 1971). Pre- and posttestswere given after each instructional period toevaluate the instruction itself. Inservicemeetings for the entire staff were held 1 dayper week and home visits were not scheduled onthat day. These sessions provided the indivi-dual staff member with needed reinforcementand help with specific problems encounteredduring the week.

During a specific 2 hour staffing period,each home teacher presented problems causingconcern. The group reacted by making suggestionsand finally by establishing a prescriptive goalwhich the home teacher implemented the followingweek. Data on this prescription was collected,and at the next inservice meeting the hometeacher reported either success or failure. If

the goal was not achieved, the staff modifiedthe reinforcer, changed the reinforcement sche-dule, or divided the goal into smaller segments.

The paraprofessional home teachers metwith the staff training coordinator oneiaddi-tional half day per week to review the previousweek's data and to help in planning prescrip-tions for the coming week.

The home teacher accompanied the parentand child on clinic appointments and sugges-tions were sought from outside professionals atthis time and throughout the year as problemsarose.

To facilitate planning for individual chil-dren, the project staff devised an Early Child-hood Curriculum Guide (Shearer, Billingsley,Frohman, Hilliard, Johnson, & Shearer, 1970).The guide is in two parts: (a) a DevelopmentalSequence Checklist, which lists sequential be-haviors from birth to 5 years of age in fivedevelopmental areas--cognitive, language, selfhelp, motor, and socialization; (b) a set ofCurriculum Cards to match each of the 450 be-haviors.

The Checklist is used to pinpoint the beha-iors the child already exhibits in the fivedevelopmental areas. This is considered initialbaseline behavior. Based on this data, thehome teacher can then prescribe the next be-havior on the Checklist, often dividing thisbehavior, which is called a long term goal, intosmaller segments. Thus, the child is assigneda goal he will achieve within 1 week regardlessof the severity of the handicap.

As the parents experienced success andgained confidence in their ability to teachtheir child and record his behavior, the initialone or two prescriptions per week were increasedto three or four prescriptions. These activi-ties were in several areas of development. For

instance, the parents might have been workingon buttoning, reducing tantrums, and countingobjects all within the same' week.

The parents were encouraged to contributeto the planning and implementation of thecurriculum and these suggestions were absorbedinto the prescriptions during the home visit.The parents were shown how to record theirchild's behavior on the prescribed curriculumtasks, and as the parents taught their childduring the week, they recorded the behavioras it increased, decreased, or remained thesame.

Recording behaviors was new and somewhatthreatening to some of the parents, so the hometeachers initiated just one prescription duringthe first week. The home teachers showed theparents how to record and the parents practicedduring the home visit. This initial goal waschosen so that it would be helpful to the family(i.e., the child will put on coat without help)and be at a level that the home teacher believedwould be achieved within 1 week. This helpedguarantee the parent and child immediate success.

Thirty percent of the parents did not recordduring the first month. Praise and sometimesmore tangible reinforcers were used in somesituations to initiate recording behavior. How-

ever, once the parent began recording tangiblereinforcers were no longer necessary; seeing thebehavior of the child change became a reinforcerin itself. The overall rate of daily recordingby the 75 families in the project was 92 percent.

10

11

The home teacher entered each child's homewith thii-average of three to four prescriptionsper week and any materials needed to carry,outthese activities. First the home teacher tookpostbasaline data on the previous week's activi-ties. Based on this data, the home teacheraltered these prescriptions or introduced newactivities. Baseline data was then collected oneach: new task. Such collection is importantsince it is necessary to first discover how closethe child is to achieving the prescription. Forinstance, a prescription might have been forhopping on one foot in place without support, 5times per trial, 3 trials per d6y. If baselinedata had indicated that success on this activitywas not likely to be achieved in 1 week, thehome teacher would have changed the prescrip-tion, gone back to a prerequisite skill, andprescribed hopping on one foot in place withsupport, 5 times per trial, 3 'trials per day.

As baseline data was collected on each newprescription, the task was demonstrated to theparent as the home teacher worked with the child.The home teacher then observed 'the parent work-ing with the child on the prescription. Oftenthe home teacher supplied the parent mith addi-tional teaching information, such'as, "Howabout increasing the amount of praise and seeif he will perform better," or "You are givingtoo many clues to Johnny. Look, you 'are hold-ing your hand in front of the colored blockyou have asked Johnny to give you. Place yourhand between the two blocks." The parent .is'

expected to stay with the child and the hometeacher during the session because this visit isdesigned to teach the parents how to teach, howto record, and how to reinforce the prescribedbehavior for the coming week.

121SLn activity chart for each prescriptionwas left with the parent. This chart describedin behavioral terms what goal was to be accom-plished, how often the skill was 'to be 'practiced,what behavior was to be reinforced, and how itwas to be reinforced. The directions werespecific and the parents had the activity chartto refer to during the week. The parent wasinstructed to record on' the activity chart thechild's behavior each day on each prescription.Recording proved to be reinforcing to theparents because they could see the daily changes

in their child's rate of appropriate responses.When the home teacher returned the followingweek, he recorded postbaseline data on theprevious week's activities. This helped thehome teacher validate the accuracy of the par-ents' recording.

Evaluation was an ongoing process. Theparent recorded her child's performance on theprescription daily. The home trainer evaluatedweekly by comparing baseline and postbaselinedata, and a complete evaluation was undertakentwice a year using the IQ tests and develop-mental scales described earlier.

The weekly assessment of the child's behav-ior was also an assessment of the home teacher'sability to prescribe appropriate curriculum. If

the child had not succeeded on a task within agiven length of time, then it was not assumed tobe the child's fault. The failure was likely tobe the home teacher's, perhaps because theappropriate task had not been given adequatedirections. Unlike most teachers, the hometeacher knows this within a week, and the pres-cription can be modified.

If the parent had not been able to workeffectively with the child during the week, thehome teacher might need to modify the prescrip-tions (perhaps there were too many) or give theparent additional reinforcement.

A log was kept on each child listing eachbehavior prescribed, the date the curriculumwas initiated, the date the behavior wasachieved, and the developmental area the be-havior is assumed under, i.e., self help, lan-guage, cognitive, socialization, or motor. This

log provided information concerning the specificbehaviors each child had learned, the date helearned them, and the duration of each prescrip-tion. In addition, data concerning the percent-age of success on tasks was also available.

The average IQ of the children in the pro-ject was 75 as determined by the Cattell InfantTest and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test.Therefore, it would be expected that on theaverage, the normal rate of growth would be 75percent of that of the child with normal intelli-

12

13 gence. Using mental ages, one would expect thatthe average gain would be about 6 months in E418 month period of time. The average childin the project gained 13 months in an 8 monthperiod; he gained 60 percent more than hiscounterpart with a normal intelligence.

Children who, because of age, remained inthe project after 1'j/ear were retested inSeptember, and these test results were comparedto the scores achieved the previous June.. Al-though it would be expected that some regressionwould occur, there was no significant differencein ..he scores. This may indicate that theparents continued to work with and reinforcebehaviors even though the home teacher was nolonger making visits.

An average of 128 prescriptions werewritten per child. The children were successfulon 91 percent of the prescriptions written byprofessional and paraprofessional staff.

An experimental study was conducted in-volving randomly selected children from thePortage Project and randomly selected childrenattending local classroom programs for cultural-ly and economically disadvantaged preschoolchildren. The Stanford-Binet IntelligenceScale, the Cattell Infant Scale, and the Alpern-Boll Developmental Skills Age Inventory weregiven as pre- and posttests to both groups. In

addition, the Gesell Developmental Schedule wasgiven' as a posttest to both groups. In addi-

tion, the Gesell Developmental Schedule wasgiven as a posttest to both groups. Multipleanalysis. of covariance was used to control forIQ, practice effect, and age. The greater gainsmade by the Portage Project children in theareas of mental age, IQ, language, academicdevelopment, and socialization were statistical-ly significant, as compared to the group receiv-ing classroom instruction (Peniston, 1972).

Uing the children as their own control,test results and behavioral gains were comparedand measured. The mean gain in IQ scores on theAlpern-Boll Developmental Skills Age Inventorywas 13.5 and was statistically significant be-yond the .01 level. The mean gain in IQ scoreson the Stanford-Binet was 18.3 and was statisti-cally significant beyond the .01 level.

Tere is a growing concern for more parent-al involvement in education and in the provisionof good educational services to handicapped chil-dren in rural areas. This model indicates thatparents have the major responsibility for de-cision making, rearing, and teaching their chil-dren. Parents of handicapped children oftenhave this responsibility for a much longerperiod of time and are in greater need of par-enting skills and knowledge concerning methodsof teaching and child development.

Educators have been guilty of relievingthe parents of the responsibility of education.Yet, a child's poor classroom performance isoften blamed on the "inadequate parent syndrome."Parents of handicapped children need guidance,but more importantly, they need the experience,satisfaction, and the pleasure of working withtheir children and seeing them succeed as aresult of their own efforts. Most parents ofhandicapped children want to be able to be atleast partially responsible for the progress oftheir child and do not want to be told that theteaching can only be done by somebody else.Home based programs involving individualizedinstruction through precision teaching is thecatalyst which can provide this service toparents and their children.

14

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16

In a world which is constantly growing,changing, becoming ever more difficult to con-trol, the need for communication is immediateand vital.

How do we find out what people need to solvetheir social problems? How do we get what theyneed to them? How do we find out if their needswere met? These are vital questions which oureducational delivery systems have failed to an-swer.

My discussion describes a unique attempt toaddress these questions--a method which usesmany of the communications man has invented todeliver to him some universal knowledges andskills he has identified. Most important, thisdelivery system totally involves the user in themeeting of his own needs.

This description is an overview. It is notintended as an indepth presentation of the workof the early childhood component of the Educa-tional Technology Demonstration.

It is the intent of the Educational Tech-nology Demonstration, a project of the Federa-tion of Rocky Mountain States, to show ways thattechnology can help people get at the informationand materials they need to meet their needs.

The first decision of the project was todevelop a user-based model to hook people upwith services. It was apparent that users whowould greatly benefit from increased knowledgeand technology often have not had access to it.

17 Extensive visits and discussions with usersin the eight-state Region (Colorado, Idaho,Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona,and Nevada) indicated that the focus of the earlychildhood component should be on people who carefor preschool children. A review of child careservices available made it apparent that thereis almost no support available for parents andchild care staffs in the Region.

The review indicated:

Training for those who care foryoung children is minimal or non-existent in the Region. No statehas a comprehensive training pro-gram for early childhood personnel.

Only a small percentage of theRegion's children are beingreached by programs such as HeadStart or public kindergartens.

A great part of child care isleft to daycare home mothers,most of whom are presently with-out professional support.

About 20 per cent of the Region'spopulation has never received anytelevision--educational or com-mercial.

Although about half of the school districtshave educational television available, 1Ps than15 per cent of the districts indicate they makesystematic use of such programming.

After the decision was made to focus onadults who care for preschool children, the ECDstaff continued to review the literature onchild development and to discuss the setting ofobjectives with professionals.

Out of these tasks came four broad objec-tives and seventeen specific sub-objectives.They are not all inclusive, or final, but weresimply drawn up as guidelines to construct theuser needs assessment instrument. The broadobjectives of the project are:

To enable those who care for chil-dren to facilitate and enhance thechild's social development

To enable those who care for chil-dren to facilitate and enhance thechild's intellectual development

To enable those who care for chil-dren to facilitate and enhance thechild's physical development

To enable those who care for chil-dren to facilitate and enhance thechild's emotional development

More than 20 major development and planningtasks were completed by early 1973 and about 30more were underway, including the initial proto-typing of programs, materials, and support per-sonnel.

The early childhood component is being ad-ministered under a subcontract with the Educa-tion Commission of the States, an organizationcombining state governors, legislators, andeducators working for the improvement of educa-tion.

The Rocky Mountain states provides a naturalarea for such a demonstration. To much of itspopulation, the geographic isolation of thisarea is a positive thing giving protection frommany of the ills of large urban areas, such asovercrowding, pollution, and the high crimerates. But often that isolation has meant aseparation from the professional expertise, tech-nological advances, and the services availablein more accessible areas.

Further, these states contain at least fourethnic groups with differing languages and cul-tural patterns--Indian, Chicano, Black, andAnglo-American.

It is hoped that in serving the diverseneeds of such an area, the project will dem-onstrate methods which will have application inmany other parts of the country.

will:The Educational Technology Demonstration

see that the user is an integralpart of the entire project, inprogram planning, monitoring,and evaluation

18

19use a sophisticated communica-tions system, the ApplicationsTechnology Satellite (ATS-F), tobe launched by NASA in 1974, linkedto existing ground facilities suchas public and cable televisionfacilities and microwave systems

develop samples (prototypes) ofmany ways that these facilities,materials, and human resourcescan be combined to fit the needsof different people and situationstry out these prototypes inselected sites

do research to discover whetheruser needs have indeed been metand, if some have not, attemptto find methods which will dothe job

attempt to get the successfulmethods incorporated into exist-ing agencies

The project's goal is to provide a basefrom which others can work to provide deliverysystems which effectively hook up users withservices from which they have been separated bycultural, economic, educational or geographicgaps.

rrle early childhood component wants to reachthe people who care for young children--whatevertheir geographic location, early childhood set-ting, ethnic or economic groups, or length ofexperience or training. We want to serve

A mother caring for three or fourextra children in her home in a smalltown in Colorado

The person running a child care centeron a reservation in Arizona

Those involved in a private kinder-yarten in New Mexico

A man and woman in Nevada who arofoster parents

AAll are part of the target audience. Theprogram content will be based on priority goalsidentified in a needs assessment survey of po-tential users.

We assessed the perceived needs with a paperand pencil test in the Region, interviewing about460 people to determine their priority traininggoals in early childhood. Basically, this gaveus broad goal priorities.

There are 13 such goals, grouped into 5categories:

A. Physical Development1. The adult can identify and take

care of minor health problemsor accidents.

2. The adult can use equipment andactivities to help children de-velop physically.

B. Social Development1. The adult will be able to plan

for, guide, reward, restrict,and encourage a young child'ssocial behavior.

2. The adult will be able toidentify what kind of behaviorto expect of a child duringinfancy, toddler, and preschoolstages of development.

3. The adult will be able to helpa child learn that each personis a distinct individual whodeserves respect.

C. Emotional Development1. The adult can implement activi-

ties which enhance the child'sself confidence and self esteem.

2. The adult can implement activi-ties which build self confidenceand self esteem,

3. The adult can help the childrecognize, label, and expressemotions.

D. Intellectual DevelopmentI. The adult can help the child

learn and develop languageand skills.

2. The adult can help the childlearn to solve problems.

20

21 3. The adult has information onwhat a child can be expectedto know and learn, and canprovide experiences and guid-ance accordingly.

E. Community and Cultural1. The adult can help the child

learn and respect his own andother cultures.

2. The adult can help the childlearn about his own community.

After establishing our goal priorities, weidentified specific objectives and began todevelop certain modules.

Since we are going to need a certain amountof predeveloped materials when the satellite islaunched, we also identified the predevelopedvideo materials which matched up with those spe-cific objectives. Thus, we weighed the objec-tives against the research as well as againstthe needs. The users, namely the people who arethe eventual target audience for the satelliteproject are involved during this entire sequence.It's a very user based system, rather differentfrom the traditional strategy where you designprograms and then take them out to people. We

have involved the users in all phases of thesatellite project.

We are now entering into. this prototype testphase in which we have selected predeveloped ma-terials for testing. We are doing module varia-tion testing wherein we take a certain module of10 to 15 minutes to a certain site and presentit to a group of people, get their reactions toit, find out whether it achieves the objectivesor not. Basically, we are field testing all pre-selected soft or hardware and people mixes. As

we do this testing, we will be evaluating andapplying those results in the development of newmodules or other predeveloped modules that willeventually be broadcast.

By June of this year (1973), we hope to beable to specify the number and types of modulesthat will eventually be broadcast on the satellite.The actual development year has been from June,1972 through December, 1973 in which we are speci-fying our content.

All programming will be in non-sequential,modular format. During the four hours a day whenthe satellite is available, program modules ofvarying lengths, dealing with varied materialswill be broadcast. If a foster mother can onlycatch the module on nutrition or first aid, ifa child care center director only has time tosee two problem-solving modules out of four, theimpact will not be lost.

Turn-over in child care personnel is highand those who care for children often cannotschedule more than a few minutes a day for theirown learning experiences. Non-sequential, modu-lar programming will give these people a chanceto choose those bits of information most directedto their needs.

It may be of interest to you to see how weare moving from the broad preliminary objectives,the goal priorities that we got from the needsassessment, to the actual development of a module.We took our broad preliminary objectives andtranslated them into the goal priorities for theneeds assessment instrument. (When I say ob-jectives, we are talking about competencies, Ithink. Something like "The caregiver will beable to stop a wound from bleeding,"--would bean objective. But at the same time it could bea competency.)

These goal priorities were translated intoimmediate or specific objectives which bringsus to our competency level. We have broken thesedown into criteria for these objectives and aredeveloping the modules around the specific ob-jectives and identified criteria. These ob-jectives are then taken through a user-loopvalidation as well as a research validation.

We are seeking a really good validation forall of the objectives--not only from the pro-fessional standpoint but from users as well. Forexample, if we come up with the specific objective,"The caregiver will be able to give mouth to mouthresuscitation," we want that objective to bevalidated by the users. We want to interviewsome users in the Region and find out--"Is thisa realistic objective? Is it practical? Is it

something that you need?" At the same time, wewill be getting the professional, research val-idation.

22

23 We have found a certain number of prede-veloped materials that match up very nicely withour objectives and we are using these primarilyfor field testing to find out if they presentthe information adequately.

The early childhood component is now testingprototypes of programs and materials for selectedaudiences. User groups review these programs andmaterials and the early childhood component staffanalyze them in terms of content appropriateness,format, production considerations, audience ap-propriateness, and cost and time factors. Thisprototyping will provide information about whethermaterials and methods are on target for thepeople and needs they are designed to serve.

We are working with several organizationsin this effort. We are testing 15 minutemodules of the bilingual early elementary pro-gram from the Southwest Educational DevelopmentLaboratory in Austin, Texas. On that program astaff member works with several children and, atthe same time, talks to parents about ways theycan use materials in the home to stimulate theirchildren's development. Its a low cost, straight-forward, excellent program. I understand that inthe San Antonio area it outdrew NBC's Today Showat 7:30 in the morning. Pretty good: Lots ofparents are watching it. That's the kind of thingwe are testing in our eight-state Region--to findout if something which is very, very good in SanAntonio has relevance to our audience. The

American Red Cross is currently translating someof their materials for program tests. They arepreparing two audio cassette tapes--one in Spanishand one in Navaho. We plan to take these to cer-tain audiences and get reactions to this particularpresentation mode and the objectives in the AmericanRed Cross material.

The Appalachia Educational Laboratory hassome excellent material for their home-based earlychildhood program. We have had some contact withthem and will be talking again on ways we can worktogether.

Weralso are looking at the Toy Lending Libr ?ryof the Far West Laboratory and considering the useof certain video modules.. These modules would betyped to each toy, packaged into a cassette format,and tested with our user groups.

High Scope Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michiganhas done some tapes ifi which a home visitor workswith the parent and discusses things the parentcan,do with children, very young children. Weare getting several modules from the High ScopeFoundation which address certain specific objec-tives and we want to prototype test that.

In each of the eight states of the RockyMountain Region, the early childhood componentemploys a field staff which keeps touch with theusers. Staff members are local people, knowl-edgeable about local needs, able to relate to theconcerns of the individual communities the Dem-onstration will serve.

Through this field staff and through peri-odic conferences with user groups, the earlychildhood component maintains contact with bothits direct users--parents, foster-parents,relatives, and paid and volunteer staffs--andthe direct users--federal and state politicaland agency groups and the professional community.

We are moving all of this along at the sametime. Objectives which don't have any predevel-oped materials are progressing through a similarsequence of determining priorities. We are thenwriting specific content for each new objective.Our staff of early childhood specialists providethe research support for the objectives and edu-cational strategies to achieve that objective.

he content specialists then turn these overto other specialists who make sure they are soundin terms of what the objective is trying toachieve and stated in practical down -to -earth

language. These content specifications are givento our writers who write scripts and produce themodules. We have to be very precise in statingthe content specifications since a script must beprocessed by several different departments. First,it goes to our writers and then to the Federation'sproduction department. The production depart-ment then sends each script to the U.S. Officeof Education in Washington for review. Afterthey approve it, it is returned to our productiondepartment for any revisions and cost estimates.Production is required to get three bids for eachmodule since most of the actual video programmingfor the satellite will be subcontracted. It's a

24

2512.(0 long, tedious process, but every script from a30-second spot to a 10-minute spot must go throughthis procedure.

Now, we are experiencing a very severe timecrunch. When you back up from the satellitelaunching--(April, 1974)--we have 13 months todevelop about 100 hours of new material. At thesame time, we have to develop the other elementsof the delivery system, namely the home visitorprogram. At our intensive sites we will have one-way broadcasts and the television signal for onehour a day will be at the time the home visitorcould go to that particular site right after orduring the one hour broadcast from the satellite.They would visit with the adults and children andreinforce the content presented in the particularmodule that had been shown on the satellite. It

could be a center operation, a private daycarecenter, a Head Start program, or perhaps a com-munity center operation. With that home visitorwe could send printed materials and/or games ortoys. Via the two-way audio system, the recipientalso will be able to give us in Denver theimmediate feedback on programming.

he two-way audio capability will provideus with the interesting possibility of doing acertain program in a quiz format. We designedone module around a nutrition quiz, similar tothe national driver's test shown on CBS. Thatapproach allows you to present certain situationsregarding children's nutrition, children's health,etc. Questions are framed in a "What would youdo" format with multiple choice answers. Thepeople then respond immediately on an instrumentlike a touch-tone telephone which transmits theinformation to us. So that gives us direct inputfrom the users.

I have talked about modules throughout mytalk this morning. We made the decision in 1972to go the modular route. Modules will be non-sequential--open entry, open exit--so that ifMrs. X misses a program on Monday, she can watchon Friday and still get something out of it.

We are taking a very comprehensive approachto the child's development. The programming willhave a cultural base that reflects the four ethnicgroups in the region and we are working very hardto incorporate this ethnic representation intoall the program material that we are developing.

The important aspect of the training

is in the interaction between the

supervisors and the parent educators.'

By Dr. Barry Guinagh

28

his paper presents some ideas about train-ing home visitors to go into homes and teach par-ents learning activities that they can in turnteach to their children.

The Institute for Development of Human Re-sources at the University of Florida has beenworking with parents since 1966 under the direc-tion of Dr. Ira J. Gordon.

We have worked with parents who had childrenranging in ages from three months to sixth gradein various programs, and in such programs as HeadStart Planned Variation and Follow Through. Dur-ing the last year we have helped three programsget started that are focusing on families withchildren from ages 0 to 3. These programs, spon-sored by Appalachian Regional Commission, arelocated in Norton, Virginia; Grundy, Virginia;and Anderson, South Carolina. The home visitorsin these programs are high school graduates.Many of my comments are based on the pre-servicetraining that we developed for these programs.Although the target child in these programs isyounger than the 3-to-5-year-old that this con-ference is focusing on, experience with otherprograms indicate that the differences are minor;the emphasis is still on teaching the parent.

Most of this paper deals with the processof the training program. The important aspectof the training is in the interaction between thesupervisors and the parent educators. Naturally,the behavior desired in teaching a parent needs

29 to be spelled out and we have done this in thetwo lists attached to this presentation--"Desir-able Parenting Behaviors During Child StimulationActivities," and "Do's and Don'ts of Parent Edu-cation." However, it must be remembered thatmemorizing this list is not equivalent to theability to produce these behaviors. This abilityonly comes from working with parents and thendiscussing how things went with a supervisor.Therefore this paper will discuss a training pro-gram that gets parent educators involved in prac-ticing making home visits under supervision sothat their teaching skills can start to becomepart of their parent educator's behavior.

Training is usually divided into two types- -inservice and preservice. The preservice train-ing takes place before the program is in fullswing and can last anywhere from one week to sixweeks. Inservice training is maintained whilethe parent educators are working. This distinc-tion between inservice and preservice trainingis too sharp. Also, the preservice trainingshould be gradually phased out as the home visi-tors take over more of their regular job and thetraining would gradually become inservice.

Ideally, the individual who is going to bein charge of the total program should run the pre-service workshop. Members of the staff who areto be responsible for supervision should alsowork with small groups of parent educators justas they will do when the program begins. A prob-lem arises when there is an overall administra-tor who is not directly connected with the educa-tional part of the program. This individual maybe busy doing other things during this preserviceworkshop and not really be aware of what is hap-pening in the workshop. This can cause problemslater when the overall administrator does notreally understand the intricacies of the program.

How should the parent educators be intro-duced to their new job? The simplest way toteach is the lecture, or at least it Is the mostobvious way. Tell the parent educators the pur-pose of the program and how to make a home visit.However, there are problems with the lectureapproach to education. Some of the parent edu-cators on the staff may be hesitant to talk inthe first place, and sitting there quietly,

listening to somebody else talk may confirm theirnotion that they really have nothing to say.Since much of the work the parent educators willdo with parents demands a great deal of conversa-tion, it is important to get the parent educatorstalking as soon as possible. There is also thepossibility that seeing somebody in front of thegroup talking will remind them of either theirdays at school or how they behave in church. Inboth cases these roles are usually rather passive.Others who have something to say may believe thatthe administration does not want to hear theirideas. Lectures have a place, but they need tobe followed up by a discussion in small groupswith the supervisors. Small discussion sessionscan review what was said in the lecture and an-swer questions the parent educators may have abouttheir role. Discussion sessions are particularlyimportant in understanding the philosophical posi-tion a program may have about children and childraising. Everyone has opinions and views abouthow children should be raised. Many of the staffwill hold different beliefs about children andwhat they are capable of in the early years. Someparent educators may hive heard that letting achild look into a mirror before he was a year oldwould cause him to go blind; or that if a littleboy's hair was cut before the age of one he wouldnever be able to speak; or that speaking to babiesis ridiculous because babies cannot understand you.These beliefs should be brought out into the openand not ridiculed. However the parent educatorsshould be asked to reexamine their views and beshown by the supervisory staff that present scien-tific evidence indicates that those beliefs arefalse.

JAL better method of introducing the conceptof parent education is to watch sample home visits.For example, the supervisory personnel could actout different types of home visits; one indivi-dual could assume the parent educator role andanother one could take the role of the mother.The parent educators will better understand theirjob if they are able to see sample home visits.Videotaped presentations that have been preparedin advance can also be used. Videotape has theadded advantage that if there is any disagreementabout what was seen, the tape can be rolled backand the situation can be watched again. Afterthe group has viewed several presentations, smalldiscussion groups will help the individuals talk

30

31 about what they have seen. Here again many timesdifferent individuals will see different things,or will have seen the same things but placeddifferent emphasis or interpretation on what theyhave seen, or value different incidents in whatwas seen.

After watching these practice visits, theparent educators should get a chance to do somerole playing on their own. They can take differ-ent roles; one parent educator can be herself asthe parent educator, another the parent, and athird the parent's child. The parent educatorcan then derlionstrate teaching the parent an acti-vity for her to do with her child. Role takingshould help the parent educators understand theirtask better.

This role playing needs to be done undersupervision and observed by a small group fordiscussion purposes. It is better to do this insmall groups at first rather than in front of alarge group because it is less anxiety provoking.By using role playing, the parent educators areactually doing the home visits rather than justtalking about doing them. Role playing should beviewed as practice for making a home visit andnot just some game to take up time or createembarassment.

Before role playing begins it should be veryclear as to who is the parent educator and whois the mother. Sometimes in the anxiety of thesituation, the roles may get confused. The parenteducator should just play herself, but the in-dividual playing the mother will have to decidehow old her child is and perhaps even what typeof mother she is going to be. She should try tothink her role through in advance. Many peoplerole playing a mother become an ideal mother;i.e., very cooperative and interested in every-thing the parent educator is saying and doing.This role is acceptable initially because manyparents are like this, but the parent educatorsneed practice in dealing with difficult parents.The purpose of practicing with difficult parentsis to help prepare the parent educator for someof the problems she might face.

As the parent educators become more sophis-ticated, they can use the videotapes to furtherrefine their skills. The role playing can betaped and viewed at a later time by the partici-

pants. Obviously, this can be frightening for

anybody, but after the initial shock of seeingthemselves, most people learn to look at theirperformances for ways that they can be improved.Many times individuals do not have to be toldwhat, is wrong because they will know just by look-ing at the tape. A television picture is indeedworth a thousand words.

After the parent educators have had severalchances at role playing, real mothers and chil-dren should be brought into the training sessionsso the parent educators can practice teaching theparent and then watching the parent in turn teachthe child. The mother should be told that theparent educators are learning a new job and thatthe mothers and children are not being tested.Ideally these mothers should be from the samepopulation as the parents who will be in the pro-ject.

°ten parent educators will volunteer tobring in their own children, or the secretarywill want to bring in her child. There are sev-eral problems with using mothers on the staff.First, the "parent" is not naive about the pro-

gram. Second, after the presentation the groupcannot be honest in their discussion of the re-action of the mother to the presentation, or ofhow they thought the mother worked with the child.

Everybody is too familiar with the mother to be

completely honest. Third, the mother is usually

not from the same socioeconomic level as thepopulation that the project is aimed at. Per-

haps no harm is done if a few relatives or chil-dren of the staff are brought in on the firstday of practice with real parents. Bringing

in the parent educator's children may help themorale of the group by letting individuals showoff their children; however, as soon as possiblethe staff should begin to work with parentsmore typical of those who will be in the program.

The parent educator first tells the parentwhat the activity is about and what the parentwill be doing with her child. Then the parenteducator will demonstrate how the parent shouldteach the child by teaching the child directly.The mother can then copy the parent educator. If

the child is not present, role playing will haveto be used to demonstrate the activity. The

mother will have to pretend to be her child whilethe parent educator demonstrates the activity;

32

33 the roles can then be reversed and the parent edu-cator pretends to be the child and the motherpractices the activity.

A general pattern that is useful during pre-service training is to have parents and childrencome in from 10 to 11 a.m. During this hour par-ent educators can make a "hume visit" and thenobserve the mother teaching the child the acti-vity. At 11 a.m. the parents can leave with theirchildren and the parent educators can discuss whatthey have observed. Then, in the afternoon, theparent educators can prepare for the next group ofparents and children by choosing an activity androle playing the home visits. This plan keeps theparent educators involved in the program as activeparticipants rather than passive observers. Thevideotapes can also be used at this time if theparents are willing to be taped. If they havebeen interested enough to come in to be practicedon, they will permit taping.

The next step is to begin actual home visits.This should not be considered practice, but thereal thing. A family should be picked and thefirst visit should be made by the parent educator.The first visit can be made by most parent edu-cators by the beginning of the second week ofpreservice training. This means that someonewill need to have the eligible families enrolledand ready for the parent educators' visits. Theparent educators should be told that they willhave to start to make some home visits at thebeginning ofthe second week as an added incen-tive for them to see how their training directlyrelates to their job and is useful for improvingtheir skills. On the first visit the parent edu-cator can be accompanied by her supervisor tohelp explain the program. At this time, simpleactivity should be presented for the mother andchild to do during the week. The date for thenext meeting should also be set. After thisvisit, the supervisor can review her observationsand give encouragement to the parent educator.The parent educator has now started her job.

Ideally the parent educator will make more homevisits while the pretraining continues to phase

out.

he supervisory staff and the director ofthe program should also have some families to

visit. Since few people have had actual experi-ence in such a program it is difficult to tellpeople how to work with parents unless they knowwhat the parent educators are going through.This does not mean that the supervisory staffneeds to work with many families, but two orthree families will give each supervisor a feel-ing for the job. It can also give some credibi-lity to the supervisor, in the eyes of the parenteducators. The supervisors must know what isgoing on in the visits because they are makinghomt visits also. The supervisors should startthe e ,come visits before the parent educators be-gin their visits. This will give the parent edu-cators and the supervisors a common understandingof the problems they face.

In preservice training sessions there areseveral possible problems. One problem is thatthe parent educators will get a false notion ofwhat the job entails. This can happen if thereis no actual experience with families and noconstructive evaluation of their work. Withoutreal parents to work with, the parent educatorscan develop misconceptions as to the nature of

the job. By getting into the field and workingwith real parents, there is less chance of thishappening. The parent educators also needs tobe told when they are not doing the job well. It

is sometimes difficult for supervisory people tocriticize, but it is necessary for the good ofthe program to let the parent educator know howshe can improve.

Another common problem of the preservice work-shops is that they are too long. Often this is

because the planners of the programs see adichotomy between preservice and inservice train-

ing. In an ideal program the two should graduallyblend together. This would mean that if the pre-

service training were six weeks long, the parenteducators should begin to work with parents bythe beginning of the second week, and be workingfull time with their parents by the end of thesix week training session. Inservice trainingshould begin at this time.

When the preservice training sessions aretoo long problems arise. First, the new job forthe parent educators soon becomes boring; manysee it as going to school and a very passive

attitude sets in. Second, because there is somuch time, the supervisory staff may run out of

34

35 things to do with the parent educators. In orderto solve this problem of what to do with theparent educators, they may be excused to go homeearly. While a shortened work day is not amortal sin, problems can be created if the rulesare changed as soon as the program begins. Thiscan cause the parent educators to develop badattitudes toward their jobs. It can also makethe parent educators view the staff as indecisiveand an easy pushover for the parent educators.This attitude may sound unduly pessimistic, butif parent educators continue to sit around andare not improving their skills, and have towait to begin their jobs, they may soon develophabits that will be detrimental to their parenteducation work.

Hopefully, the preservice will have manypositive effects on the staff and parent educators.

It will let them get to know each other and startto develop a strong morale within the group.This strong morale is very important because mostof the work that the parent educators will bedoing will not be public work. There will be noeasily visible product. The work the parenteducator does is lonely work because her job isdone alone. The supervisor will only be ableto observe only a small fraction of the parenteducator's work. Therefore, to overcome thisisolation, the parent educators need to feelsome comradery with each other. This feelingcan begin during the preservice workshop. Pre-

service education in a home based program musthelp the parent educator and staff start to learnto trust each other and to work for a relation-ship that will benefit parents and children.

Desirable Parenting BehaviorsDuring Child Stimulation Activities

1. Eliminate distractors

2. Let the child become familiar with materials

(touch, taste, smell, look, listen).

3. Prepare the child for the activity--show him

and tell him, without forcing the activity.

36

4. Respond to what the child is doing (play andtalk with him). If the child is doing some-thing, don't interrupt, let the activity youwant flow from the childeattkvity.

5. If the child doesn't attend, use an alter-nate activity or an alternate way.

6. Allow time for the child to respond beforesaying or doing anything more (at least 3seconds).

7. Let the child stay with the activity with-out interruption if possible, until he istired of it.

8. Attend more to the comfort of the child thanto the activity.

9. Get the parent to praise and encourage thechild's performance.

10. Talk with the child about the activity.

11. Don't badger. Let the child alone when heis working on the activity.

12. Don't overdo. If the child turns away orturns you off, that is a signal to let up.

13. The activity should be fun! If you are nothaving fun, back off and take another look.

Do's and Don'ts of Parent Educating

1. When parent and child are interacting, orparent is trying to get the child to attend,

don't interrupt.

2. Keep your explanations short. Break it up

in steps or pieces and Intersperse through-

out.

37133. Turn loose of the child's attention as soon

as you can,

4. Summarize and review at the end of the acti-vity using parent-child activities to discussDesirable Parenting Behaviors.

5. Explain the WHY and HOW of the activity.

6. Direct your attention to the parent.

7. Let the mother attend to the child's needs,unless she asks you.

8. Do not phrase a question that elicits a "NO"answer if you are not willing to accept it.

9. If you have been working on a Desirable Par-enting Behavior and the parent starts usingit, let her know you have observed it andhow it worked.

10. Use praise and encouragement cautiously, notmechanically or in ways it will interruptthe flow of parent-child interraction.

11. Stress that the parent is the importantteacher.

12. Don't offend by over or under dressing.

13. After you have explained or demonstrated,turn it loose--let the parent take over.

14. Laugh with and not at the child.

15. Don't mock the parent's language--speaknaturally.

16. Don't be afraid to admit when you have madea mistake.

Prepared by EDF 780,,Seminar inEducation, 11/06/72

I. J. GordonUniversity of FloridaGainesville, Florida 32601

We felt tha

effective childcare

0c, workers really don't neeDo

Algebra 99 and

By Dr. Jenny Klein History 72

40

rre Office of Child Development has come upwith something called the "Child DevelopmentAssociate" or "CDA" project. In this firstphase of the project, the Development Associaterole is limited to personnel in center-basedprograms who work with children generally bet-ween ages three to five. We have done that be-cause we think that working with younger chil-dren takes some expert skills. Working in homeday care work and home visiting programs needssome expert skills, and they need to be defined.

We set out to make the CDA a three-part pro-gram. What we needed to decide first, we said,was what competencies a child-care worker has tohave. Second, what is it that we are trainingfor? What is it that we want people to do andbe? I think those two go closely together.

Finally, we selected a set of competencies.They are broad and fall into six basic catego-ries (see page 44). As I look through thecategories again, I realize that most of themfit for home day care. And I think they fitfor the home visitor program. But they wouldneed to be adjusted for both of them. I wouldvery much like to hear from you what adjustmentswould have to be made.

Third, after defining competencies andduties we then defined training mechanisms.There were certain basic assumptions we had fortraining which we put into our training guide-lines:

41(1) The training must be largely field-

based--the traditional method of accruingcourse work and then doing student teaching doesnot make for good skills in teaching or beingwith young children. The academic work and thefield work must be a coordinated set of experi-ences. I don't think it is important or neces-sary for people to know the name Piaget orwhat he said or what he stands for. What isimportant for them is to gain some understandingof child development and that things happen insequence and that children grow in a certain way.They need to know that certain skills can belearned and built upon at certain ages and cer-tain times. The training then is one that re-lies heavily on field-based training--at leastfifty per cent. The theoretical work ties intothe field training. We decided right in thebeginning that there was no need to say thatthese students had to have 90 credits or 120credits. We felt that effective childcare work-ers really don't need Algebra 99 and history72 although it would be nice if they did. No-body is knocking it. But the important thing isto know about child development, how to workwith children and to do it.

(2) We decided that there needed to besome kinds of credentialling and assessment pro-cedures. Traditionally, people go to college,and they take 120 credits. Then they have acollege degree, if they have passed all thecourses. We have no way of saying if they arereally competent teachers or child care workers.

SC, the idea was to develop an assessmentsystem. Now, I remember I am simplifying allof this. It is much more complicated and it ismuch easier to talk about than to do it. Wedecided that people needed to be assessed tosee if they indeed are competent. It wouldbe designed so that people could go throughthe training program in a very individual way.There are people who have had less experienceand could probably go through the training toacquire the competencies that we require in avery short time, while cthers would need moretime. There are some who need emphasis just inone area.

(3) We said, then, that the trainingcourse has to be individualized--not only incontent. The training also has to be geared to

the person's time and capabilities. So, theassessment had to be an individual assessment.We then decided very quickly that the federalgovernment just couldn't do that. We couldn't

get into it. Most of all, we would never carryit off. It should not be the role of thefederal government.

Wrestablished what at one time seemed adream but is now in existence--an organizationcalled Child Development Consortium. Originally,we thought of the Consortium as being made upof three organizations: NAEYC, EKNE (earlychildhood part of NEA), and ACI. We very soonwere told that was a very narrow way to look atit. Other organizations needed to participate.Just to show how wrong we were, right now theChild Development Consortium is made up of 36organizations, representing many professions in-cluding pediatrics, orthopsychiatry, psychology,nursing, and speech and hearing. It also hasrepresentatives from parents' and ethnic groups.

The Consortium has a professional staff.Their purpose is to develop both an assessmentand a credentialling system for the Child Develop-ment Associate--assessment based on the com-petencies, a system that will say that you arenow a Child Development Associate and a competentchild-care worker. This will be a credentialthat stands for something very worthwhile.

Meanwhile, some other things have beengoing on. We have established 11 pilot trainingprograms. In those programs, we are trying tofind out what kind of training can develop theright abilities. What methods can we use tointegrate this field training and theoreticaltraining to make it comprehensive? We mighteven ask--Can it really be done in the way wehave set it up? Right now, we really don't know.

In a typical government way and very muchlike what Paul Vicinanza was saying about HomeStart, the training programs are starting butthe Child Development Associate has caught onlike fire. We should have sold each piece ofpaper for $1, and we could have funded all theday care centers you wanted. I guess the timewas right. That's the only way I can say it.The idea came about when the country was ripefor it. I have never worked with anything thatcaught on so quickly. I almost wish it hadn'tcaught on quite as quickly, because you lose a

42

43 certain degree of control. You can't maintainthe quality we are dying to build in. The HeadStart supplementary training institutions havebeen given or will be given the order, if youwill, or the policy, that they all will have toconvert to Child Development Associate kind oftraining--competency-based training, based onthe competencies as we have defined them.

So, we are doing two things at the sametime--very much like Home Start. In one way

we are saying, "Let's look at it, let's try it

out in the kind of protective setting," and inthe other way we are saying "Everybody do it."Now, maybe, that's the way it has to be done,and I suspect what we will do is to learn fromboth and come up with a combination of how canwe do this.

There are many problems--the Consortiumwhich is funded by the Office of Child Develop-ment says now that what they will come up withwill be a kind of locked system of assessment,and they think they will come up with severalsystems of assessment. We have to field testthem and see what they can do.

Credentialling will be a problem. How dowe tie in the states' organizations? How dowe tie in with states who are already doingcertification for early childhood? How do wetie in with other requirements? There will bemany problems. The consortium has sent out thelist of competencies to people for inspection,additions, and refinements. Basically, thecompetencies have gotten support from whereverthey have been sent. How they can be assessedis a completely different problem, because theyare not stated in behavioral terms. They arestated in broad guidelines, and the assessmentpeople will have to determine how they canassess them in behavioral terms. The Consortiumhas given out sub-contracts to several universi-ties to see how to do that.

I have very quickly covered a project thatis very big, that has a lot of visibility, thatI hope will indeed produce institutional changein training, in a way that will bring qualitytraining for child care staff. Hopefully, theChild Development Associate project will, forthe first time in this nation's history, addressitself to the problem that child care is a pro-fession for anyone who deals with children. It

is seen as an innovative means to increase thenumber of preschool workers, and also, ensurethe quality and competence of these persons.

Child Development Associate (CDA) Competencies

A comprehensive, developmental program for preschool childrenis one in which the total design helps children acquire thebasic competencies and skills for full development and socialparticipation, while at the same time assuring that thequality of the child's experience is emotionally satisfyingand personally meaningful.

Within such a child development program the Child DevelopmentAssociate will be expected to have the knowledge and skills tobe able to:

A. Set up and maintain a safe and healthy learning environment

1. Organize space into functional areas recognizable by thechildren, e.g., block building, library, dramatic play,etc.

2. Maintain a planned arrangement for furniture, equipmentand materials, and for large and small motor skillslearning, and for play materials that is understandableto the children.

3. Organize the classroom so that it is possible for th.ichildren to be appropriately responsible for care ofbelongings and materials.

4. Arrange the setting to allow for active movement as wellas quiet engagement.

5. Take preventive measures against hazards to physicalsafety.

6. Keep light, air and heat conditions at best possiblelevels.

7. Establish a planned sequence of active and quiet periods,of balanced indoor and outdoor activities.

8. Provide for flexibility of planned arrangements of spaceand schedule to adjust to special circumstances andneeds of a particular group of children or make use ofspecial educational opportunities.

44

459. Recognize unusual behavior or symptoms which may indicate

a need for health care.

B. Advance physical and intellectual competence

1. Use the kind of materials, activities and experiencesthat encourage exploring, experimenting, questioning,that help children fulfill curiosity, gain mastery,and progress toward higher levels of achievement.

2. Recognize and provide for the young child's basicimpulses to explore the physical environment;master the problems that require skillful bodycoordination.

3. Increase knowledge of things in their world by stimu-lating observation and providing for manipulative-constructive activities.

4. Use a variety of techniques for advancing languagecomprehension and usage in an atmosphere thatencourages free verbal communication among childrenand between children and adults.

5. Work gradually toward recognition of the symbolsfor designating words and numbers.

6. Promote cognitive power by stimulating children toorganize their experience (as it occurs incidentallyor pre-planned for them) in terms of relationshipsand conceptual dimensions: classes of objects;similarities and differences; comparative size,amount, degree; orientation in time and space; growthand decay; origins; family kinship, causality.

7. Provide varied opportunities for children's activeparticipation, independent choices, experimentationand problem-solving within the context of a structured,organized setting and program.

8. Balance unstructured materials such as paint, clay,blocks with structured materials that require specificprocedures and skills; balance the use of techniquesthat invite exploration and independent discoverywith techniques that demonstrate and instruct.

9. Stimulate focused activities: observing, attending,initiating, carrying through, raising questions,searching answers and solutions for the real problemsthat are encountered and reviewing the outcomes ofexperience.

10. Support expressive activities by providing a varietyof creative art media, and allowing children freedomto symbolize in their own terms without impositionof standards of realistic representation.

11 Utilize, support and develop the play impulse, inits various symbolic and dramatic forms, as anessential component of the program; giving time,space, necessary materials and guidance in accordwith its importance for deepening and clarifyingthought and feeling in early childhood.

12 Extend children's knowledge, through direct andvicarious experience, of how things work, of whatanimals and plants need to live, of basic workprocesses necessary for everyday living.

13. Acquaint children with the people who keep thingsfunctioning in their immediate environment.

C. Build positive self-concept and individual strength

1. Provide an environment of acceptance in which thechild can grow toward a sense of positive identityas a boy/girl as a member of his family and ethnicgroup, as a competent individual with a place inthe child community.

2. Give direct, realistic affirmation to the child'sadvancing skills, growing initiative and responsi-bility, increasing capacity for adaptation, and emerginginterest in cooperation, in terms of the child'sactual behavior.

3. Demonstrate acceptance to the child by includinghis home language functionally in the group settingand helping him to use it as a bridge to anotherlanguage for the sake of extended communication.

4. Deal with individual, differences in children's styleand pace of learning and in the social-emotionalaspects of their life situations by adjusting theteacher-child relationship to individual needs, byusing a variety of teaching methods and by maintainingflexible, progressive expectations.

5. Recognize when behavior reflects emotional conflictsaround trust, possession, separation, rivalry, etc.,and adapt the program of experiences, teacher-childand child-child relationships so as both to givesupport and to enlarge the capacity to face theseproblems realistically.

46

47 6. Be able to assess special needs of individualchildren and call in specialist help where necessary.

7. Keep a balance for the individual child between tasksand experiences from which he can enjoy feelings ofmastery and success and those other tasks andexperiences which are a suitable and stimulatingchallenge to him, yet not likely to lead to dis-couraging failure.

8. Assess levels of accomplishment for the individualchild against the background of norms of attainmentfor a developmental stage, taking into careful con-sideration his individual strengths and weaknessesand considering opportunities he has or has not hadfor learning and development.

D. Organize and sustain the positive functioning of childrenand adults in a group in a learning environment

1. Plan the program of activities for the childrento include opportunities for playing and workingtogether and sharing experiences and responsibilitieswith adults in a spirit of enjoyment as well as forthe sake of social development.

2. Create an atmosphere through example and attitudewhere it is natural and acceptable to express feelings,both positive and negative -- love, sympathy, enthusiasm,pain, frustration, loneliness or anger.

3. Establish a reasonable system of limits, rules andregulations to be understood, honored and protectedby both children and adults, appropriate to the stageof development.

4. Foster acceptance and appreciation of cultural varietyby children and adults as an enrichment of personalexperience; develop projects that utilize culturalvariation in the family population as resource forthe educational program.

E. Bring about optimal coordination of home and centerchild-rearing practices and expectations

1. Incorporate important elements of the cultural back-grounds of the families being served, food, language,music, holidays, etc., into the children's programin order to offer them continuity between home andcenter settings at this early stage of development.

2. Establish relationships with parents that facilitatethe free flow of information about their children'slives inside and outside the center.

3. Communicate and interact with parents toward the goalof understanding and considering the priorities oftheir values for their children.

4. Perceive each child as a member of his particularfamily and work with his family to resolve disagree-ments between the family's life style with childrenand the center's handling of child behavior andimages of good education.

5. Recognize and utilize the strengths and talents ofparents as they may contribute to the developmentof their own children and give parents every possibleopportunity to participate and enrich the groupprogram.

F. Carry out supplementary responsibilities related to thechildren's programs

1. Make observations on the growth and development ofindividual children and changes in group behavior,formally or informally, verbally or in writing, andshare this information with other staff involved inthe program.

2. Engage with other staff in cooperative planningactivities such as schedule or program changesindicated as necessary to meet particular needsof a given group of children or incorporation ofnew knowledge or techniques as these become avail-able in the general field of early childhood education.

3. Be aware of management functions such as orderingof supplies and equipment, scheduling of staff time(helpers, volunteers, parent participants),monitoring food and transportation services, safe-guarding health and safety and transmit needs forefficient functioning to the responsible staffmember or consultant.

In addition to the knowledge and experience that areessential components of "educational competencies" it

is essential that the people who teach young childrenshall have specific capacities for relating to them

effectively. From field observation of practitionersand a review of the literature, it is possible to namethose qualities and capacities which are likely to be

most congruent with the competencies as defined. These

are essential complements to the more technical aspects

of competence. The capacities listed below representpatterns of relatedness most relevant to teachingchildren in the early years of childhood.

-To be sensitive to children's feelings and the qualities

of young thinking

48

49 ISO -To be ready to listen to children in order to under-stand their meanings

- To utilize non-verbal forms and to adapt adult verballanguage and style in order to maximize communicationwith the children

-To be able to protect orderliness without sacrificingspontaneity and child-like exuberance

- To be differently perceptive of individuality andmake positive use of individual differences withinthe child group.

- To be able to exercise control without being threatening

- To be emotionally responsive, taking pleasure inchildren's successes, and being supportive for theirtroubles and failures

-To bring humor and imaginativeness into the groupsituation

- To feel committed to maximizing the child's and hisfamily's strengths and potentials

For further information, please write to: Dr. Jenny W. Klein, Office

of Child Development, P. O. Box 1182, Washington, D. C. 20013

a theme I think we see developing

is the idea of family focus . .

By W. Stanley Kruger

52

.first of all, I just want to spendsome time talking about three philosophiesthat I think pervade the program we areworking with. Many of these have beenexpressed here. I am not going to repeata lot of things that I find in common withthe programs that were described yester-day--just enough to give you some senseof the direction that we are trying to go.

There are three philosophies I thinkthat are beginning to pervade some HEWprogram operations. Certainly, they areapparent in the five-year planning docu-ments with which we work. One of thetrends files under the label, "ServicesIntegration." This basically is an at-tempt to try to get some of the frag-ments in health, education, and socialservices (or Welfare, if you like) backtogether to help solve social problemswhich are neither education alone norhealth alone nor maintenance nor servicesdelivery alone. Thus, within thedepart-ment, anyway, I find it helpful to saythat there are some attempts to try tobring health, education and welfare,particularly the social service aspectof welfare, together as program planningoperations.

Then I think another focus or themeis the concern for the total family. I

think instead of looking at the child andthe parent, that many of our programs arelooking at the child and two parents,

53 recognizing that, as various agenciesof health education services had workedwith their clients within family struc-ture, some, particularly in education,have tended to pick off the child.

Now we are beginning to look at the primalinvolvement and the variety of programs,Title I and others. And, just to make apoint, I think some aspects of welfare,let's say income maintenance, particularlyemployment programs, job training--maytend to look primarily at the father, atleast initially, and only secondarily atthe mother. Some other programs, likePaternal & Child Health Service, may tendto look at the mother or mother-childrelationship and leave the father outof their primary emphasis. So the othertheme I think we see developing is theidea of family focus or looking at theprimary constituency with which variousprograms work.

The third idea, again expressed byyour planning document, is one of depen-dency reduction. I think there is anattempt to look at the interaction betweenthe service agencies and the constituentswithin the family structure and to saythat whatever service or program operationsare provided in Federal programs, oneof the things that they ought to do iswiden this gap, to make people withinthe family and the family itself moreself-sufficient. So that at some pointwe must address the kind of questionswe mentioned yesterday:

*When do we say that the parentno longer needs the home visitor?

*When can we terminate thiskind of service?

*When have the services them-selves, the nature of them,given these people the-compe-tency to proceed more or lessunder their own steam?

Iwould be the first to admit thatthere are a lot of people who would saythat the services should never terminate,that you always have a supportive kind ofrelationship. I admit that in some sense,in some areas, you do; that is a legiti-mate function of government, I think.When I was teaching, _.1 argued that one of

54the objectives of the teacher is to enablethe student to learn on his own--reallyindependent of the teacher. I found a lotof people who disagreed with me. Theydidn't have a good answer for me when Ibegan to say, "What do you do when thestudent graduates, when the organizationalstructure sort of forces the separationbetween the support services and the indi-vidual?" Usually, my educational colleagueswould argue that some kind of additionalor extended support service would keepthat dependency relationship. Enough ofthe philosophy.

Ithink these are some things you canthink about in reference to your own pgram. Now, I want to talk about what Ido and where I am--in an organizationalsense. As you know, we have within HEW anumber of major agencies, one of whichis Education which now has two parts--NIE and the Office of Education--both re-porting to an Assistant Commissioner ofEducation. Within the Office of Educationwe have five deputyships. I won't elabo-rate on the whole structure, but one ofthese is the Deputyship for School Sys-tems. This is the unit that is primarilyconcerned with public education inelementary and secondary schools. Withinthis deputyship we have represented atthis Conference the Bureau of Educationof Handicapped and the Bureau for Elemen-tary and Secondary Educati-n.

All of these bureaus within thedeputyship have some program activitiesthat relate to the idea of parenting, im-proving parent competencies to work withtheir children in the education and de-velopmental sense as well as in some otherareas. Now, my boss is the AssociateCommissioner for Elementary and SecondaryEducation, and I have a very small staffcalled the Special Program Staff. In

essence, we get those jobs which are notbig enough to form into division orbranch and tend to get the kinds ofthings that are not legislative.

In BESE we have one division whichadministers Title I. We have one divi-sion which administers Title III, both ofESEA.

55 I might just add that, for example,Title I is doing quite a bit in termsof parent involvement. The regulations inTitle I require parent participation incouncils to administer this program inboth the school system levels. Within thepast 15 months, there have been thesedevelopments, vis a vis parenting, at thedepartment level. They involve all theagencies within the department and someoutside--an inter-agency task force oncomprehensive programs for school-ageparents. And one of my assignments isto direct, at the departmental level, thistask force.

We are concerned with adolescentpregnancy, particularly the high edu-cational, social and health risks in-volved with young parents. On the taskforce we have represented 35 differentprograms, units and offices (28 in HEWand seven in other departments such asHUD, 0E0, etc.) which have an interest inschool-age parents and their problems.Obviously, one of the factors relatedto schoolage parents is, again, how towork with their children. What kinds ofeducational, developmental, health, etc.experiences are unique to the childrenof adolescent parents, and how do wedeal with them?

he second responsibility that Ihave is to head an Office of Educationteam which interfaces with a similar teamin the Office of Child Development on theEducation for Parenthood Project. Now

this project has as its primary objectiveencouragement of the development and imple-mentation in secondary schools of programswhich will train young people to becomeparents or assume the role of parents.This, then, has three agencies involved.We have it in the Office of Education,team representation from these threebureaus, and also from the National Centerfor Educational Technology. And it is a

working team.I'll touch briefly on a couple of my

other job assignments. I am a member of

the Interagency Panel on Research andDevelopment on Adolescents. Obviously,you see some ties with this and with the

whole range of research and development

for adolescence, which is defined as ages10-21. We have a parallel panel, inter-agency in nature, involving not onlypeople in HEW but other departments in theFederal Government dealing with earlychildhood, which perhaps is a littlemore to the point of some who are attend-ing this conference.

Finally, we have an interagencytask force which has a very long titlebut the short title is "Stabilizing theFamily Setting." The mission is to tryto figure out ways an HEW program canincrease the proportion of children instable family settings and reduce thosethat are in either unstable settingsor institutions. So, we work all theway from "How do you prevent a family fromdisfunctioning and disintegrating?" to"What do you do with kids who havealready been the victims of disintegratedfamilies, in our foster homes, or adoptionagencies." Can we improve the methodfor moving these youngsters into afamily setting?

Now I recite all this not to impressyou with what I am involved in but toimpress you with the fact that all four of

these assignments are inter-agency innature. All four of them have, in theearly stages, decided that the family hasto be the unit on which they need to focus,and most of them are trying to developprocedures for eventually reducing thedependency of the family, on the kinds ofservice programs that the agencies arebringing about.

Nw I want to talk a little aboutmy school-age parent assignment because Ithink that this program has the greatestimplications for the kind of things youare doing. Education for Parenthood is ahome-based program--if we are talking aboutthe focus of services at home as opposedto a center or a school-based programproviding the services for the child.

The ultimate objective of Educationfor Parenthood is to ensure parents workeffectively with their children in theirhomes. To that extent we are trying tofocus on some things which will make thingsbetter for youngsters in the home andwhich will tend to enable parents to developcompetencies to work with their children.

56i sW)

60

rre Beekman Center for Mentally Retardedopened with 350 children in September, 1968.During the first year, we found a need to havehome training for retarded youngsters who wereunder age three. So at that time we had an afterschool program where the parents could come inwith babies and toddlers. We would give dem-onstration lessons to the children, to the par-ents, and then send them back home. They-wouldhave only this weekly contact.

The following year, under Title VI funding,the program evolved into a program for multiply-handicapped children who were not in any schoolprograms. At this point, there was quite aneffort to get the children into the school set-ting. We worked in small groups in center pro-grams with the parents observing and then followedit up with home visits. The next year there wereso many multiply-handicapped children who werenot being served in the public schools that itbecame an in-center program. I became a class-room teacher of the multiply-handicapped for fourdays a week and on Friday made home visits tochildren under age three.

Since the day training centers for the se-verely mentally retarded are now under the publicschool systems in Lansing, Michigan, I have beenfree this year to serve as the home visitor forthe children under three.

61 Let me give you some idea of what the pro-gram involves this year. The main goals of theprogram are to help the parents become involvedwith their children.

I help the parents make a medicaldiagnosis in the communities justby setting up appointments or en-couraging them to set up appoint-ments. Many of our children areseen regularly by their pediatri-cian, orthopedic surgeon, otologist,ophthalmologist, and neurologist.

While I am making the home visits,I am constantly assessing the child'simprovement and relating this tothe parents, training them to ob-serve their child.

I give demonstration lessons onspecific skills that I think thechild is ready to learn and thenI observe as the parents do thesame thing and comment on how theyare handling the child.

I provide counseling to help par-ents adjust to the fact that theyhave a handicapped child. Thisis something we must face in deal-ing with youngsters from birth tothree years. It takes about threeyears for the parent to realizethe child's limitations. Or moreimportant, recognize all the thingsthat the child can do and adjustto the fact that the child willbe placed in a special educationprogram at age three.

Parent education is very importantand I ari glad to see a lot of ma-terials here because I seem to havedifficulty gathering materials inchild development to take to theparent. I do loan books, shois,movies, and organize group meet-ings.

Another mai3 goal is helping thechild become as independent aspossible. In working with thesefamilies, I have contact with a

great many agencies in the com-munity. Public health nurses areoften referring youngsters orchecking with me on the special-ized program for a particularchild.

To carry out the program, I communicate withthe physician, the staff members at the BeekmanCenter such as our nurse, speech therapist, psy-chiatrist, and social worker. Some of our chil-dren are referred to a speech and hearing clinicfor cerebral palsy children. I work closelywith them so that we get the children into theappropriate program as soon as possible. I

accompany children to the Crippled Children'sClinic for orthopedic evaluations and I have goneto the hoL?itals to communicate with nursingstaff there. I work with social workers throughthe county social services. I also work closelywith the school for the physically handicappedbecause, hopefully, some of our youngsters willbe placed in that program.

Wrget referrals to the program constantly.Most referrals come when the children are 1 1/2

years old. The parents become concerned whenthey are not walking or crawling. Some of ourreferrals come right at birth when the childhas been diagnosed as possibly being retarded.Most of these children are the Downs Srldromebabies.

This year when I started in September I had12 children; right now I am working with 27 chil-dren. This will give you an idea of how the pro-gram can grow. To give you an idea of the chil-dren I am working with--seven are Downs Syndromeyoungsters, six are very severely neurologicallyhandicapped, seven have cerebral palsy and mentalretardation, three multiply-handicapped youngstersand three children who are considered trainable.We have one child who was referred two months agoas a post meningitis child. We have been workingindividually with that family and the child nowis coming along beautifully. I did announce tothe parents if they felt that at any time theydid not need my services, just to let me know be-cause he is recovering. It is good to see that.The ages of these children range from seven monthsto three years old. So, there is quite a rangeof ages and ability

62

63The program is all very individualized. Each

child has his own program. The parents come fromreally a cross-section of the population. Theyoungest mother is 17 and the most experiencedmother has raised four children.

When I go into a home to make a visit, thefirst one is usually much longer. I take a his-tory of the family background, developmentalhistory of the child, explain the home trainingprogram, and ask what the parents expect fromit. I really take a lot of cues from the parents.Some of the parents are anxious to get busy andwork with their child. Others will take longerto get involved. I assess what the parents feelthe future is for their child and then graduallywork toward goals for them.

The weekly home visits generally last from1 to 1 1/2 hours. I have learned something fromthis conference that I am going to have to ad-just. I hope I am not focusing too much on justthe child. This is something I am going to haveto watch. I do get down on the floor with thechild and demonstrate many activities and methodsof_teaching and then have the mother participatetoo. We try to let the parents know the levelat which the child is functioning in severalareas.

in some cases I loan play equipment ormaterials. Much of the equipment and the ma-terials that we have in the center are veryspecial and very expensive--the peg boards,puzzles, and some of the things that many par-ents can't afford. In some homes I just gatherup what they have there and show the mothers howthey can improvise with items at hand.

The program for these youngsters is veryheavy in motor development and language develop-ment. We spend considerable time teaching theparents how to develop parallel talk with thechild, how to talk to their baby. We do manyexercises in sitting, balance, pre-creeping,patterning for creeping, standing, and walking.A lot of work is done in self-care. With somechildren we have to work on developing theirswallowing and feeding process. With others, weare working on handling the cup, self-feeding.One big project that I encounter with many fami-lies is getting the child off baby bood. The

parents seem to think this is very difficult butwe have been quite successful with this in ourhome training program. Another project that Iget involved in is toilet training. Just beforethey are three years old if the child seems ready,we work on this rather intensively.

I try to get a feeling for the family en-vironments. With some mothers they are over-involved with this youngster, with some familiesthey are under-involved with this youngster. I

try to work toward a happy medium and we haveseen some success in this. For example, in onehome there are three children. The middle childwas retarded and had cerebral palsy. The olderchild was three years old, the retarded child wastwo years old, and they had a baby that was sixmonths old. The mother was holding the two-year-old all day long. She has learned that the needsof her other children are just as important andthat really, it was not doing any good to keepholding the handicapped child all the time. Shehas come a long way in the last six months inrearranging her behaviors. Also, the child isbecoming more independent and, I believe, a lothappier.

Another mother, on my initial visit, madethe comment as she pulled her two-year-old outof the play pen, "I don't really fool with hertoo much." So, that was a cue that we had bettershow her some things that she could do in gettingthe child to respond to her. We have seen apositive change in the dynamics between the motherand child. The child is succeeding and doingthings. The mother is spending more time withthe baby.

It is very difficult to evaluate a programlike this. At least, I find that it is--becauseyou are looking for parent involvement and formaximum development and growth of the child.

Iwould like to share with you some of theproblems that I have encountered. They may seemlike very simple ones but they are practicalthings to consider. Geographic location in oneprogram is something that must be considered. I

drive 500 miles a month and this is mostly in-city driving. The farthest home that I visitis 40 miles away.

64

65I( Scheduling is very difficult when you areworking with young children. I have found thatfour home visits a day is manageable. This

allows you to give your undivided attention tothe mother and not have to rush away to meetanother deadline. You have to schedule aroundnaps, late risers, other children home fromschool for lunch, and then children arriving'after school.

Another distractor can be other preschoolersin the home. I try not to have it become a dis-traction; we often use that child for modelingand to develop the other child's attitude towardthat handicapped youngster's successes.

One thing that I have to be careful aboutis getting bogged down with the trivia of life.The mother of a handicapped child is usuallyrather isolated and so we do carry on a bit ofsmall talk sometimes but I have to watch thatwe stay right on the subject because of the timefactor and the amount of work to be done.

Lack of follow through on the parent's partis sometimes a frustration. Some parents needconstant encouragement to keep up with thingslike doctor's appointments and the regular ex-ercise routines that must be done.

;Can you make or can

you help parents become

chief developers of their own

children?' By Dr. Paul Vicinanza

68

Yorlu asked me to report on what is happeningbasically on the national scene to "Home Start"and on what "Head Start" is currently doing inthe home. I think most of you recognize thelandmarks of current in-home programs: SusanGray's work, Ira Gordon's, Earl Shaffer's, andPhyllis Levenstein's. Their work and the work ofother programs have generally demonstrated thatan in-home approach of some kind can be effective.

The ones I've just mentioned have done iton a small scale. They've done it in a researchor demonstration context. But how can we usethese general research results to begin to shapesome national policy about in-home programs forchildren younger than five?

About two years ago the Office of Child De-velopment started brainstorming in this arearecognizing that they were contributing nothingnew to in-home work--recognizing simply that theywere building upon precedents established throughspecialized research which had been going on atthat time anywhere from 10 to 12 years. Theywere trying ,o answer a very few basic "policy"questions. So, about a year ago now the Officeof Child Development began funding a few "ex-perimental" or "demonstration" programs theycalled "Home Start."

69Neither the notion nor the name of Home Start

was new. I think OCD found more than a few dozenprograms around the country already called thatand they caused those programs some considerableagony. However, they had a special purpose forHome Start that involved basically four major ob-jectives, and which related well to social policyissues.

The first major objective was to involveparents directly in the educational developmentof their children. Can you make or can you helpparents become chief developers of their ownchildren? The second objettive--can you impressupon parents their capacity for aiding the gen-eral development of their own children?--wasessentially an amplification of the first ob-jective which stresses education only. Objectivethree was to demonstrate and evaluate methods ofdelivering comprehensive child development ser-vices to children and parents or substitute par-ents for whom a center-based program is notfeasible. Many of you, I think, are familiar withthe problem in rural areas: center-based pro-grams are very difficult to achieve. The fourthobjective was to determine (and this is a numberone right now) the relative costs and benefitsof center-based/home-based comprehensive earlychildhood programs, especially where both typesof programs are feasible. The underlying as-sumption, I think, is from Sue Gray's testimonyto Congress about four years ago that a home-based program definitely is less expensive andhas the same impact as, or a better one than,center-based program.

dJrie Bronfenbrenner recently put togethera paper for OCD on early intervention into thehome. In scanning cognitive growth, emotionalgrowth--some question about social growth--andphysical development, made the same kinds of"gains" in in-home programs as were made incenter-based programs. Obviously these findingsare somewhat limited in nature and scope. Theyare very difficult to generalize from.

Aside from the research angle of Home Start,there is a significant side-effect of crankingup this kind of program in the Office of ChildDevelopment. Because within twelve months fromthe time Home Start started, Head Start policybegan to change concerning the kinds of oppor-tunities available in comprehensive child de-velopment/child care programs. As many of you

I.

know, Head Start, traditionally, in a full-yearbase was limited to a center-type five-day-a-week operation. This fall, many Head Start pro-jects were given delivery options, and this isformulated basically within Head Start's overallImprovements and Innovations--or "I and I " --program. Aside from the fact that Head Startis coming out or has come out with a whole setof new "performance standards," one of the keyfeatures of the Head Start I & I program was itsenabling local Head Start programs to begin think-ing for themselves about what kind of deliverymechanism makes the most effective use of themoney they receive from the federal government.Is it an in-center five-day or four-day deliveryapproach? Does an in-home approach make bettersense in the community? Is it some combinationbetween a center-based and a home-based approach?Another option, and one I dislike talking about,is double sessions.

The fifth option is for conditions whichcannot be covered by an in-home, in-center, or

combination. This is the locally developed op-

tion. At best estimate, there are now nearly1,000 Head Start programs in the country. There

are at least 74 programs today that have alreadybegun to deliver what we could consider a rea-sonable facsimile of a Home Start effort withinthe Head Start context--based upon decisions madeat the local level and based upon needs assess-ment at the local level.

INow, what does both the Head Start and HomeStart home effort attempt to prove? Who is themost important individual to a young child inhis developmental life? Who is going to be withthat child to adulthood? Is there a way of af-fecting that relationship with that person whois going to be with that child throughout itschildhood life. The Home Start essentially isan attempt at helping parents to be the enablersof their own children's development.

In delivery, Home Start is not a traditionalprogram. It doesn't send a person into a homeand work with the child on a one-to-one or in asmall-group basis. It doesn't come in and playgames with children. It doesn't come in anddeliver "education" to children. Its primaryintent and focus is to assist the parent in doingall those growth and development things she wants

70

71192, to do for her children. Its primary focus is nota single child in the family but the entire familyunit. Although for legal purposes, there is afocal child. Essentially, the child is withinHead Start age guidelines when it is three tofive years old.

Once into the family, the job of the personor persons delivering this service is to workwith the significant adults in that family andnot with the child per se. If you can changethe life and the style and the kinds of inputthe mother or father has or the significant adulthas with the child, you have affected the entirefamily. You have the kind of continuity therethat you are unable to achieve in traditionalinstitutions.

As many of you know, Home Start got off theground and selected at first some 15 and now 16programs across the county to demonstrate. These.sograms run from Gloucester, Massachusetts to

Diego, California, to Fairbanks, Alaska.The site selections were made basically for re-search purposes--getting the proper combinationof persons and places. There were a lot ofclosely guarded secrets about site selection forresearch purposes. The program has a distinctservice look about it, but it is in reality ageneralized research program or demonstrationprogram.

rho delivers the services now is the keyquestion? Well, the answer is obviously a simi-lar answer to ones that many of your programshave come up with. A person called a homevisitor. . . .

1

We regard the

family day care consultant

as an essential

but presently missing link . . .

By Dr. Esther. Wattenburg

74

Mintroduction of the family day care con-sultant, a paraprofessional at mid-career level(AA) as a member of the staffing pattern of Fam-ily Day Care Units, has as its primary goal up-grading the quality of care given to childrenin day care homes.

The consultants, selected primarily for theirsuccessful experiences as family day care mothersworking under direct supervision of a coordinator,will be engaged in a work-study program with astrong interdisciplinary focus--blending someaspects of family studies, early childhood devel-opment, and social work.

Based in the neighborhood, they will pro-vide a range of direct services to teach familyday care mothers ways to provide an enrichedprogram for children; serve as a source of cri-sis intervention and referral; link group daycare resources more closely to those of familyday care; facilitate the flow of information be-tween users and providers; gather data and assessthe emerging needs of family day care mothers forprogram development; and undertake some communityactivities dealing with the problems of childrenin unlicensed homes.

75 Ely day care is the principal method ofday care for working mothers in low income work-ing class and minority neighborhoods. Nationalstatistics reveal that more than 90% of workingparents' children under age 6 who are cared foroutside of their own homes are placed in familyday care situations.

A publication from the Children's Bureaurevealed that care in the family home was thefirst choice, followed by care in someone else'shome, regardless of the children's ages. Rela-tively few women expected to use day care centers.In a recently completed six-state study whichincluded Minnesota, unemployed mothers on AFDCexpressed the same preference for child carearrangements as did the average working mother.

The dimensions of the efforts needed inproviding adequate child care arrangements isrevealed in the following figures provided bythe Women's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor.In March, 1972, 12.7 million mothers were in thework force, an eight-fold increase from 1940.One out of three have children under age 6. (A

forecast projects a 32% increase between 1975and 1985 in the population of mothers with chil-dren under age 5 who will be in the labor force.)

How are these children of working parents,most of them in the lower third of our economiclevels, cared for? In a recent study conductedby the Child Welfare League of America, almosthalf of the preschool children were cared for intheir homes; not quite a third in day care homesituations; and only a little more than 5% ingroup day care centers. The remainder were caredfor in a variety of arrangements, many of whichincluded being taken care of by the mother whileshe worked. The proportion of children of work-ing parents who are in licensed family day carehomes is estimated to be less than 10%.

One must note here that despite the mush-rooming of day care centers, family day carehomes continue to be the preferred resource.

Our own survey for this question broughtout the following observations: Flexibility ofthe family day care situation is the overridingadvantage because:

0 Family day care minimizes thetransportation problem for lowincome mothers.

It provides some supervision forschool-age children and permitsthese children to remain in theirown neighborhoods.

It permits siblings to remain to-gether.

Family day care mothers providean intimacy that is considered

unavailable in day care centers,especially for those childrenunder 3 and those who might havesome special problems. Parentsview individualized attention asthe most desirable advantage offamily day care.

It is less expensive than otheralternatives.

AAL pervasive attitude of distrust for "in-stitutional" day care centers is implied in manyresponses from low income communities. "Theparking lot" stigma is still attached, generally,to this kind of child care. Informal opinionson the rigidity of centers (inability to handlemild emergencies thus disrupting the working dayof mothers), inadequate facilities, crowding,and inadequate staffing are woven into the ex-pressed negative feelings.

Finally, the use of family day care is fre-quently considered an income sharing device- -particularly where children are placed with rela-tives or close friends. In our own informalexchanges with parents who preferred family daycare, many indicated that the financial need ofrelatives or neighbors played a major role intheir choice.

Despite the widespread use of family daycare, the quality of this care is shockingly un-even. It ranges from an environment of creativeand stimulating warmth to reported situations ofneglect and abuse that frequently border on thecriminal. For a vast majority of family day caresituations, we have no documentation whatsoeversince the estimated number of such homes thatare licensed fall between 1 and 10%.

76

77 Afew summary observations on the lack ofa support system:

Although family day care has thegreatest use, it has the leastquality control. Even in licensed'homes, there are limitations sincelicensing criteria primarily areconcerned only with physical de-tails such as safety and hygiene.

There is currently little, if any,provision of supportive servicesto the licensed family day caremother. In this community,licensed FDC homes are visitedperhaps once or twice a year fora routine visit by the overbur-dened day care staffs of Ramseyand Hennepin County WelfareDepartments.

There is virtually no qualitycontrol over the day care ofthousands of children who areinformally placed in homesthroughout the metropolitanarea without even the minimumprotections afforded by licens-ing.

The opportunities for trainingfor the providers of family daycare are sparse and often in-accessible.

There is a lack of systematicinformation between the usersand providers of family daycare. Parents lack sound in-formation on which to base aninformed choice for appropri-ate day care services and manywomen providing family day careare unaware of licensing proce-dures.

Despite these problems, in the forseeablefuture family day care will be seen as anessential, inevitable component of a comprehen-sive day care program:

To offer an intimate environ-ment for infants and very youngtoddlers.

78TO create a supplementary ser-vice for school-age children.

To deal flexibly with thespecial needs of both childrenand their working parents.

As a response to these community needs, wehave proposed a project that embraces a three-fold development.

1. The use of mass media (TV andradio) ds a medium for provid-ing education and training inearly childhood education withthe adjunctive use of group ses-sions, independent study, andspecial seminars and workshopsthat will be delivered directlyto the family day care mothers.

2. The establishment of a centraland five satellite resourcecenters to be staffed and stock-ed in a way to enhance the com-petencies of the family day caremothers in each neighborhood;provide ongoing consultation andmaterials for loan, sites forseminars, and group projects inan easily accessible facility;and to provide a neighborhoodbase for the family day careconsultant.

3. The development of a new career:The family day care consultant.It is to this aspect of the proj-ect that this paper will addressitself.

4:3riven the nature of the problems outlined,Family Day Care System, it seems to us, mustmove irresistibly to "inventions" of staffingto ensure some quality.

If the Family Day Care unit of RamseyCounty Welfare Department is at all typical ofsuch enterprises around the country (and a cur-sory review tells us it is), an overworked staffconfines itself only to basic licensing require-ments, which consist of an initial investigationfocusing on safety regulations, one visit a year,and crisis interventions. The meager resources

79of the staff cannot be stretched to provide sys-tematic training for the homebound family daycare mothers, consultation on a range of formi-dable problems, and sustain the brokerage func-tion between users and providers.

Beyond the pervasive issue of securing ahandle on quality control over the licensed daycare mothers, there is the nagging concern withthe thousands of children tucked away in totallyunsupervised situations. In Ramsey County,there are more than 11,000 working mothers withchildren under 6 (1970 census). There are only900 licensed day care mothers and 1,300 groupday care places.

Moreover, the background and experience ofthe professional staff has one major incapaci-tating feature: in Ramsey County they arechiefly social workers without any training inearly childhood or in family sociology. And

this is not unusual. Most professional staffsof Family Day Care units lack an interdiscipli-nary focus to their training.

In our project, we propose to introduce afamily day care consultant, a paraprofessional,at a mid-career level (AA degree) with the pri-mary mission of upgrading the quality of caregiven to ch-ldren in family day care homes.

The particular "consultant" that we are, asit were, inventing, is derived from the modeldescribed in the paraprofessional literature as"relatively autonomous," i.e., tasks are assignedon the basis of the best performer, not on dis-tinctions between "professional" and "paraprofes-sional" activities. This model stresses theuniqueness of the paraprofessional abilities andemphasizes a fair degree of independence and highdiscretion in paraprofessional activity. (Note

that the model we are proposing is not derivedfrom that which selects a set of tasks for theparaprofessional that the professional considers"routine," "demanding less skill," "low level,"or "subordinate.") Because both members of ourfamily day care team bring special capabilittsto their differentiated tasks, we expect mort..Of.a collegial set of relationships to emerge thanis the usual pattern in such arrangements. We

have deliberately selected a model of a profes-.sional that is expected to operate in a team re-lationship with the professional, more or lessas a peer, not as an underling in a hierarchicalstructure.

It is our contention that the family daycare consultant brings a unique set of capabili-ties, not usually shared by the professional- -for example, successful experience as a familyday care mother. They are intended to have theinsider's know-how, the savvy, and an intimateworking knowledge of family day care and itsstrengths, weaknesses, and special problems andto use this experience to shape a practical,common sense approach to problems which, familyday care mothers tell us, has been notably lack-ing in the meager attention they have receivedfrom the professional staff.

We are suggesting that the consultants willassume the following functions or roles:

Teacher--includes a range of activi-ties from bringing and demonstratingplay and learning equipment to theFDC home to direct interaction withthe FDC mother designed to teach herhow, to influence a positive self-concept and enhance the child'snurturing environment.

Consultant--working with FDC mothersto increase their skills and compe-tencies and coping capacities, aswell as providing help in the legaland fiscal management of the service.

Outreach Worker--an active searchingout to detect problems in unlicensedsituations and bring licensing to theattention of the community.

Broker--assessing the needs of theusers and the qualities of the pro-viders and providing appropriatepossibilities of match.

Bridge--assuming a variety of link-age activities, primarily among users,providers, the FDC agency, the ResourceCenters and the administrative staffof the projeCt. ,(As a Bridge, theymay of course get walked on by allsides, a paraprofessional hazard.)

Data Gatherer--gathering informationfrom .:ase data, statistical reports,

80

81 related sources of community informa-tion and reporting these to appropri-ate persons for program developmentand evaluation.

Direct Supportive Services--this in-cludes the supportive roles to usersand providers which range from lis-tening for simple morale purposes todirect intervention when crises demandit.

Wide publicity of the 10 positions to beopened to family day care mothers included aprecise description of the work-study arrange-ment that would lead to an AA degree. An

advisory committee with representatives fromEarly Childhood Development, the professional

staff of the Family Day Care Unit, family daycare mothers, minority representation and thedisciplines of Social Work and Family Servicesdeveloped the criteria (see page 88). A processor self-selection was initiated. This involvedproviding precise information on the expecta-tions of the position and specific informationon the demanding nature of the tasks and respon-sibilities, as well as the possibilities in thisopportunity. This procedure narrowed the fieldconsiderably--from over 100 applications to 27.The process was further refined when we invitedall the family day care mothers who remained ascandidates to come to a coffee party to facili-tate some interchange with the selection commit-tee. At this meeting, more detail was given andthe questions and answers qualified even furtherthe particular nature of the family day care con-sultant roles as we saw them and the dimensionsof the development of this aspect of our program.Finally, 23 expressed interest in the interview.Consistent questions (see page 87) were proposedto the interviewee and the responses to thesealong with some background information and ref-erences from family day care mothers providedbases for selections.

Out of the 10 family day care consultantschosen, 9 had their high school diploma orequivalency, although this was not a requirement.Indeed to our surprise, most of these family daycare mothers selected had some college in theirbackground, varying from a few extension coursestaken from supplementary Head Start Training tosome who had had a systematic experience intraining to be a nursery school teacher. Of

the ten, three are minority persons. Generallythey represent the diversity one sees in familyday care mothers: ranging from suburban, rather"middle-class women," to women with a stronglower economic "working poor" background.

From an extensive "assessment of needs"process, we have summoned a fairly clear pictureof the most pressing problems of the three majorconstituencies engaged in this resource.

From the family day care mothers:A set of conflicts emerging fromconfusion of role (an extensionof the parent? substitute?neutral caretaker?); severe be-havioral problems and lack ofunderstanding of dynamics andcoping techniques in management;battered children; a range. ofdifficulties with parents (im-mature single heads of house-holds to children caught in thestresses of family break-up);conflicting standards of childrearing; ethical problems ofconfidential information.

These items are by no means ex-haustive in an inventory thathac: a bewildering variety oftroubling and perplexing prob-lems.

o From the professional staff:the need for neighborhood !ork-ers to deliver direct servicesand feedback for program devel-opment; some ideas on how toalert the community to the prob-lems of unlicensed homes.

From the users: information,awareness, and consumer guideson how to select this resource,as well as help on alternativeplacements when appropriate.

IEMthis assessment, we view the consul-tant, at this time of program development, asone requiring some selected competencies derived

82

83 from three disciplines: Social Work, EarlyChildhood, and Family Studies. Broadly speak-ing, from Social Work we would borrow an under-standing of how individuals function in a socialenvironment and the intervention techniques onecan master in the helping process; from EarlyChildhood, an understanding of how children grow,learn, and play and the implications of this forthe family day care environment and from FamilyStudies, patterns of child rearing and thechanging family structures.

Can we bring off this marvel of a hybrid?Despite the obvious complexities, we feel wehave headed in the right direction by securingthe cooperation of these three departments with-in the University to particiapte in the projectand with an interdisciplinary staff we're off,at least, to a soaring start.

Weare presently engaged in drawing up a setof "understandings," which we presume will be theframework for designing curriculum. This is atentative outline of what we are considering:

1. The profound sense of isolationthat most family day care mothersfeel as they care for youngstersfrom sun up to sun down, veryoften without any break into,. theneighborhood or the lifc! of thecity. They are generally home-bound and suffering from thecharacteristics of loneliness,touched off by a lack of adultcompanionship. It is our hunchthat this contributes a greatdeal to the often expressed hos-tility and resentment they showto the working mothers who leavetheir children as charges, forin them they somehow see a rolethat they themselves wish theycould escape to.

2. Perhaps linked to the former isa marked loss of self-esteem offamily day care mothers as agroup. They often refer to them-selves as "only babysitters."They present themselves, as agroup, as unloved and unlovable.A sense of grievance is a heavy

undertone to their exchanges.They do not see their contribu-tion to the care of children asan important community service.One of the interesting featuresof this is that since we beganour TV program for family daycare mothers, the sense of ex-citement and improved self-conceptsfrom having an educational pro-gram directed to their needs andthe attention they have been re-ceiving both in the news andelsewhere has already begun tohave an interesting contributionto their growing self-confidenceas competent women. The familyday care consultants are not sodistant from these feelingsthemselves that they cannot un-derstand this situation but theymust have some self-examinationof this in order to understandwhat behaviors might flow fromthe phenomena of isolation andself-depreciation.

Tie following is a beginning considerationof skills we are looking at:

1. Interviewing as a method in thehelping process along with one-to-one relationship capabilities.

2. Communication skills with specialattention to recording, reporting,and small group dynamics.

3. A knowledge of community resourcesand how to "broker" them for theusers' and the providers.

4. The capability of understandinghow the concepts of child growthand development relate to theactivities in the day care homeand to the interactions betweenfamily day care mother and'` child.

5. Applying the knowledge of safety,nutrition, health, and other areasto the family day care situation.

84

85 6. Developing diagnostic skills, es-pecially relating to danger signalsin maladaptations of child behavior.

7. Developing a range of communityorganization capabilities thatwill help to develop an aware-ness of family day care re-sources, upgrading the consumersophistication in purchasingthis service and identifyingfor the program staff concernsthat should be addressed in thedevelopment of the project.

8. Developing the capability ofproviding technical help in man-agement concerns: bookkeeping,taxes, legal questions.

his is being developed as a work/studymodel with the intention that 50% of the timewill be spent out in the field base in theneighborhood facility of the resource center and50% of the consultant's time will be spent pur-suing an educational goal of an AA degree wiflian interdisciplinary focus mentioned above. P

tentative curriculum is available as our tenta-tive plan for the framework of this portion ofthe project. It awaits refinement from the par-ticipants and a University-Community curriculumadvisory committee.

1. We are planning to do a consider-able amount of co-training of thefamily day care consultants andthe professional staff of thefamily day care unit so that theteam concept can be developedand reinforced. Activities herewill include attendance of theconsultants at staff meetings,regular reporting prozedures onthe progress of the project, andopening up the seminars to thefamily day care staff.

2. The latter concept is basic tothe model under consideration.At the AA degree, considered amid-career level, we anticipateworking with the Civil ServiceSystem in order to develop this

as part of a new staffing pat-tern for Ramsey County welfareboard and the State Departmentof Public Welfare as a patternfor other county units. Creditsearned in supplementary HeadStart and other training pro-grams will be reviewed andwhere appropriate will be thebase upon which the family daycare consultants can build.Other opportunities for workat this level are staffing inday care center operations,special needs, facilities foryoung children and communityorganization efforts in devel-oping programs for family daycare. The possibility of mov-ing on to a BA level and beyondto fully professional goals isan essential concept. Detailsof.the latter from family daycare mother to full profession-al development is apt to beworked out.

3. The methodology of the trainingprogram is lodged in the propo-sition that a core curriculum,electives, and related course-work will be available throughthe more conventional sourcesof education at the Universityof Minnesota.' The use ofSpecial Topics (an,accrediteddevice for flexible curriculuminitiatives) will enable us toimprovise those seminar topicsthat emerge as the most usefultopics of exploration as theprojects develop. We also in-tend to use Independent Studyfor content that has a majorfocus on readings; laboratoryequipment to acquire refinedskills in interviewing tech-niques and communication skills;special workshops for specificacquisition of knowledge suchas demonstration techniques inthe use 0 play equipment.Seminars fusing the consultants'work in the field with course-work within the university willbe established.

86

87 A coordinator will supervise the work inthe community; advise in the curriculum choices

and initiate activities (seminars, individualsupervision) to fuse the two.

The family day care consultants, based inthe neighborhood resource center, will have 50licensed day care mothers as their initial case-load. The level of activity will determinewhether or not this should be narrowed.

The consultants will participate in allstaff meetings, providing linkages to other as-pects of the program.

This suggested project has the intentionof shaping a staffing pattern that will not onlyenhance the quality of direct services to familyday care mothers, but provide the community witha capable and competent group of persons whowill know how to link family day care resourcesand those of the day care centers into a rela-tionship with each other for the benefit of thechildren of working parents.

We regard the family day care consultantas an essential but presently missing link inthe gaps presented by licensed family day carehomes, day care centers, and the vast and some-what invisible network of haphazard arrangementsthat are currently made by working parents.

ATTACHMENT #1

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS FOR SELECTION COMMITTEE

1. How did you happen to get interested inthe job of famil: day care consultant?

2. What are the areas you would be most help-ful in to other day care mothers?

3. In your experience as a day care mother,what children were the most rewarding?What situation did you find the mostdifficult?

4. What kinds of activities do you plan withthe children under your care? \/

5. What outside activities do you have? Whatcommunity organizations do you belong to?

6. How does your family feel about your apply-ing for this job?

88ATTACHMENT #2

SUGGESTED ASSIGNMENT FOR TVCOURSE PARTICIPANTS

(Famil" Day Care Mothers)

As an aid in evaluating course progress and de-termining future directions, we should like toask you to:

1. List five negative behaviors in childrenunder your care which trouble you.

2. List five negative behaviors in arents ofthe children under your care which troubleyou.

3. Describe briefly what you think triggerseach of these behaviors.

4. How do you know? (How did you make the con-nection between the negative behavior andthat which may have caused it?)

ATTACHMENT #3

SUGGESTED CRITERIA FOR SELECTIONOF THE FAMILY DAY CARE CONSULTANT

1. Priority will be given to applicants withsuccessful background as a licensed family

day care provider. Preferably a minimumof two years experience will be preferred.Second priority will be given to applicantswith a successful background in unlicensedfamily day care, or other experience inearly childhood education/development or inworking with parents and children. Thesecond priority areas will not he consideredif sufficient qualified applicants underpriority one are available.

2. Of the 10 consultants, at least three shallbe of a minority race or ethnic group.

3. Although a high school diploma is not re-quired, the consultant shall-be-icapable ofsatisfactorily completing undergraduatecollege work (for example, having the po-tential for developing good reading ability).

By Rob Roy Walters

I

. . . we are making

(id an effort to tie the

establishment to the thrust

of early childhood education.'

90

Iwould like to turn a corner in your think-ing here for a brief period of time. For moreyears than I care to count--at the federal,state, and local level--we have been sittingaround tables like this with people who had fineideas and who were deyeloping fine programs.But it seems tome there is a problem. Thereis a tremendousexpenditure year after year.There are vast personal efforts, personal sacri-fices, to develop a program and then, becausethose engaged in developing programs neverreally link up with the establishment, the pro-grams drift away into nothingness--or fill theshelves of libraries and laboratories through-out the country. They never really get to thetarget audience except possibly through thefield test and the experimentation conductedin the, development process.

It is my belief that the essential ingre-dient to successfully implement a program is in-volvement of the establishment. By establish-ment I mean the state and local school systems.They were there yesterday, they are going tobe there tomorrow and they have got the money.We could talk about the money we get from thefederal government for education, but when youget right down to it, it is a drop in thebucket compared to the billions that are spentevery year by the state and local governments.

So, if you want to see' a program or :a move-ment really reach fruition, then you must in-volve what I call the establishment--the educa-tional system.

As a step to achieving this linkage withthe school systems

91

AEL has been involved in fostering thecreation of a regional consortium of state de-partments of education which is capable of pro-viding leadership in implementing the Home-Oriented Preschool Education program, and otherregional programs and services. The originaleffort to initiate such an organization cameabout one year ago. In April, 1972, BenjaminCarmichael, then Director of our Laboratory,initiated a telephone conference with thechief state school officers of the seven statesin the Appalachian Region which are associatedwith AEL. The states involved were Alabama,Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vir-ginia, and West Virginia. The purpose of theconference was to react to proposal from AELfor the formation of a consortium of state de-partments of education to direct the productionof early childhood education television lessonsand facilitate rrogram implementation in thelocal educational agencies in their states.

Tereaction to the proposal was veryfavorable. Therefore, a one-day exploratoryconference was scheduled in Washington, D. C.in June of last year. Representatives of thechief state school officers and AEL staff mem-bers attended this conference to further theconsortium proposal. Early childhood educationwas formally identified as the initial programfocus. Several studies were identified whichhad to be completed prior to further organiza-tional work.

A survey was made of the actual status ofearly childhood education in the seven states.Other consortium-type organizations involvingstate departments of education were studiedto determine appropriate organizational struc-ture . The decision was made to form a non-profit corporation as the structure which couldbest serve the consortium purposes. The chiefstate school officers will serve as the Boardof Directors and formulate policy for theconsortium; whereas, the administrative repre-sentatives shall be in charge of the operatingdecisions. Actual programs such as the initialprogram in early childhood education shall be

90

would like to turn a corner in your think-ing here for a brief period of time. For moreyears than I care to count--at the federal,state, and local level--we have been sittingaround tables like this with people who had fineideas and who were developing fine programs.But it seems to me there is a problem. Thereis a tremendous expenditure year after year.There are vast personal efforts, personal sacri-fices, to develop a program and then, becausethose engaged in developing programs neverreally link up with the establishment, the pro-grams drift away into nothingness--or fill theshelves of libraries and laboratories through-out the country. They never really get to thetarget audience except possibly through thefield test and the experimentation conductedin the development process.

It is my belief that the essential ingre-dient to successfully implement a program is in-volvement of the establishment. By establish-ment I mean the state and local school systems.They were there yesterday, they are going tobe there tlmirrow and they have got the money.We could talk about the money we get from thefederal government for education, but when youget right down to it, it is a drop in thebucket compared to the billions that are spentevery year by the state and local governments.

So, if you want to see a program or a move-ment really reach fruition, then you must in-volve what I call the establishment--the educa-tional system.

As a step to achieving this linkage withthe school systems

92

carried out by task forces. The task forcescan be expanded to include as many people re-presenting various positions as deemed neces-sary. At the present time, the consortium isexploring the possibility of having educationaltelevision personnel and evaluation special-ists working on the early childhood task forceto provide input into the television componentand evaluation of the Home-Oriented PreschoolEducation program.

The early childhood task force has held twomeetings to provide direction and input intothe production of the pilot television tapesand materials by AEL.

The incorporating document has been draftedand the following objectives have been agreedupon by the consortium states. They provide thebest understanding of the potential scope of theConsortium.

he objectives for which this Consortiumis formed are as follows:

(1) to initiate and conduct regionalprograms which will contribute to the improve-ment of educational practices and procedures.

(2) To increase cooperative interactionbetween the several State Departments of Educa-tion of the member states as hereinafter definedin Part IV, and between such State Departmentsof Education and other agencies concerned withthe welfare of children including departmentof the Federal government, private foundations,institutions of higher education, and otherregional agencies and organizations.

(3) To increase the effectiveness ofFederal expenditures for education in the mem-ber states through better coordination ofFederal and state efforts, resources and ser-vices.

(4) To acquire, analyze and disseminateby various means information which advances thepurposes of the Consortium of State Departmentsof Education in the Appalachian Region.

(5) To seek to generate sufficient fundsto carry out the purposes of the organization.

93(6) To acknowledge the need for the edu-

cational leadership in the member states tobecome personally involved in cooperative ef-forts to improve the educational opportunitiesof children with the full understanding thatnothing implied or stated in these articlesshall in any way detract from the right ofeach State Department of Education to pursue itsown destiny in any affair which at any timerecommends or requires action apart from thatagreed upon by the members of this Consortium.

(7) To receive and maintain a fund orfunds and, subject to the restrictions andlimitations hereinafter set forth, to use andapply the whole or any part of the income there-from and the principal thereof for the purposesfor which this corporation is founded.

(8) To make, enter into, and perform con-tracts and undertakings of every kind and des-cription necessary, advisable or expedient tocarrying out the purposes of this corporation,with any person, firm, association, corporation,municipality, body politic, county, state orfederal government.

(9) ho accept gifts or gifts in trust forthe purposes of this corporation.

(10) To collect, invest, and accumulateincome and to pay or apply income as well asprincipal, at its discretion, for the purposesof the corporation.

(11) To receive, own and hold for itspurposes any property, real, personal, ormixed, including insurance policies withoutlimitation as to kind, amount, or value andto operate, use, enjoy, improve, manage,mortgage, pledge, lease, assign, exchange, paypremiums on or sell or otherwise dispose ofany and all such property in such a manner asin the judgment of the Board of Directors bestpromotes the aforesaid purposes of the corpora-tion.

(12) To have offices and promote and carryon its objects and purposes within or withoutthe State of West Virginia, and specificallyin other member states and in the District ofColumbia.

0Ve feel this linkage is beginning to comeabout now, and I think our progress is verysatisfactory. All I want to tell you is thatwe are making an effort to tie the establish-ment to the thrust of early childhood education.If we don't do it now and we all gather backhere again in four years, most of us will bein different jobs, doing different thingsand our programs will be gone. I really be-lieve that it is essential that we begin towork with the school systems or our effortswill just evaporate as priorities change and westart over again.

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Published by the Appalachia Educational Laboratory, Inc. pursuantto contracts with the National Institute of Education, U.S. Depart-ment of Health, Education, and Welfare. The opinions expressed inthis publication do not necessarily reflect the position or policyof the National Institute of Education and no official endorsementby that office should be inferred. The Appalachia Educational Lab-oratory is an equal opportunity employer.