Community-Based Model for Involving Families in Improving Early Childhood Practices and Policies

This study has concluded.

Investigators: Pam Winton (winton@mail.fpg.unc.edu)

Staff: Michelle Barrick, Kate Thegen

Research questions/goals:

• to investigate parent involvement in decision-making about how Smart Start dollars are spent
• to develop strategies for involving non-traditional stakeholders, such as families, in promoting changes in early childhood practices and policies at the community level

Research outcomes:

Findings made it evident that simply mandating parent involvement in governance and decision-making does not guarantee implementation.

Numerous meetings and presentations have been made to state and local Smart Start board chairs, executive directors, evaluation specialists and other staff. NC Smart Start has created a Family Specialist position and a Family Support Advisory Committee as a way of demonstrating their commitment to improve the level of family involvement. They have created self-assessment measures and monitoring instruments, with our help and based on our findings, to assist programs in making changes in the level of family involvement in board decision-making.

NCEDL was invited by NCPC staff to develop a proposal to help Smart Start boards promote active, meaningful involvement of families in board decision-making. This is part of the request from Smart Start for the governor's expansion budget. In addition, we collaborated with Smart Start and SERVE to develop a training curriculum, Continuity in early childhood: A framework for home, school, and community linkages. This curriculum was field-tested in 3 NC communities, and has been made available to all Smart Start local partnerships.

Survey data indicate that interested citizens think that parents are qualified to make decisions about how Smart Start money is spent, should be involved in these decisions, but are not involved and have little influence compared to other key stakeholders. Interview data indicate the following about parent involvement in Smart Start Partnership boards:

• Although the partnership boards are mandated by the state to include at least two parents whose children are receiving childcare subsidies on their boards, they struggle to identify and retain parents in these positions. Only two of the nine boards were fulfilling this mandate.
• The relative lack of diversity of parents in board positions (age, education, ethnicity, geographic) was mentioned as a problem, but only by parents.
• Three categories of factors emerge as important to supporting parent involvement: logistics, structure and board culture. These factors were more likely to be described by everyone as impediments rather than facilitators, supporting the fact that there is an overall awareness that it is not easy to support parents as board members.
• Parents feeling intimidated is a major impediment to creating a supportive climate for their participation. These quotes are illustrative of some of the comments made.

  "And I just sat there at the big round table with the big board people, and they were talking all this mumbo jumbo, and I did not understand what they were saying, and they went over the budget and I said, what is this, and I tried to figure out what this is, and I would read it, and they'd have already gone over it and done it." (a parent)

  "I'm intimidated so I'm really scared to speak up. I figure that the question I ask - people are like, 'didn't you know that?' They have a lot more college education than I do and are higher up. Have you seen some of the titles these people have?! I just feel intimidated." (a parent)

  "I know I do not give as much input... Because I am new and I am just a mother, and these are high-ranking people... Yes, they put your title there. I saw my title and it just looked so bland. I think it said 'mother' or something like that. Here you have the senate and this and the town commissioner... and 'mother'." (a parent)

  "We have lots of women on the board and a couple of token males. We have a very warm board, lots of women and lots of minorities. I try to make sure that everyone participates and that everyone's opinions are heard." (a board chair). (It should be noted that this partnership had no actively involved parents at the time this study was conducted.)

• Perceptions of intimidation can vary even within a partnership. The following three quotes are from participants within the same Partnership who each have a different view of intimidation.

  The executive director: "We try to make sure that you do not get parents intimidated by seeing the president of the community college or the director of social services, that it is a very inviting board. The people on the board work on every other project in the county, so they have a long history of working together."

  The board chair: "Then you bring a parent in, and they are intimidated by the guys in the suits that sit around the table. I am not knocking the fact that much of the board is made up of guys in suits, but the mandated agency people talk a different language."

  The parent: "There is nothing worse than sitting there with all these people that know everything, and you feel stupid. That is frankly how I felt, and I do not consider myself stupid."

• Under structure, group size is a dominant factor: Parents, executive directors and board chairs all recognize that parents are more likely to participate and be actively involved in smaller groups.
• Information about community needs to inform the development of a plan for how to spend Smart Start money largely comes from board members' expertise and from their agencies' records and waiting lists. The majority of the parents interviewed could not speak knowledgeably about how information had been gathered or the nature of the information gathered.
• While much was said about how community needs are identified (and could be better identified), no respondent described seeking information to inform the development of programs to address the identified needs (e.g. exploring validated models).
• Only one partnership mentioned engaging in a successful approach to evaluating board processes. In eight partnerships, no respondent could knowledgeably describe any formal process used for evaluation of their board meetings.
• Given the challenges of involving parents, why did partnerships continue to try and involve parents successfully and meaningfully? In general, respondents talked about consumer and community buy-in up front as a key to the success of programming later. Several respondents said that the unique perspective of parents receiving subsidies was critical to achieving desired outcomes.

  "The horror story is that you know what their needs are, you make this great service, and it is completely not what the community would ever use." (an executive director)

  "The problem that any board has, is that without the input from those folks, you run the risk of answering questions that are not asked and needs that are not needed." (a board chair)

Publications, products:

Winton, P., & Bailey, D. (1997). Family-centered care: The revolution continues. Exceptional Parent, 27(2), 16-20.

Winton, P. J., Sloop, S., & Rodriguez, P. (1999). Parent education: A term whose time is past. Topics in Early Childhood special Education, 19(3), 157-160.

NCEDL has contributed information about strategies for involving families in decision making to a "Toolkit" published by the NC Partnership for Children for local Smart Start partnerships. This product has been widely disseminated through NCPC within NC and across the US.

U. S. Department of Education (2000). Continuity in early childhood: A framework for home, school and community linkages--Trainer's guide. Tallahassee, FL: Regional Educational Laboratories' Early Childhood Collaborative Network.

National Center for Early Development & Learning: Spotlight #23: Parental involvement in decisions. (2000, June). Chapel Hill, NC: Author