Region 10 T/TA
Supporting Families: Advocacy

Transcript

Moderator: Louise Gill
September 17, 2008
1:00 pm CST

Coordinator:

Welcome and thanks for standing by. At this time all parties are on a listen-only status until the question and answer portion of today's call. At that time if you would like to ask a question, just press star followed by 1 on your touch-tone phone.

Also as a reminder, today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to our first speaker Ms Louise Gill. You may begin.

Louise Gill:

Good morning everyone. And we're so glad that you're on with us today. Terry Elofson is here with me you. And we wanted to present to you a tool that we developed for the Birth to 3 Conference in August.

I hope everybody received the slide presentation, a copy of the performance standards that we will refer to and the resource list.

The aim of this tool is to use as materials for training your staff to help parents and staff know how to become advocates and help parents to become advocates.

So we're briefly going to go through the first 13 slides which refer to performance standards.

Head start staff should know where in the Head Start Performance standards it indicates we have to advocate and we have to teach parents how to advocate for their family.

So I'm going to turn it over now to Terry who will open up the presentation. So if you will go to the Table of Contents slide, we'll start there and move through it. Terry?

(Terry Elofson):

Good morning. Welcome to supporting families: strategies for helping parents build self advocacy skills. But this is also about helping staff to share their knowledge in how to advocate. As Louise said, we have a two-fold purpose going on here.

We are going to talk about the standards just a bit. And what we did is we went through all of the standards and found standards that Dawn Williams, Louise or I felt were pertinent to advocacy or that mentioned advocacy in the standard.

And that's the list that you have, all of these pages of the standards indicate that there is an advocacy process going on in that standard. So we're just taking a few of them today. We're certainly not going to go through all of the standards.

We'll also be talking briefly about some of the other parts of services and laws that deal with advocacy, the IDEA law, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and talk about child welfare services.

And then we're going to move in to the section on parents becoming advocates. And the last part is staff assisting parents to become advocates.

You will find, as you probably know working with Head Start Performance Standards, that throughout our work there it is advocacy to be encouraged and done throughout our work with parents. All parents..

And I'm finding once in awhile when I'm out in the field -- which is not terribly often -- but I'm finding that programs often are out sourcing this advocacy training to the school district or the early disabilities group in the town or whatever.

And that's fine, good partnerships. But I want you to keep in mind is that advocacy is really a key piece for every parent and thus it's important that we see that all of our parents get advocacy, not just those that have children who have disabilities, et cetera.

So when we're talking about advocacy today we want to keep in mind that there are areas where you have to use it more often but it is really for all parents and it will be important to see that advocacy covers multiple areas and at different times in life.

So to just give you the definition we have of advocacy, advocacy is the act of pleading for, supporting or recommending or active espousal.

An advocate, the definition is a person who pleased for or in behalf of another or serving as an intercessor.

So advocacy is a person who pleads for or on behalf of another.

I'd like to take just a minute to think about the roles you've played in advocacy. Can you picture a time that you have served as an advocate either for yourself or someone that you know? I'll give you a couple seconds.

And at that time that you were an advocate I would like you to be thinking today if you could use that as your example, about what did you need in order to be an advocate?

I know a couple things for sure that we don't address very directly today, advocacy requires organized data, either your observations or records or whatever. Also takes a lot of time to be a good advocate.

There are some other things that will help you to be better advocates and your parents to be better advocates.

When you think about your example that you're just reflecting on, did any of you have an experience in which there was some anger in that advocacy experience?

Not all of you will have anger of course. We certainly don't want it to be an angry setting. But in fact advocacy is the active pleading for or supporting. And so we get pretty emotionally wrapped up in it. And sometimes there are times when it's hard not to have some anger.

And I think one of the things that we were sharing with people out in DC is, you know, we need to use honey instead of vinegar to attract the bee.

So, wherever you can you want to be sure that anger does not become a part of advocacy.

And I think that anger management and addressing those issues may become part of your advocacy training also. Keep that in mind.

Louise Gill:

Well I just - like I said, the reason for developing this slide presentation is to be a tool for youth programs to use to train your staff.

So for the next 13 slides these are the areas that (Terry) mentioned that the three of us identified as advocacy within the performance standards.

So the first content area is child health and development services. This says that you've got to involve parents to ensure that they are enrolled in receiving appropriate healthcare services.

The next slide is education and early childhood development. This is parents must be provided opportunities to share observation skills and to share their assessments and to help plan the learning experience for their children.

The next one is around child health and safety. This is talking about you have to implement policies and procedures to respond to medical and dental health emergencies.You've got to come up with those procedures of how you're going to handle that. These are all advocacy type of issues and performances.

The next one is child nutrition. We must work with families to identify each child's nutritional needs. And then it goes more into how the feeding process, the eating patterns -- those types of things.

The next slide is on child mental health. Now this is a big area that a lot of advocacy is done with families. And we have to work collaboratively them. We've got to get them on board when we observe children that are having behavior difficulties or any other type of mental health issue. And these are the areas that are listed.

We have to help parents understand mental health issues. What are mental health issues?

The next slide is on family partnership. There must be parents involved in transition from Head Start to public school from early Head Start to Head Start.

(Terry Elofson):

I do want to mention one thing. These performance standards that you're going through know Louise, are one's that the three of us chose as illustrative of the larger collection of standards. But the list that participants have as a resource is a more comprehensive list than we are going through. These are just examples.

(Terry Elofson):

Well and also show how many different areas that has been listed as advocacy areas..

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Terry Elofson):

And it covers the gamut of what we do in Head Start.

Louise Gill:

We've been talking about so far is the Head Start performance standards in the different content areas that reflect advocacy and really say this is our job. This is what we have to provide to family's just to help them advocate for their families.

Slide 8. And we are now talking about family partnerships.

So the things that we highlighted around family partnerships was that we have to work with families to transition. And my goodness, we all know that they have lots of transitions.

They have transitions from early Head Start to Head Start, Head Start in public schools. They might have transitions from child care to Head Start -- a lot of transitions that they go through.

But it's our job that we provide education and training to help them exercise their rights and responsibilities concerning the education for their kids. And that is mainly what we focus on in family partnership.

Now I'm moving to Slide 9 which is program governance. We have to assist parents - the parent committees in communicating with parents to ensure that they understand their rights.

So this happens through policy council. It happens at your family nights, your parent center meetings -- all of those areas where we have to help them communicate as to what's going on and help them and encourage them to participate.

The next slide, Slide Number 10 is management systems and procedures. This is an overall performance standard that says we have to communicate with parents primarily in their preferred language or through an interpreter.

And so that's advocating. That's helping them to really speak up for what they need for their family. And language is a very, very important aspect.

The next Slide Number 11 is talking about human resources. Parent involvement services must be supported by staff with training experience and skills in assisting the parents of young children in advocating and decision-making for their own families.

So we have to make sure that we have qualified staff onboard and staff that can empathize and understand what our families are going through and trying to advocate for.

The next one is Slide 12. And this again is the parent participation and transition of children into Head Start and public school, helping them to understand what's the system going to be like when they leave Head Start and go to kindergarten, what are their rights? What can they do? How did they do it? How do they speak up for their children once they get into that public school system?

What are their advocating responsibilities when they're coming from say child care to Head Start? What do they need? How can we help them speak up for themselves?

The other slide is continued on page, this Slide 13. That's more of providing resources to them, identifying the need of siblings and other family members that might be caused by a disability, providing information in order to prevent disabilities among younger siblings. There are so many areas that we have to cover when you look at advocacy.

So those are the 13 slides that we tried to identify all the major Head Start performance standards around advocacy.

Now we wanted programs to know regarding disability what the statute is that says that we have to help families advocate there.

And so this is the statute from IDEA. And it says that we have to assist parents to communicate effectively and work collaboratively with personnel responsible for providing special education, early intervention services and transition services.

So all of you know that you're going to have families that are coming to us either identifying with a disability their child has been identified, or once they're in Head Start we will assess their development. And they may be put on an IET or an ISST.

So this is the statute that says why we have to do what we do.

(Terry) has had this experience of having been a parent of a disabled child and going through this.

So do you have anything you want to share just right off the top of your head about how the process starts and what we can do to just be open to families with disabled children?

(Terry Elofson):

Well I - thanks Louise. I'm actually still the parent of a person considered disabled.

I think one of the things that you have to keep in mind -- and I think you all probably know that working with family's -- but sometimes just the acceptance of what it means to have label of disability is a very difficult one.

In fact, when I was working in the public schools some years ago we were having a lot of trouble with young families in the kindergarten, first, second grade who were moving a lot. And they're moving from the school district and to other school districts.

And one of the things they were doing was trying to avoid those diagnoses, the screenings, the assessments, the labeling of their child.

And so I think that's very difficult. I think one of the other pieces of advice I would give but there are so many laws and so forth to protect families and children. And at the same time that those very laws that protect them are very intimidating and often are just handed on a piece of paper to parents.

And it's actually more frightening than it probably is helpful at the beginning because you really don't understand all those words, laws and information..

Louise Gill:

Right. And so we as Head Start advocates need to make sure that the we have that knowledge of what is an IDEA meeting going to be like?

Can we go to those IET meetings and ISST meetings just to be there with their parents? And maybe could we get those parents rights and responsibilities ahead of time and go over that with our families before they have to sit down with the professionals as it says here providing special education or early intervention. So those are some things to think about.

The next slide I just want to mention is now with the reauthorization as we have in the past dealt with homeless families. But now it is in our reauthorization that we will enroll homeless families.

They are automatically eligible. And so each state has to come up with ensuring each homeless child and youth has equal access to the free appropriate public education including a public education preschool.

And so each state will look different in how that is done. But just know that we are more intentional now with identifying our homeless families.

And Terry was mentioning anger earlier. You know, this is - being homeless can bring many emotions. And how are we going to even empathize with a family that's homeless if we've never been homeless? And how are we going to help them advocate for their rights and with the families need?

So this is an area that we're all still working on. But I wanted to bring that to your attention that that is a big area that we'll be advocating.

The other area is child welfare services. Now this relates to our foster children. Foster children are also eligible for our program. So just imagine all the advocacy that we're going to have to do with parents because we're dealing with a foster family, we're dealing with the biological family. And we want to make sure that we understand in each state what the child welfare laws are.

The purpose of child welfare to is to promote, protect the welfare of all children. That's their over guiding mandate.

So we're involved in that. And like I said, this too will be state specific. But this is the overall directions coming from the Federal section there as it's footnoted in 425.

This is why we do advocacy. Because we have these three or four main areas that are saying this is what have to do. How can we do this? And how can we help parents build self advocacy skills? And how can we help staff to help parents build those skills?

So I'm going to turn it over to (Terry) now to talk about the parent team.

(Terry Elofson):

Why is it important in building parent self advocacy, why is it important to engage in advocacy? The second item we're going to explore is understanding the issues and systems you are advocating.

This next item I want to talk about is communicating effectively. This next item is drawn from some research by Marie Sherrett, a parent who discusses an assertive versus a parent who is not.

And then the last item that we want to talk about is accessing resources.

So on the next slide, why is it important to engage in advocacy? Well for one thing as a parent you're responsible for the needs of your child. That's pretty self evident I guess.

But I know sometimes that responsibility may seem a little overwhelming to a family and we have to help them with that.

Second, you want to give your child an advantage that they would not be able to receive on their own. That's why, you know, they have parents because they're bigger than the kids right?

Louise Gill:

Right.

(Terry Elofson):

To help protect them.

Louise Gill:

And if they have a disability, who else can speak for them?

(Terry Elofson):

Right.

Louise Gill:

Or if they're a child in foster care, who's going to talk and speak for them?

(Terry Elofson):

And number three, when you advocate, your child is going to receive better outcomes in what they're getting.

Now keep in mind in all these conversations the advocacy could be in the areas of health. It could be in education. It could be about disabilities.

Louise Gill:

It could be about nutrition.

(Terry Elofson):

Nutrition. It could be at the dentist office. It could be at the welfare office. It could be many places. But we're talking about advocacy in general.

The last item, why it's important is that we know as parents our children better than anyone else. So these are some of the concepts that we want to be sharing and be sure people are feeling strong about.

Next item I want to explore is understanding the issues and the systems that people are advocating for.

The first thing is to know the issue of what you're advocating for. And that's - that sometimes is a little more difficult.

For example, if you're in a medical setting and you have to do some research in order to find out what those options are or ask a lot of questions. So sometimes advocating is getting the information. And then sometimes it's advocating for what you want if you have the information.

So, you need to understand the issues and what you don't know and what you do know. The second thing is knowing the agency's capabilities for providing their services.

And I think in the case of advocating, often we're advocating because there's something special or circumstantial about why we're advocating. You often have to tie different parts of systems together in order to advocate. That's the other piece about advocacy.

If it were really clean and neat we probably wouldn't have to advocate.

Louis Gill:

No.

(Terry Elofson):

But because issues have multiple pieces to it, we do have to work at advocacy.

I think another thing that parents really need to understand is that they need to know the staff and the other adults that will be providing services to their children.

And I gave the example on - in our presentation at DC about when my son was in second grade - well I'm sorry, he was in first grade. He was repeating first grade for the second year and there had been no diagnosis. There had been lots of testing but there had been no diagnosis with that yet. And everyone was struggling.

And I decided that I was going to volunteer so I could get into those classrooms to see those classrooms better and also to know what's going on in the schools.

I had the good fortune -- I don't think I thought it out carefully, but I had the good fortune of volunteering for the second grade.

I already was dealing with first grade and I had enough on my hands. I needed to figure out what was going to happen in second grade.

And so I volunteered as an art docent in second grade so I could get to know those teachers and figure out what was going to be the best environment for my child.

You have to deal with the current but you have to be thinking about the future. And that was gathering data for myself to know what my son needed to have.

Louise Gill:

So really it's not walking in blindly.

(Terry Elofson):

That's correct.

Louise Gill:

So it would, you know, behoove our parents to go to kindergarten, visit the classroom if they could, if it's realistic and really see before we ship our kids off to public schools.

(Terry Elofson):

The next item that we want to work with our parents is communicating effectively. For one thing they're going to have to get their message across to people. That means they're going to have to be able to articulate it. And that's why knowing the issues, knowing the circumstances, knowing who can do what, is going to be very helpful.

I think the second thing that we need to help parents to learn to do well and to communicate well with is asking relevant questions and actually just the art of asking questions.

(Terry Elofson):

Because we're just touching the surface here. There's a lot more to be developed in parent advocacy. But we're saying these are some key pieces...

Louise Gill:

Because you know how to help parents ask questions. First they've got to get some facts. And then they're got to ask those relevant questions. Don't ask for something that you know and they know that they're not going to get.

(Terry Elofson):

Right. Then the next thing that is important is communicating effectively is to be a good observer.

And this is particularly important for all parts of advocacy. If you're going in to advocate, say, in a health setting, you may have to bring some observation skills about what the person you're advocating for was experiencing or what they displayed or their symptoms.

But also you have to use those observations skills when they're actually doing the advocating to really be able to watch how the advocating is being received and where you need to go next.

It's not a matter of going in and telling them what you want and leaving. Sometimes that works. But if you're really doing a job of advocating, you're using a lot of observation skills and asking questions and so forth.

And the last item that we have is good advocating is practicing listening skills. As and advocate you've got to be able to hear what is the barrier to why you can't get to where you want to be when you're advocating.

The next aspect we want to talk about is assertive versus non-assertive parents. And as I mentioned Marie Sherrett has written some things regarding this concept and does a lot of workshops evidently on this topic.

From her research we have taken a couple of things. Her definition of a parent who is assertive is one that persists. And I think that's a key piece for parents to understand because you usually face a lot of barriers if you're advocating. You're not really advocating if it's easy to get what you are wanting for an individual.

Louise Gill:

And I just want to say, and we as staff have to realize a persistent parent is not one that is just trying to drive us crazy sometimes. Sometimes it feels like that.

They truly want to see some results from what they're asking us to do. This is that anger piece that comes in sometimes trying to understand why the parent is so persistent. So we have to do a lot of searching there with the parent.

(Terry Elofson):

And Sherritt is saying in her research this quality is a pretty good quality to have.

Louise Gill:

You have to have that. But we've got to understand why they're so persistent.

(Terry Elofson):

Right, and be able to live with it.

(Terry Elofson):

The next item is expressing themselves clearly. And again, sometimes that just needs rehearsing with someone else about what they're going to say or what their main ideas are, et cetera. And helping them to breathe, take deep breaths when they're in stressful situations.

The next item -- and I'm going to address this a little bit more in a few minutes but -- is keeping records. It's really going to be important to keep records.

And I can tell you from my experience three times this week with the bank. I wish I'd taken good notes the first day because the second day I needed them. So it really does become important.

The next item is to not be intimidated. And that is a hard one.

Louise Gill:

And I think we do that sometimes without realizing. You know, that we intimidate parents some time. And we don't mean to.

(Terry Elofson):

No. And I - let me just give you an example. I have a Ph.D. in two areas in early childhood and I have a child in elementary schools. And I have done a lot. And I had this PhD when I had my son and was advocating for him in the school.

And I'm saying this to you not because you need to know that I have been through that process, but in fact it took not only everything that I knew, but it took another friend of mine who had a PhD in reading to help me. And it still took us two years to get my son qualified for some services.

So what I'm saying is even if you have a degree or lots of degrees it's still hard. And intimidating. And it was very intimidating to me. In fact, thinking back to an audiologist's report I had requested for my son, I was very intimidated by the report.

And I look back on the report now and think why didn't I ask this and why didn't I ask that?

But frankly, as a person who had a lot of degrees I still was very intimidated. So our parents in Head Start may have degrees, may not have degrees. But it is intimidating. We need to keep that in mind.

The next thing is that an assertive parent really needs to be able to analyze problems. I mean we need to give them the steps to help them to step back and look at things and to split things apart and to see where the pieces are and what's not understood and so forth.

Louise Gill:

Very concrete analytical steps.

(Terry Elofson):

Yes.

Louise Gill:

And the next item is for parents to be positive and strong. And of course that's not easy when you're beginning to feel down and out.

(Terry Elofson):

Not at all.

Louise Gill:

Anyway, a parent who is not assertive according to these writings of Marie Sherritt is that they often fail to act and that they agree with professionals in order to keep the peace.

Louise Gill:

That's true. They fail to describe problems and issues. And here again, if they're good observers, they're taking good notes, they're going to be prepared not to be - afraid to be -be able - they'll be able to describe problems and so forth.

The next item of a parent who is not assertive is that they often feel guilty or they're afraid to be vocal.

Another item is that a parent who's not assertive often accepts the status quo, oh this is all they can do.

A real advocate remember, is one that pleads for the case and supports.

A parent who is not assertive gives up because of red tape. And frankly, there's going to be a lot of red tape. And we just have to build in expectations that that's just part of this process and we go from there.

I want to move onto one of our last items which is accessing resources. And here one of my favorites -- and I made reference to it in my own personal life -- the first one is organizing records and materials and resources.

And I suspect that for Head Start programs that would be a very good program at parent meetings and so forth. Recordkeeping becomes critically important in high stake kinds of advocacy such as medical or financial or education or disability.

Louise Gill:

Just showing, just helping those family's get a file folder and put all their health information in one file...

(Terry Elofson):

Or multiple files...

(Terry Elofson):

This next one would be becoming aware of community, state and national resources. And we have provided some resources for you. I know you have a lot of resources also.

The next one that I want to address is building a support team. And this one is to create a team for the family or the advocate who can be there to support them. And let me give you one small example.

We all create teams whether we call them teams or no.. And some of us have more teams, a bigger team than other people.

When I had young children, one of my friends was taking classes on Tuesday nights. And her son had a piano lesson. And she couldn't get him to piano lessons. So we traded. She took my son to music lessons on Monday nights. I took her son on Tuesday nights.

Now they weren't taking from the same instructors. We're going across town different ways. But it worked well for us. And so that is an example of a support team.

I know single parents often try to find somebody who can be of the opposite sex to be a mentor, that's part of your support team. There's lots of individuals which make up a support team.

I'm going to jump down to one of the other items listed below , finding a mentor. If you have a large advocacy issue, it is important to find a mentor who can stay slightly removed from all the emotion of advocacy. A mentor is one who can attend IEP meetings and take notes, Or observe. Or ask questions.

Louise Gill:

So Head Start staff might sometimes become that mentor.

(Terry Elofson):

They could.

Louise Gill:

Yes. It's also important for people to learn to find these supports on their own.

(Terry Elofson):

That's true.

An advocate needs to start finding people and start looking for those kinds of things they need and understanding what they need and look for it.

So one that I skipped over was accessing parent support groups. And there are quite a few of them around now. Frankly there weren't any back when we were dealing with my oldest child.

And then the next item in terms of accessing resources is that you have to prepare for some kind of time commitment. And it's not only because advocacy takes time, but if you're going to be fully prepared - you're never fully prepared. Let me restate that. Advocacy takes time if you're going to be prepared and have a good understanding of the issue.

You're going to have to invest in some research or observation time as well as the organizing of that data. So it does take time.

So those are things that we have to work to assure parents know and it's important to invest in.

Louise Gill:

And I think you pointed this out when I inadvertently said you were the parent. You still are the parent.

(Terry Elofson):

Yes.

Louise Gill:

And you still are advocating for your son. And it is a time commitment -- years, lifetime.

(Terry Elofson):

It is. And Louise is telling you that because I often talk in the morning to her, And when I come in with my latest advocacy regarding my son who is 33. There's a lot of advocacy still going on.

Louise Gill:

Well once a parent always a parent no matter what. Right?

(Terry Elofson):

That's true.

Louise Gill:

Okay, I'm going to skip the next slide and just go right in because we want to give you time to ask questions.

We're on the Connect with Families slide right now. And these are things that we thought are just very necessary for staff to be able to help parents to become those advocates.

And so you want to connect with the family. You want to build a relationship with parents. And that's in everything we do with our families. That's just a given.

You know you're not going to get anywhere unless you build a rapport and a relationship.

You've got to be personable. You've got to be empathetic, compassionate and nonjudgmental. These are all givens.

You have to be sensitive to the cultural and ethic - ethnic differences. And that is very, very true.

You've got to do some research if you've got a culture that you've never had in your program before in order to just build that rapport. You've got to know where they're coming from.

Next you want to meet the family where they are. You want to assess the family's status and readiness to advocate. Because just like setting partnerships, some family's just are not ready. And so you can't force this.

But you've got to understand what it is that the family has to advocate for. What are you trying to get them to do? You're thinking of the child and the outcome for the child. You need to wait until the family's ready. And the only way you can do that is you've got to follow-up on a regular basis with the family.

The next slide is assist in building self advocacy. Understand why it's important for the family to be an advocate. Understand those issues. What - maybe the family's not even aware of what they need to be advocating for. But we kind of have to understand that and help that parent to realize what they need to do.

We need to assist with communication skills. Like Terry was going over before what the parent needs to do. They've got to be strong. They can't be intimidated -- all those things. We have to come in with how can we help that family to get stronger and to not be intimidated. What can we do?

The other thing is to help that family find that support team, build that support team.

I'm thinking just right off the top of my head with disabled children you've got PAVE is a support group. It's another resource that we could send our families to learn more about that organization.

We have to help the families learn how to research and access resources. So if they don't have the computer skills or the literacy skills we have to understand where they are and how to help them.

Resources again is the next slide. We've got to help them know the community state and national resources. And like Terry said, we have printed out - these are mostly national resources that we have given you as Web pages. But those nationals can refer you back to state and then from state to community so you can break it down.

You've got to understand your community trends and capacities. What's going on in your community? How is the community addressing the needs and issues of our parents?

Staff needs to partner with local resources. You need to become more of a network agency for that issue that your program's family is going through.

So these are the things we identified as reasons or issues that staff need to help parents with.

And the next slide is when you're doing this training then you want to give your staff time to really think about some issues that might come up and how they could help a parent advocate. Or they could be a parent, play those roles.

And so we - the next slide is asking this team that you're training to break into groups and to either identify themselves as the parent or staff person and then look at the next three scenarios -- and they're the next three slides that you have -- and really address the skills and the strategies that we've given before these scenarios to see how they could do the advocating and helping.

(Terry Elofson):

And this is really just one example. You'll come up with a lot of scenarios or other activities. But trying to get ourselves involved in it to really start understanding what some of these issues are for parents.

Louise Gill:

Right. You might come up with your own scenarios.

(Terry Elofson):

So now we're going to open it up (Roy) to questions. And we hope that -we know we've rushed through this. But we just wanted to let you know that we have this tool if you want to use it. And please feel free too.

So any questions or any comments?

Coordinator:

At this time if you would like to ask questions or make comments just press star followed by 1 on your touch-tone phone. Once again, star 1 to come up with a question. Please make sure you are unmuted on your side. State your name. I will then introduce you and open your line.

Coordinator:

Okay, we do have questions showing from (Stephanie Pells).

Louise Gill:

Okay. Hi (Stephanie).

(Stephanie Pells):

Hi guys. I'm actually new to Head Start. And it's my understanding that there are several quarterly meetings on the advisory councils for health and nutrition where a lot of community partners do get together with service providers, Head Start staff, parents, community members and things like that.

And I was wondering from a social services standpoint, I haven't heard much about that. And I think advocacy would definitely be a topic that could be addressed from, you know, a district standpoint of getting the agencies together.

And I'm wondering if that's happened in the past and if it looks as though that's going to be happening again in Seattle?

(Terry Elofson):

Oh, specifically in Seattle.

Louise Gill:

Oh, you mean here in Seattle?

(Stephanie Pells):

Yes, here in Seattle, sorry.

(Terry Elofson):

And so I was - this is (Terry). I was just kind of thinking that you were talking about the health advisory (system) in the different - you know, for each grantee which by the way your idea is really nice also where you could talk about advocacy and kind of get partners there involved in it...

Louise Gill:

Right.

Louise Gill:

I'm not quite sure I understand the meetings that you're relating to, the quarterly meetings. Is this something that you've heard about that's regional or...

(Terry Elofson):

Well I don't know. I'd guess that maybe just see the Seattle grantees. It's my understanding that the Health Services Adviser Committee is maybe the only one that continues to meet or at least that I've seen on a calendar for this school year.

Louise Gill:

Oh okay. I can answer that now. Yes, the health committee and the coordinators in the Seattle area do meet on a regular basis. Also disability was meeting on a regular basis.

And I don't know if the health and disabilities were meeting together but I think they were separate meetings. But I can get more information for you (Stephanie) on that.

(Stephanie Pells):

Okay, that would be great.

Louise Gill:

And if you could if you would just email (Anil). If you could just email her your address and your name so I can get back to you.

(Stephanie Pells):

Okay, I will do that. Thanks.

Louise Gill:

Thank you.

(Terry Elofson):

And I know in the state of Oregon that the disability and education coordinators do meet together.

Louise Gill:

Oh good. But anytime yes, you can pull any agencies together to talk about. Because usually our parents are dealing with more than one.

(Stephanie Pells):

Right. Great, thank you.

Coordinator:

All right, our next question comes from (Loretta Fells).

Louise Gill:

Hi (Loretta).

(Loretta Fells):

Hi. My question is I'm a home based teacher. And we were talking about being intimidated. And I just know I have parents that feel like as though I'm coming into their home trying to teach them how to raise their kids. So how should I go about - how should I approach this situation?

(Terry Elofson):

I'm not sure we're going to be able to answer that at this time really. But I think you might want to enlist some of your colleagues that you work with and talk about that and what techniques they use.

I also would suggest that maybe you give us a call and any one of our TA staff and we can talk to you about it or your TA specialist. I don't know if you're - know them personally but we have a list of them. You can get the names through (Annelle) and talk to them about that.

But I think it is tough. It's a very tough situation.

Louise Gill:

It is.

(Terry Elofson):

And what we have to do is think about how do you feel when someone comes in to help you?

(Terry Elofson):

You just want to have that empathy with the family. You want to make sure that you're developing a rapport.

Don't be so quick to jump to the next step. Really stay where your family is at the time you're meeting with them. Make sure that you let the family know that they're the first teacher in their children's lives and they know their children much better than you do.

It's really you've who needs to build that trust first before you can get over that intimidation.

(Terry Elofson):

True. And also they're the ones that need to set the goals for their family and for their children and so forth.

Louise Gill:

Definitely.

(Terry Elofson):

Developing those relationships. It's a lot about listening.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Terry Elofson):

I know that doesn't help you totally.

(Loretta Fells):

No, I am going to speak to my supervisor here about it though.

(Terry Elofson):

Yes. I think it would be a good idea.

Louise Gill:

Oh yes.

(Terry Elofson):

And I really think that -I think one of the reasons we were doing this topic is because we had some concerns that this is such an important empowering strength for parents to have to be able to advocate well.

And I'm not sure in this day of us having so many things to do and not much time and not much depth that we're paying much attention to it.

And this is not an expensive thing to do. This is a matter of organizing to help parents become better advocates.

Louise Gill:

All right.

Another question?

Coordinator:

Once again star 1 will signal up with questions.

Louise Gill:

Okay, thank you. I just want to say that we hope that this slide presentation and the handouts that we've sent you will be helpful.

You can adapt it. You can change it. We're not saying you have to leave it like it is. Make it useful for you.

We just wanted to point out the areas of both staff and parents in relation to what it takes to be good advocates.

And if you have any feedback for us we'd love to hear it. If you have any questions that you'd like to ask later please give us a call. We'd love to talk to you about this.

Coordinator:

We do have one person that just signaled up if you want to take another question.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Terry Elofson):

Okay, thank you.

Coordinator:

(Felicity Elworthy).

Louise Gill:

Oh hi (Felicity).

(Felicity Elworthy):

Hello Louise. Yes I have a question. And unfortunately I'm not looking at the handout or the right one at the right - right now.

But there's a performance standard that talks about involving parents and community groups in order to make them more responsive to their needs, that one.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Felicity Elworthy):

I'm curious about how other agencies interpret that or foster that kind of activity with their parent group. In my experience that's perhaps one of the most difficult ways to encourage parent advocacy. And I'm curious what other people's experiences.

Louise Gill:

Okay, would anybody out in the audience like to share their experience with that trying to get parents involved with other community agencies so that they would know the needs?

(Terry Elofson):

I was going to ask one thing though. I think one of the things we need to think about is how we get parents to go out into the community. And we don't have much time to go out and the community but we do do it.

And I suspect that we need to be thinking about having parents go with us on those kinds of excursions for those partnerships and working on how to deal with the larger world and how tooperate in it. Demonstrate what skills are needed in order to do that.

Louise Gill:

Another area that you might - it might be helpful is with our policy councils when they talk about community representatives truly go out and get community representatives from community agencies like you're DHS, your housing authority, your health department, any of those agencies -- Salvation Army, you know, whatever is in your community, get them on that policy council.

And then your parents get to know those people. And then, it just leads to something else. Hopefully then those agencies would ask our parents to sit on committees. That would be one way that I'm thinking of.

But all of this you realize (Felicity), can't be done overnight. I wish I could say oh it just happens but you know that it doesn't.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Can you still hear me by the way?

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Okay I think - I agree with you. I think that's a very good way to approach it is with the community reps on policy council.

I have been - we have a very good relationship with our local DHS child welfare agency. And I have been trying to think of ways to make that be an attractive proposition to them.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Felicity Elworthy):

They are very, very busy people. And to spend 3 hours, you know, in an evening, I need to be able to tell them what's in it for them.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Felicity Elworthy):

And I'm not quite as clear about that sales pitch as I am about it from the other perspective.

You know, I can certainly appeal to their better nature and say look, this would be great for your relationships with this, you know, with this parent group.

But for the agency rep, I don't know. What do you think about that? How would you sell it to and agency?

(Terry Elofson):

Well I would sell it as this as a way of not only building the relationships, but reduce the amount of time spent with problem cases as the community gets to know you better.

But I think there some things that could be explored about how it could benefit them in terms of time and processing and also having a better understanding and a better PR in the community.

Louise Gill:

Right.

(Terry Elofson):

That's what it does when the community gets to know you. You generally have a better relationships.

Louise Gill:

I agree. If you've got to sell them on we are all working with the same families. Thus when they come to policy council they can share something about their agency with those parents, that helps them to understand the system better.

The other thing I wanted to mention to you when I was doing direct service, we were able to get someone from WIC to come to our policy council meetings just to hand out food vouchers.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Oh nice.

Louise Gill:

Yes. And then it just led to something else. Then they got to know the people on policy council. Then they wanted to be community reps.

So if you can just think of something because they were having a hard time getting the food vouchers. Now this was years ago and I'm sure the system has changed. But they were having a hard time getting the food vouchers to the families.And so we said why not come to our policy council. And because all parents do come.

And it led into something. But (Felicity) like I said, it takes a while. It does take a lot of talking.

The other thing is you have to network with them first.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Yes, which we do. And I just found the performance standards. And maybe I could just read it.

Louise Gill:

Sure.

(Felicity Elworthy):

It said its 13.40G 1 and 2. It says parent involvement in community advocacy.

Louise Gill:

Right.

(Felicity Elworthy):

The grantee must support and encourage parents to influence the character and goals of community services in order to make them more responsive to their interest and need.

Louise Gill:

That's true.

(Felicity Elworthy):

And then two - and then there's the bit about community resources. And then parents must be provided regular opportunities to work together and with other community members on activities that they have helped developed and in which they have expressed an interest.

And that's the one I think that I find truly challenging.

Louise Gill:

Yes.

(Felicity Elworthy):

It's really - that's a biggie. And it's so much of the heart of what we want to do in terms of involving parents in their communities. But how you get from A to Z is really - that's a long road.

Louise Gill:

It is. And you just have to take it inch by inch.

(Terry Elofson):

Yes. Well I still, you know, I'm very interested in how other people might approach this. But I realize our time is short.

Louise Gill:

Well if anybody would just like to email me or call with their suggestions I'll be glad to get that information out to everyone.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Great. Thank you Louise.

(Terry Elofson):

I guess one other thing I was thinking about, you know in parent meetings or in policy council meetings perhaps is comes up as a a project to get to know the community better. And from that could be develop people going out and interviewing different partners in the community.

Louise Gill:

That's true.

(Terry Elofson):

And then bringing it back and reporting back on it which provides everybody more knowledge about the committee.

So, you know, there's probably 100 variations of that activity. But that might be another way and to think about that particular task.

(Felicity Elworthy):

Maybe part of the community assessment process.

Louise Gill:

Oh, that's a great idea.

(Terry Elofson):

Yes. Okay well the time has gone fast. Thank you very much everyone.

Louise Gill:

Thank you. This was wonderful. And please keep in touch with us. And if you can think of something else you'd like for us to address further down the road just let us know. Thank you for attending today.

Coordinator:

Thank you. That concludes today's conference. You may disconnect at this time.

END

Posted on October 22, 2008.