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Migrant Head Start Outreach
Core Function: Technical Assistance and Outreach Training
The Migrant Head Start Outreach project serves young children of migrant and rural Hispanic families who are identified through training and outreach services as being at risk, including those with special needs. The project follows the premise that, to be effective, training and outreach must be closely linked with systematic change of the program. Elements of the Total Quality Education approach, including rotational peer coaching, mentoring, reflective techniques and web-based interactive problem solving, are applied in this model to empower early educators to conduct in-service demonstrations.
The project uses evidenced-based practices in training participants from rural early childhood education programs serving Hispanic children and their families. Five or six 5-day internships are offered each year to educators and support staff, through partnering with the Washington State Migrant Council’s Head Start staff who serve Hispanic children in rural areas. The internships teach participants how to (1) self-analyze programmatic and educational activities compared to evidence-based practices; (2) enhance their proficiency in self-prioritized practices; (3) plan and implement adaptations of selected practices in their home-based activities, classrooms and centers; and (4) prepare to conduct local demonstrations by hosting mini-internships, where they coach and mentor colleagues to adopt selected evidence-based language, early literacy and social-emotional development practices in their classrooms.
About five sites are served from rural Head Start and Migrant Head Start centers each year. Follow-up and support are also provided through the Inservice Solutions Link Bulletin Board available through the project website.
More Information
Migrant
Head Start Outreach website
CHDD Outlook article on Head Start Outreach: Training Teachers in Best Practices (Spring 2007, page 7) |
