A Closer Look at the Planning Guide and Organizational Readiness Chart

A Closer Look at the Planning Guide and Organizational Readiness Chart for Early Head Start and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships

Randi Hopper: Hello, everyone, and welcome to our webinar. We're really excited to see all these people here today that have come to join us from all different various positions from across the country. Hopefully, all of you are super excited to be able to learn more about this updated resource.

My name is Randi Hopper, and I am from the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning, also known as DTL. We have a couple other presenters with us today. We also have Janet Humphryes from the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations, as well as Ms. Sarah Merrill from the Office of Head Start.

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Alright.

So, let's get started today. We're going to cover our objectives. So, for today's webinar, we're really looking at you being able to really explain the purpose and intent of this guide — this Planning Guide and Organizational Readiness Chart, incorporate this resource into your planning activities, in your implementation process as you do for Early Head Start and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership Programs, and describe and use supports to assist you in your strategic planning as you go and cover high-quality services for infants, toddlers, and families in your community.

So, without further ado, I'm going to introduce and switch it over to Sarah Merrill from the Office of Head Start, who's going to take us through some background information about this resource.

Sarah Merrill: Thanks, Randi. Hello, everyone. We're so happy you're here. And on behalf of the Office of Head Start and especially my colleagues David Jones and Karen Hine, who have worked to help facilitate the revision of this tool. We'd all like to thank you and welcome you for attending today. We also want to extend our gratitude for our National Center colleagues who have worked so hard to update the Planning Guide and Organizational Readiness Chart.

We know that operating Head Start or Early Head Start is a complex and dynamic process, and then to add and think about the nuances and considerations for infants and toddler services, we know it's so important, but it adds to that complexity, and we're very excited about this tool. We think it's very helpful.

A little background history is that what you'll learn about today is the third iteration of a resource we've had out to the field. It started in early 2000s when Early Head Start was in their expansion phase. You may know it as the Early Head Start Organizational Readiness Chart. It was updated in 2015 when the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership Grants were being awarded, and at that time, we had two documents, one for Early Head Start France and one for Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships.

Today, you'll learn about the tool which is now one document, and it's intended to be used by multiple audiences for multiple purposes. So, organizations who were recently awarded Early Head Start funding or awarded an Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership fund might find this tool useful as you start to actualize the services that you put into your application. Head Start grantees and Early Head Start grantees could use this as they want to consider expanding their Early Head Start program or they want to think about converting preschool slots into infant/toddler slots. And we also feel like community agencies — or Head Start agencies who want to respond to funding awards for Early Head Start — will find this to be a useful tool. Share it with your child care programs out in your communities if they want to learn about Early Head Start and what it might be to become a successful partner.

So, the purpose of this tool is really to help organizations, through the use of leadership or planning teams, think about their organizational readiness to deliver Head Start infant/toddler services and to think about the planning process as they design and begin to implement quality comprehensive Early Head Start services. The tool offers considerations for services to pregnant women and all the program options.

We know that center-based and home-based — or home visiting and family child care program options – are all viable and important to infants and toddlers and their families. We also know that Child Care Partnership grants do not use the home base or home visiting program option, nor do they offer services to pregnant women, but it's still good to know about these services as you are speaking about your services and your planning.

The updated tool aligns with the current regulations. It also offers consistent messaging and links to other current Head Start tools, and we think of it as one of the many important tools that are out there that can really help organizations think about quality services. This tool, in particular, will help you think about the strengths and opportunities you have for delivering services to infants and toddlers, help you think about the available resources that you have or that you need to access, as well as help you with coming up with action steps to help you prepare and deliver Early Head Start services.

So, now we want to just take a minute to learn about you and your role in the program planning process.

So Randi, if you can put up the poll question, and what we want the viewers to do is to select the best statement that describes you.

So, are you highly involved in planning for Early Head Start or Child Care Partnership services? Is your role sort of moderately involved? Are you not directly involved at all and are here just to learn more about the tool and Early Head Start in general? Or is your role to support programs in their planning? So, are you a TA provider or perhaps a federal staff member?

And, Randi, are you seeing some activity, or what do you see on your screen?

Randi: I do. I see a lot of our friends here are putting in their answers on our end, and so a great majority of them are highly involved in planning, with some in moderate or not directly involved, but I also see a big chunk of our participants today are supporting programs. And so, I'm going to give them just a minute to make sure.

We have about half of our attendees that have answered the question, so we're going to give them just a couple more seconds. It is starting to even up a little bit though, but still a good majority of them are highly involved in planning.

Sarah: Perfect. Perfect. And I just want to say, regardless of your level in the planning process, today's overview will really orient you to the guide, and we're hoping will even provide some insights not only about the tool but maybe about some infant/toddler services, and this should really provide a strong springboard to you as you work with programs, or in your program, in the process. So any …

Randi: Alrighty.

Sarah: Any final results?

Randi: Yeah, we have about 70 — 70 people — percent of people who have, of the attendees. So, I'm going to push these results to the audience. You can take a look as we do for our fellows. So, we'll see that about 34 percent are really highly involved. And then about 20 percent moderately involved, and then 18 percent not directly involved, but we definitely welcome you to be a part of it because it's a great resource. You're going to see. It's going to be awesome.

Sarah: Alright.

Randi: And then 27 percent is support. Yeah.

Sarah: So, before I hand the microphone back to you and Janet, I just wanted, again, to thank everyone for joining. We obviously think highly of our infants and toddlers, and we so appreciate all the work that you do at the programs to make successful programs for our babies and for their families. So thank you, thank you, thank you, and take it away, Randi and Janet.

Randi: Alrighty. Alright. Well, thank you so much, Sarah, and David, and Karen, for joining us today, and we're going to push us forward to talk about the different components of the Planning Guide and the Organizational Readiness Chart.

So really, there are two main components — the Planning Guide and the Organizational Readiness Chart — but there's also a summary, a grading page, and a sample planning sheet that actually are included in the overall tool so that you can see the overall assessment, have an opportunity to identify resources, as well as some next steps for planning. So, we're going to take a couple minutes to review these.

So, as far as the Planning Guide goes, this is really helping to organize the information so that you can think about your readiness to deliver Early Head Start services for infants and toddlers, as well as think through the planning process to design and begin to implement quality comprehensive services for Early Head Start. So, the Planning Guide starts on Page 4 and ends on Page 17.

And so, this is a good place to also note that if you have not downloaded the resource already, it is in the resource list, and if you download it now, when we get a little bit farther in and we do a screen share, we'll be able to then follow along with all the pieces to it.

You'll also see, this is a key point, is that, on the right-hand side, you'll see the blue boxes and green boxes. The blue boxes are general information that really are just helpful notes to go through and things to consider. The green boxes that you find are specific to Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership.

And so, like, some of that contains things like layered funding, designing programs, things like that. The intent of the Planning Guide is to really provide support in those engaging conversations about comprehensive organizational planning so that we really want to make sure that it guides the users to think about their organizational structure as well as their current capacity.

So, a large portion of this information within the Planning Guide is focused on what we call the six steps of the planning process. So, my colleague, Janet Humphryes, is going to walk us through those steps, as well as some additional information throughout the resource.

Janet Humphryes: Thanks so much, Randi, and what a pleasure it is to be with all of you today.

These six steps are described within the Planning Guide, starting on Page 6, for any of you out there that might be using a copy of the guide to follow along with our webinar today. I'd like to offer a brief overview of each one of these steps to begin with.

So, step one is identifying resources, and here, programs all need, as we know, to identify available human, as well as program resources that can support the planning process. Forming a grantee planning team comprised of your Head Start program leadership like your governing board, your policy council, your management staff and certainly other key stakeholders can support the management and monitoring of the planning process. Additionally, your regional office and T/TA staff can be very helpful resources. And a number of other resources are also presented on Page 7 to 8 in the planning guide.

Step two is planning for partnership. Now, during the planning process, it's really important to build and sustain meaningful partnership with your community agencies and organizations. For many of the Early Head Start programs, especially those Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership programs, partnering with local child care providers can help to provide quality services. These certainly include considering your key community partners that can complement those Early Head Start activities, as well. So, you know, like child care agencies, Part C agencies, child care resource and referral agencies. You've got your Women, Infants, and Children, your WIC programs, and agencies serving homeless families, all for starters, and others are certainly mentioned in the Planning Guide.

Step three is planning and program oversight. All Early Head Start programs have to have key management systems and procedures in place to support high-quality service delivery. So, we need to be thinking strategically about how planning and program oversight activities relate to our five-year goals. So, considerations might include something like, "How does the community assessment inform your planning and program decision-making?" Or something like, "In what ways is the organizational structure designed to implement services and achieve goals and ensure those competent staff are in place?" Or something like, "How are you implementing a process for using data to support continuous improvement like developing plans to address identified needs to ensure desired outcomes are attained?"

When we go to step four here, designing and delivering of services, considerations include ensuring the program has qualified staff, along with certainly a comprehensive staff development plan. This is now one of the great adds in our Head Start Performance Standards that we're really looking at these staff development systems. Also that it operates safe and developmentally appropriate environments. We also want to look at implementing a developmentally appropriate curriculum and supporting and maintaining strong community partnerships as mentioned before, and we also want to make sure that the program has developed an ERSEA plan that ensures support for those most in need. And finally that the program has an effective leadership and governance structure.

Step five is using data-informed decision making for continuous quality improvement. And here the focus is on using data acquired through ongoing monitoring and the annual self-assessment to track progress meeting those projected goals that you've got.

And finally, step six is assessing the planning process. So, here it's so critical for every program to have the management systems in place to assess the effectiveness of their services and make those adjustments, as needed. Programs will find themselves moving between the starting point, progressing and excelling, and knowing where you are on that continuum is important for all your stakeholders. In the Organizational Readiness Chart, we define the starting point as beginning to implement those practices related to the Head Start Act and the Head Start Program Performance Standards, as well as other regulations, such as the Child Care and Development Fund, CCDF funding, and then state licensing would be a part of that as well for consideration.

Then we move to progressing. Here, we define this as using your data to coordinate and bolster the implementation of high-quality practices. So, that's that mid-line there. That's how you're doing.

And finally, excelling is defined as using your data to respond to needs beyond the requirements and support those higher-quality practices that are systemic, integrated, and comprehensive.

So, as we move to the Organizational Readiness Chart, this is the second main part of the Planning Guide and the Organizational Readiness Chart Tool, and this is a tool that can be used to easily inform your planning process. Experiences from Early Head Start programs and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership programs, as well as the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care Federal Staff and TA providers, have all framed the content. The chart starts on Page 18, with instructions and ends on Page 43, again for those that might be following along with a copy of the resource.

So, this is a tool with very consistent messaging and links to other tools, as Sarah mentioned before, such as the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework, the ELOF that we're all very familiar with. Also Caring for Our Children, which the Center for Health has just come out with a new edition in last February. We also have the Foundations for Excellence, and the Management Systems Wheel, and the Program Planning Cycle that many of you, I'm sure, have seen, as well.

So, the chart is comprised of three main sections shown here on the slide. The first section is organizational readiness, and this includes items such as forming a planning team, budgeting, determining your organizational structure and addressing contracts and partnership agreements that are so critical for your success.

Part B here, or section B, is management systems, and this includes planning for implementation of the 12 management systems within the Head Start Management Systems Wheel.

Section C is program operations and services, which includes eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance, often known and referred to as ERSEA, each of the comprehensive service areas, as well as the services to enroll pregnant women.

There are 23 sections, actually, within the Organizational Readiness Chart, and each section has activities for planning teams to review and assess their program's current activities. An overall rating for each section based on the continuum scale can then be decided, and strengths and opportunities for growth, available resources, and action steps can be identified. The chart can also be shared with others to promote planning efforts, such as some of your key stakeholders, your T/TA providers and of course your regional office staff.

There are also a couple of bonus features I want to quickly mention here. Since this is a fillable PDF, the chart allows you to type directly into the resource to note your strengths and opportunities for growth, any available resources you might have, and action steps. Also, you can mark the overall rating for each checklist item with a single mouse click, which can then automatically transfer onto the summary of ratings and the sample planning sheet at the end, and we'll take a look at those in just a minute, and we'll have Randi, in just a minute, give us an example of all of this. Users may also want to download and save the Planning Guide and the Organizational Readiness Chart to their own computers so they can access their notes.

So, as I mentioned, the summary of ratings here, which I just mentioned, allows you to see all of your overall ratings for each section in one place. Planning teams can use this page as a reference when planning next steps. This is on Page 44 of your guide and can also be shared, again, as I said, key stakeholders and TA providers and regional office staff.

In the chat box, I'd like you to identify who you might think would be a good idea to share your completed summary of ratings with to support your planning. Randi just typed it in there now, so we'll wait just a minute and see what you come up with. So, who would you like to share your summary of ratings with, or who might be some of your key partners, including of course the Office of Head Start? Any thoughts coming in there? People are typing. I can tell. Oh, we'll give that just a second here.

Early Head Start directors and ERSEA coordinators, policy council and board. Those are great ones. Policy council, of course, and your board need to know the big picture of what you're doing, and they're responsible for making so many of those decisions and supporting the decisions management is making.

We've got directors, policy council, governing body, any grant opportunity. That's always good. Your policy council, community stakeholders. Thank you to all those that are responding there. I just want to also ... Oh, we got coordinators, directors, policy council, funders. Yes. Those are definite coordinating partners.

So here, also, we have a sample planning sheet within this resource. This has been provided on Page 45. So, this is just one method that can be used to plan using the information that you've gathered from the Organizational Readiness Chart. Programs, of course, are free to use any planning form that allows them to identify strengths and planning steps and resources. And finally, the Head Start Program Performance Standards and resources that are included, just like in the Planning Guide, there are additional sidebar boxes, Randi mentioned some of those, that contain information specific to Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships. These are in green.

And you'll also see some boxes that provide additional information specific to that section which would be in pink. And the many people who have worked on updating this document have identified and provided many of the related standards, regulations, and resources for each of these sections, which you'll find here in blue. However, always know that there may be additional standards and regulations that impact your particular program, and if you have any questions related to those standards and regulations, please reach out to your federal regional office, Office of Child Care, Office of Head Start — either one.

So, I'm going to push this back to Randi, and she's going to take us through this chart. Randi?

Randi: Alright. Thank you, Janet, for providing all of that great information. And alright, everybody. So, I'm actually going to share my screen and walk you through some of these great things, and I see it may be related to some of the questions that I've seen also. So, let's see here. Alright. So, here we go. Alright. So, right now, you should be seeing the ECLKC home page. Alright.

So, what you're going to do is, in order to find this resource, in the upper, right-hand corner, you'll see that topic button. Hopefully, everybody sees it and you're familiar with ECLKC. On the local early childhood partnerships page, under family and community, we're going to click on that. And you're going to see that this Planning Guide and Organizational Readiness Chart is right there at the top. If you haven't visited this page before, you'll notice that we have lots of resources all the way down. And so, many of the things that we're going to talk about today, things like that, you'll be able to come and find them on ECLKC. So, this is just one area where you can find this.

So, I also want to note that we are currently working ... Right now it's only available in English. We're currently working on the Spanish translation, and that should be available very soon.

Alright. So, when you come to here, you want to be able to click on learn more. When you download this, it's going to pop up in another tab in your browser. Now, the thing that we want to take a look at here is that you have the option to download this and complete it on your computer, or you have the option to print this. Now, you can, because this is a fillable PDF on the website, if you complete this online, you want to make sure that you print the document because if you fill it out online and then you press download, it downloads a blank document. So, want to make sure that whatever progress you're doing, you want to make sure that you print it, and then you can email it to people the same as if you download it to complete it, you can also email it and send it to other people on your planning team.

Alright. So, what I'm going to do now is, when you download this, this is what it looks like in our PDF here.

Now, hopefully, we've made sure that this is big enough for all of you to see, and sometimes people get a little disoriented when we scroll through a document, so you'll see that I have lots of tabs open up here. What you can do is, if you have downloaded this already and it is on your computer, usually PDFs, we've got an area where you can change the page number, so I'll make sure that, as I provide information, I'm telling you what page it's on so that you can either do a quick click or you can scroll through it as you see fit.

So, what we want to start off with is, really, this is our cover, and you'll notice that, as I switch the screen, hopefully it switched, you'll see that our table of contents has made it really easy for you to find things. The number on the table of contents also matches the page on the PDF.

So, if I want to say, "Go to the intended audience," I can go to Page 3, and it takes me right to the information. So, that's a good way that you can go back. It's a quick click to information that you need and that you want to go to.

Alright. So, we're going to start off by going into our Planning Guide. So, we did this before. We're going to start on Page 4 and go through and see ... This is the ... You saw the screen shots when I shared it earlier, but now you can see it live. This is where we have those sidebar boxes on the right-hand side that provide those additional information for both Early Head Start and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership program. You'll also see that we've outlined some of the regulations in where it comes into federal, state territory and tribal, as well as local.

And so, you'll also see ... I'm going to scroll very briefly for this particular page and be able to show you that green box that we were talking about for Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships.

So, we're also going to go to our steps, which starts on Page 6. This goes to our six steps of the planning process. These are the ones that Janet talked about. Now, this is not a one-to-six process all the time. Sometimes, these tasks are happening simultaneously. So, we really want to make sure that we're keeping track of them, as well as understanding that these are interrelated steps, and we want to make sure that we're really going through, thinking very intentionally and thoughtfully through these steps.

So, you'll notice in step one, in identifying resources, that we've got this bold bulleted area. There are 13 bulleted items with descriptions, and so these are resources that are available to you. They're not the only resources, but they are some key ones that are definitely a consideration. You'll see that we've outlined some key stakeholders that may be applicable to your program. You may have more. You may have less. But these are some key ones to consider. We've also added our federal staff as a resource. This is definitely something to remember, that communication back and forth with them is key when it comes to planning for programs, and then so keeping our program specialists and our other federal staff informed about what's going on and using them as a helpful resource is definitely a positive.

I'm going to switch us to our next page — Page 7 — just to highlight that we have the different levels of TA — from national, that's us speaking to you today — to regional, those that are supporting you through the regional office, as well as the grantee level as both T and TA dollars. We also wanted to highlight consultants to support implementation and fiscal planning.

Now, Early Head Start programs have that choice to contract with independent consultants, but it is good to know that there are a select group of independent consultants — referred to as implementation planners and fiscal consultants — that have been specifically trained to offer consulting services for Early Head Start Child Care Partnership programs. And for more information on those consultants, you can visit back to that local early childhood partnerships topic page. It's on the lower section, under the explore resources. So, those are good to highlight as we go through.

So, we're going to push forward to step two, which starts on Page 9. You can see me as I go through. You'll see again that this says planning for partnerships. Now, it's really good to highlight here that even though this title is for partnerships that happen in both Early Head Start and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships [Inaudible] and sustaining meaningful partnerships with community agencies and organizations. This also encompasses some information on Page 10 about what's called the developmental continuum of collaboration. This, some of you may have seen this before. Some of you may have seen this in the form of a pyramid. So, we've included it here as kind of a chart, and what's good to note here is that this highlights the different characteristics and benefits of collaboration and the fact that each collaborative partnership that an Early Head Start program develops is unique, and where they land on this developmental continuum really depends on what they choose to share with each other to meet their shared goal.

So, you'll see that those that continue on through this developmental continuum, it includes the layer below it. But it's not necessarily a start-to-finish, like I said. Not all relationships are going to go all the way to collaboration. You may find some where coordination is where you land because that meets your goals. Cooperation may be where you land your goals, but, really, we've included some information about each, and also you can gather more information as we go through.

So, we're going to move to step three, which also starts ... Step three starts on Page 11. And you'll see here that we really highlight the graphic of the Program Planning Cycle, as well as the Management Systems Wheel, which I'll move to next. And these really support the systems and procedures that you need to develop to deliver those high-quality services. So, this whole section really highlights information on community assessment, organizational structure, and the data you use for continuous quality improvement.

So, I'm going to go to Page 12 just for those so that you can see our Management System Wheel. If you have seen this before — as many people have — we've definitely included it here. If it's brand new to you, you can find some additional information on ECLKC about that. Alright.

So, we're going to go to step four, OK, designing and delivering services, and this really focuses on the considerations for programs as they plan to meet the needs of communities and implement the delivery of comprehensive services. And so, some items that you can see that are included here are like comprehensive staff development plans, safe and developmentally appropriate environments, curriculum, and governance. Alright.

Step five, that starts on Page 16, we focus on the data to make decisions for continuous quality improvement. So, we really share information focused on the importance of data in planning, implementation and that continuous quality improvement. So, the information about ongoing monitoring and annual self-assessment can be highlighted in this step, as you can see right here. There's also, like in that blue sidebar box, you see that there is a link that will lead you to some information on ECLKC about the self-assessment process. Alright.

So, step six — that starts on Page 17 — you'll see that here are those outline ratings that Janet spoke about earlier, and so you'll notice that on Page 17, we have them outlined right there exactly what those ratings look like, as well as you'll want to take a look at these icons that are on the left. So, you'll see the SP in the yellow circle, the P in the green circle and the E in the blue circle. Now, those icons are in the Organizational Readiness Chart when we talk about ratings. So, if you ever need to go back, and you're going through the process, and you need to see that definition again, just go right back to Page 17 so you can take a look at that.

Now, with that, we're going to lead right into the Organizational Readiness Chart. So, it asks you if you're ready, so hopefully everybody is ready to go to Page 18, and Page 18 through Page 43, is all the Organizational Readiness Chart. So, this really guides users through the organizational readiness, as well as the management systems and the program operations and services, so that ABC breakdown that Janet shared with us previously.

So, there's 23 items on the chart. However, today we've only got an hour, which is only 20 more minutes, so we are going to just take a look at a few of them.

So, as you can see on the screen though, Page 18 gives you some guidance in being able to complete this form, as well as what you should do as far as next steps. Alright. So, we're going to dive in to Page 19. OK. So, 19 brings us to section A, as you can see here. A, organizational readiness. Our items, number one, grantee planning team, and then we've got a list of activities, A through E. Now, what you're going to take a look at is you're also going to see that some of the language from the Planning Guide ended up on this sheet.

So, back on Page 6, when I shared some information about the Planning Guide, you also saw a list of key stakeholders. So, this was taken directly from the Planning Guide, so you will see some language that is a repeat, but it's there to kind of help stimulate those thoughts and towards key stakeholders. So, program planning teams will go through and read each of these activities to determine if it is in place. But as you look at these, it's only a small set of activities. There may be more activities based on your organizational structure, your community, the type of organization that you are, so, by all means, you can add activities to this, but these are just kind of the basic ones that we have include to get those thoughts going.

So, once you've gone through and you've taken a look and decided which activities are in place, you're going to take a look at the overall rating. So, that's where we have those icons — the SP — starting point, the P for progressing, and then the E for excelling. You're going to be able to choose which one that is. So, this is a subjective process. It's how you feel that you are doing right there based on your activities, based on the strengths and opportunities that you have, as well as your resources available to you. You also have a space to be able to type right into this document.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to do a very short example demo. So, based on the Early Head Start organization that's in my head for today, my planning team has decided that A, B, and C are in place. So, we're only going to check A, B, and C. We think we have a good planning team. We've done our thing, but we haven't quite identified these roles as the team yet. So, we've decided we're going to select A, B, and C, and based on what we know about our organization, we're going to select that we are at a starting point. That's where we feel we are. Now, what we're also going to do is we're going to put in some language. So, I'm just going to type in some language here to just show you how easy it is to go ahead and type right into it. So, we're going to identify our strengths.

So, my strengths for my organization is that we have consistent planning that includes our key stakeholders. And then we also have regular scheduled meetings. So, we're going to start with regular scheduled meetings. Now, that's as easy as it is to type right into it, and you can keep going as far as the text box will take you, and you can also use this space multiple times for being able to move information around as you continue to do this again. So, it's super simple and easy to use, and so that's our example of how to complete that form.

So, we're also going to go to the next page, Page 20, which ends up being A2. So, this is our negotiate award/budget. Now, you'll notice that, on this page, you have a blue box on the right-hand side, as well as a green box. Now, this green box goes back to being highlighted, as you can guess, on Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships. So, what this is going to tell you is that it's going to focus on layered funding and where to find some information, as well as some Head Start Performance Standards, and then some key resources that the national centers have identified to help you with this particular section. Alright.

So, we're going to push forward. Now this one, if you're following along, this is Page 23. So, we went from 20 to 23. This is where section B starts, management systems, and we're going to go to fiscal management. The reason why we stopped here is for you to be able to see in the blue box that it's not just the Head Start Performance Standards that are included. We also have things for the Head Start Act, as well as the uniform guidance. Now, this is where we also talk about most of the activities are for Early Head Start and Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership planning; however, you do find some that are only applicable to one or the other.

So, if you look at E right here, develop a child care subsidy procedure that includes information about state fee collections, policies and schedules. Now, if your organization does not deal with child care subsidy in any way, this may not be an activity that you need to worry about right now, and so you can just leave it blank. You don't have to select it.

Now, there's also an opposite example, say, on Page 43, which I can show you really fast as I switch really fast. We talk about services to enroll pregnant women. Now, Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships don't enroll pregnant women right now, and so this may not be an item that you would need to complete. However, you can go through and see if there are activities that you may want to consider in the future as you go through, and also, if you are an Early Head Start program, you may want to take a look at them as well. But if you have any questions about which activity are and are not applicable to your program, by all means, please contact your Office of Head Start program specialists so they can help you be able to go through those items.

Now, we're going to push forward pretty quickly now in these last few things because we're running really close on time. We've got about 15 minutes left. This is Page 37, and we've pushed into our C section, which is the program operations with services. So, you'll see here that this is highlighted on the health program services. You'll see that, magically, now we have a pink side bar. Now what that tells us is that that information is really just specific to this particular item on the Organizational Readiness Chart. This one right here covers the EPSDT schedule, and so we know that they are more frequent with infants and toddlers, and so we want to make sure that there's a note there and there's also a link to a resource. But you'll also see that there are infant/toddler considerations throughout the Organizational Readiness Chart because we're focused on Early Head Start.

And so, some examples we have here are for considerations for infants' oral health. E, right here, where we talk about tooth brushing, as well as considerations for breastfeeding, and so we want to make sure that we're also seeking considerations for providing parents with that information, areas that you can breastfeed during the program hours, as well as safe handling and storage of breast milk, and so that is — that is K right there. Alright.

So, we're going to push us forward to of course what happens when we're all done with this. So, this right here is an example of, if you've gone through and you've selected all of the ratings that are applicable to your program, you're going to end up with a summary page on 44 that looks like this. OK. So, all of your answers for those ratings get transferred automatically to this rating page. And so, this is something you can — you can share with key stakeholders, the planning team, Office of Head Start, T and TA providers, anybody that's supporting you with planning.

Now, we also, on Page 45, have a sample planning chart. These also get transferred to the sample planning sheet. The things that do not get transferred is any notes that you put in on the chart do not automatically get transferred over to this because they're in different boxes, and some people organize things on different charts in different ways. So, we want to make sure that it's customizable to you, but the simple things that we can transfer over, we transferred these ratings as much as we can.

Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to push us forward. OK. So, you're going to see a little bit of a buffering screen, and that's OK. I'm going to push us forward. Alright.

So, everybody should be together with us on putting it together. Now, what we want to do right here is we want to ... My friend and colleague and co-presenter here is going to put up our question in the chat box about, "Please share with us at least one way that you feel you're going to be able to use this tool in your role." So, we really want you to share. Now that you've seen it, you've heard about it, I think that we really want to make sure that we can see it. Alright.

So, I think ... Alright. So, share one way that you feel you're going to be able to use this tool. And so, why people are ... While we are going through and waiting for you to respond to that, we're also just going to cover a summary of our discussion today. So, we really ... We went over, and we shared the purpose and the intended views, some background information about the tool, as well as those key components of the planning process, supports to exist in the strategic planning throughout the tool, as well as some additional incorporated resources. And you're going to even see more of those in the next couple of slides.

Oh, I do see people ... We're getting self-assessments for, oh, especially partnership work. Sharing with grantees. That would be great. Working with grantees considering for the support. Understanding current program and ways to move forward, planning ...

[Audio drops]

Sharing with teams. I'm seeing a lot of sharing with teams. Goal setting, using for improvement, monitoring, resources. Definitely. I'm seeing a lot of those. It'll be great. Oh, smart practices. Betsy, you're wonderful. Alright. Great.

Well, while ... I'm going to keep an eye on that group chat as I kind of push us forward to share some of those resources. So, I'll kind of highlight some more that I see as we push forward.

As you see, these next two slides, you see there are some additional resources. These resources are included in the Organizational Readiness Chart. We've got them divided a little bit so that we can talk about health programs, planning and community partnerships, as well as family and community engagement program services, education, and child development. Great.

And some more of the answers I'm seeing is more self-assessment, planning, and oversight, communicating with partner sites. Being able to identify strengths, reviewing the tool, using it for planning, summary feedback. All of these are great answers, and we love to see that this is something that you're going to be able to use, and you can see that you can use it in your continuous improvement. That is some great information.

Now, I also want to show us … So, if you're not already a member of MyPeers, we have our link today for MyPeers. And MyPeers, if you're not familiar, is a virtual learning network where you can brainstorm and exchange ideas and share resources among your colleagues across the country. And so, these are informal connections, but this network was developed and created by the Office of Head Start, and it really is focused on helping everybody connect and learn from each other, so there are more than 40 MyPeers communities, and some of them are hosted by national centers. Some of them are from states and regions who have decided to host their own.

So, some of these that you see on your slide right now are hosted by national centers, and so you can go in, share questions, get resources, connect. You also get announcements about upcoming events, upcoming webinars, and this is also where we will be posting the MyPeers — into MyPeers, the recording link for today. And so, starting tomorrow, I will go in, and I will post them. Now, they'll be in various communities throughout MyPeers, but also, if you find us, there is a main page, and there's a webinar announcement, and I'll make sure I put it in there also to make that you can access it and share it with those who — who are available within your program. Alright.

So, we have just a couple more minutes, and I see ... And I want to thank our national centers, who have been answering questions. I've seen many, many questions coming by, and our national centers have been able to get those answers to you, and I want to thank them very much for doing so. But you know what? We only have about five more minutes.

Oh, did I start to hear something? No? OK. Maybe I didn't. Maybe it was just in my ear, and that's OK.

So, I see that we want to thank everybody, and we also see that you want to check out the group chat, I see, because Stephanie has been able ... Or another DTL colleague has put up some of those links for connecting to MyPeers, also some other things happening, other links that are being shared. Alright.

So, let's push us forward then, and this is where we get more information. These — these links over here to the general email addresses, as well as the phone numbers, to be able to contact the national centers with different questions that you have. We'd love to hear from you. We answer them, I promise. I have talked to several folks myself about different areas, and so that is a really great place to get some additional information.

But I also want to thank Sarah, David, and Karen for joining us today from OHS as well as my colleague, Ms. Janet, from TMFO, for presenting with me.

Also, another big thank you to the national centers for helping to not only develop this resource and this webinar, but hanging in there and answering those questions.

So, what we're going to do is I'm going to push us forward to an evaluation link. We do ask you to click on this link to get the evaluation completed, and then you're able to move forward to see, I believe, a certificate of attendance. I'm also going to take a look and be able to identify some of the MyPeers communities where the link will be posted, and I'll put that into the group chat.

So, as you are doing that evaluation, you'll see some additional notes coming into the group chat, as well as some additional questions that'll probably be answered from the national centers coming to you.

So, but thank you so much for attending, and so I'm going to push us through, and so now you should be seeing the …

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