Family Centered Improvement Plan
After completing the Center Observation Form and having reviewed five of the items on the Materials Checklist, there are some clear areas that are in need of improvement for our program. The implementation of a family centered program is new to me and my staff so with utilizing the auditing tool we were able to identify five major areas that we will be focusing on. The areas that are in need of improvement will be developing a Program Governance Council, creating an enrollment packet, improving the program’s two-way communication with families, developing and enhancing the policies in the handbook regarding families, and offering more services for our families that will concentrate on topics that families view as important to them. These improvements will help us strive as a program to meet the needs of our families and reassure them that they are an important part of our community.
The first area for improvement is developing a Program Governance Council that will be comprised of the school Principal, staff members and parents. The parent involvement section from the auditing tool that asked about whether parents serve on committees or the Board of Directors pointed out that we needed to rectify the fact that we do not have any of those options available. This area is probably the most important because the desired outcome is to include parents in the decisions that affect the remaining areas of improvement, as well as, any other issues necessary to enhance the day to day programming. The timeline requires that this should be completed as soon as possible so that we can start working on the other areas slated for improvement preferably before the next enrollment period. The Principal and the Directors will have to be the responsible parties to begin the process. We will need to gather the information necessary to put a Governance Council in place, such as the rules we would need to follow before starting a Council, if any. Then we will facilitate holding elections to fill the Council positions, President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc. Once the Council is up and running they will need to address the appropriate issues in order of importance beginning with the items listed on this improvement plan and then move to the less important matters.
The second area for improvement will be developing an enrollment packet to replace the registration form that we use now. The section of the Parent Survey entitled, Enrolling and making the Transition into the Center, brought this point to our attention. The second selection was circled and that indicated that the forms we require at this time only ask for general information of the family and they do not ask any questions of the parents that might enlighten us as to what the child is like and what kind of home life they have. The responsible parties who will address this issue are the Directors and Assistant Directors of our program. The desired outcome will be to have a more comprehensive enrollment packet for parents that will give the staff more information about the family’s culture, home life and work life. This task will include expanding our existing form that will allow space for parents to write as much as they feel is necessary to answer open-ended questions. The questions that will be asked will include such issues as the best way to handle the separation and transition to the program, if are there any concerns regarding a language barrier and cultural differences, or what would be the best way to communicate with the parents during the day, etc. The responsible parties will need to do some research to determine the best way to expand the forms and take the time to survey the parents to gain perspective from them. The task should be completed by May 2013 considering the summer season is approaching and we would like the new forms in place for the next enrollment period.
The third area will be to improve the two-way communication with families which was discovered when filling out the section of the Parent Survey about Communication. That area indicated that our main form of communication is at drop off and pick up times and came to light during the final analysis in the Family Input section. Our program lacks documentation and regularity of most other forms of communication. The responsible party for this task will be the Governance Council. Out of the nine areas on the evaluation our program only had two ways actually documented in written materials of getting information from parents to staff or from staff to parents. The desired outcome would be to have documentation in our policies of the other ways that we communicate with parents. This will require re-writing the family handbook and administering a survey to parents to determine the best way for them to receive communication. We communicate through notes, flyers, phone calls, newsletters, parent conferences, bulletin boards and daily conversation but we would like to add emails and possibly logs. Email seems to be the one of the easiest ways of daily communication with families because so many people having access to technology but the survey should be most informative. Our target date for completion of this task will be August 2013 because that is the enrollment period for the following school year.
The next section for improvement requires re-writing some of the policies and adding some policies to the Family Handbook. During the final analysis after the combined effort to look over the Staff Handbook and Family Handbook, the lack of family policies was exposed and it was apparent that we would have to make some changes in this area as well. The responsible party again will be the Program Governance Council. They will need to develop a policy for family orientation, enrollment, parent involvement and family communication, which was highlighted in the previous paragraph. The policy for family orientation will include visits prior to enrollment along with the process of transitioning the child into the program so that the family feels most comfortable. Parent involvement will stress the importance of shared decision making and participatory management that will enhance the development of the program. The information that can be collected from the family survey will be a good guide to help with the writing of the policies. The desired outcome will be to have a more inclusive handbook that will highlight family centered policies in our program. The timeline requires that the handbook be completed by August 2013 so that it is available for next school year’s enrollment.
The final area for improvement will be to develop some “Out of the Box Services” for families. The main focus for this area will be the addition of Parent Workshops on a monthly basis. The Program Governance Council will approve the final ideas for the workshops after the parent surveys are be given to see the areas that are most in need and what the families are most interested in, such as, bullying, homework help, nutrition, parenting help, etc. The possibility of forming a committee to research the options would be beneficial to narrowing down the ideas before the Program Governance Council would approve them. The goal for the workshops will be to help our parent’s access essential resources or information that is important to their lives and foster community among the families. The community resources will be accessed through our school social worker and other community agencies. The committee could also address if there are any other “Out of the Box Services” that the families might be interested in having us offer. The timeline for implementation will be to start the first workshop in August 2013 and so that the topic of “Homework Help” would be available and the students might have a positive start to the upcoming school year.
In conclusion, the main areas for improvement are to help our program strive to become a more family centered program which is an exciting process for our entire staff because we have always felt like a family but now we will include the parents even more. These ideas will be a huge accomplishment if we can stick to the timeline that we have set up for completion. The five areas that were apparent to focus on and that we thought would be the most beneficial at this time are to develop a Program Governance Council and in conjunction with that we will have to develop committees to aid the Council. This will be a good start to our program in sharing decisions and really trying to involve parents in participatory management, re-write policies and develop others that will focus more on being family oriented, create new enrollment forms, make major improvements to family communication and add extra services that will enhance the lives of our students and parents. Parent workshops will be a great start to forming community between the families in our program. The desired outcomes are clearly stated above and serve as the motivation for us to move forward in trying to get the majority of these ideas implemented and functioning by the next school year.
The first area for improvement is developing a Program Governance Council that will be comprised of the school Principal, staff members and parents. The parent involvement section from the auditing tool that asked about whether parents serve on committees or the Board of Directors pointed out that we needed to rectify the fact that we do not have any of those options available. This area is probably the most important because the desired outcome is to include parents in the decisions that affect the remaining areas of improvement, as well as, any other issues necessary to enhance the day to day programming. The timeline requires that this should be completed as soon as possible so that we can start working on the other areas slated for improvement preferably before the next enrollment period. The Principal and the Directors will have to be the responsible parties to begin the process. We will need to gather the information necessary to put a Governance Council in place, such as the rules we would need to follow before starting a Council, if any. Then we will facilitate holding elections to fill the Council positions, President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc. Once the Council is up and running they will need to address the appropriate issues in order of importance beginning with the items listed on this improvement plan and then move to the less important matters.
The second area for improvement will be developing an enrollment packet to replace the registration form that we use now. The section of the Parent Survey entitled, Enrolling and making the Transition into the Center, brought this point to our attention. The second selection was circled and that indicated that the forms we require at this time only ask for general information of the family and they do not ask any questions of the parents that might enlighten us as to what the child is like and what kind of home life they have. The responsible parties who will address this issue are the Directors and Assistant Directors of our program. The desired outcome will be to have a more comprehensive enrollment packet for parents that will give the staff more information about the family’s culture, home life and work life. This task will include expanding our existing form that will allow space for parents to write as much as they feel is necessary to answer open-ended questions. The questions that will be asked will include such issues as the best way to handle the separation and transition to the program, if are there any concerns regarding a language barrier and cultural differences, or what would be the best way to communicate with the parents during the day, etc. The responsible parties will need to do some research to determine the best way to expand the forms and take the time to survey the parents to gain perspective from them. The task should be completed by May 2013 considering the summer season is approaching and we would like the new forms in place for the next enrollment period.
The third area will be to improve the two-way communication with families which was discovered when filling out the section of the Parent Survey about Communication. That area indicated that our main form of communication is at drop off and pick up times and came to light during the final analysis in the Family Input section. Our program lacks documentation and regularity of most other forms of communication. The responsible party for this task will be the Governance Council. Out of the nine areas on the evaluation our program only had two ways actually documented in written materials of getting information from parents to staff or from staff to parents. The desired outcome would be to have documentation in our policies of the other ways that we communicate with parents. This will require re-writing the family handbook and administering a survey to parents to determine the best way for them to receive communication. We communicate through notes, flyers, phone calls, newsletters, parent conferences, bulletin boards and daily conversation but we would like to add emails and possibly logs. Email seems to be the one of the easiest ways of daily communication with families because so many people having access to technology but the survey should be most informative. Our target date for completion of this task will be August 2013 because that is the enrollment period for the following school year.
The next section for improvement requires re-writing some of the policies and adding some policies to the Family Handbook. During the final analysis after the combined effort to look over the Staff Handbook and Family Handbook, the lack of family policies was exposed and it was apparent that we would have to make some changes in this area as well. The responsible party again will be the Program Governance Council. They will need to develop a policy for family orientation, enrollment, parent involvement and family communication, which was highlighted in the previous paragraph. The policy for family orientation will include visits prior to enrollment along with the process of transitioning the child into the program so that the family feels most comfortable. Parent involvement will stress the importance of shared decision making and participatory management that will enhance the development of the program. The information that can be collected from the family survey will be a good guide to help with the writing of the policies. The desired outcome will be to have a more inclusive handbook that will highlight family centered policies in our program. The timeline requires that the handbook be completed by August 2013 so that it is available for next school year’s enrollment.
The final area for improvement will be to develop some “Out of the Box Services” for families. The main focus for this area will be the addition of Parent Workshops on a monthly basis. The Program Governance Council will approve the final ideas for the workshops after the parent surveys are be given to see the areas that are most in need and what the families are most interested in, such as, bullying, homework help, nutrition, parenting help, etc. The possibility of forming a committee to research the options would be beneficial to narrowing down the ideas before the Program Governance Council would approve them. The goal for the workshops will be to help our parent’s access essential resources or information that is important to their lives and foster community among the families. The community resources will be accessed through our school social worker and other community agencies. The committee could also address if there are any other “Out of the Box Services” that the families might be interested in having us offer. The timeline for implementation will be to start the first workshop in August 2013 and so that the topic of “Homework Help” would be available and the students might have a positive start to the upcoming school year.
In conclusion, the main areas for improvement are to help our program strive to become a more family centered program which is an exciting process for our entire staff because we have always felt like a family but now we will include the parents even more. These ideas will be a huge accomplishment if we can stick to the timeline that we have set up for completion. The five areas that were apparent to focus on and that we thought would be the most beneficial at this time are to develop a Program Governance Council and in conjunction with that we will have to develop committees to aid the Council. This will be a good start to our program in sharing decisions and really trying to involve parents in participatory management, re-write policies and develop others that will focus more on being family oriented, create new enrollment forms, make major improvements to family communication and add extra services that will enhance the lives of our students and parents. Parent workshops will be a great start to forming community between the families in our program. The desired outcomes are clearly stated above and serve as the motivation for us to move forward in trying to get the majority of these ideas implemented and functioning by the next school year.