Competency Goal #1: Establish mutually respectful partnerships with families to enhance the quality of their lives and their communities.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Conduct outreach, recruitment, and
enrollment;
- Provide orientation on philosophy of
program and services provided;
- Establish and maintain ongoing
partnerships based on trust with families;
- Communicate effectively using appropriate
verbal and nonverbal messages and reflective listening skills;
- Implement strategies including home visits to learn about families and the changing community.
Competency Goal #2: Support families' efforts to reach their goals.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Develop strengths-based assessments with
families that describe their goals, strengths, resources and
support networks, as well as necessary services and supports;
- Develop, in partnership with the family,
an individualized family plan;
- Facilitate families' problem-solving and
teach problem-solving skills;
- Coach, consult, educate, and utilize
counseling skills, where appropriate;
- Advocate for the family and support them
in advocating for themselves;
- Follow-up with the family on the progress
toward meeting their goals and any needed revisions to the plan;
- Assist with transitions to other programs, communities and schools.
Competency Goal #3: Offer parents opportunities to be involved in-group activities, including policy groups and educational activities based on interest and need.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Identify common interests and needs of
parents in order to plan appropriate activities;
- Work with parent groups on group
formation, group processing, and leadership
- Provide and/or coordinate training and
educational opportunities for parents; and
- Engage parents in volunteering, community service and other ways of contributing to program activities and services.
Competency Goal #4: Provide opportunities for children and families to participate in family literacy services.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Work with other program staff to support
interactive literacy activities between parents and their
children;
- Provide training for parents in how to be
the primary teacher for their children and full partners in the
education of their children;
- Assist parents as adult learners to
recognize and address their own literacy goals; and
- Link and support parents in engaging in literacy training that contributes to self-sufficiency.
Competency Goal #5: Coordinate and integrate Head Start services in order to enhance effectiveness.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Serve as a productive team member on an
interdisciplinary team of professionals;
- Participate in and facilitate case
conferences to promote service integration;
- Apply knowledge of health, mental health,
disabilities, and child development in order to ensure holistic
service delivery;
- Promote and support parent involvement and leadership throughout the program.
Competency Goal #6: Support families in accessing other community resources.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Research and keep up-to-date on program
and community resources;
- Analyze match of community resources to
family needs and identify unmet family needs.
- Refer families to community resources and
follow-up on the effectiveness of referrals; and
- Promote community partnerships that will improve supports to families.
Competency Goal #7: Assist families in crisis.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Listen to families and assess the crisis
situation;
- Take active steps to ensure the safety of
all involved;
- Decide when to intervene and when to
refer a family;
- Identify (with the family) options,
resources, and consequences to address the crisis; and
- Support families in making decisions and taking active steps to resolve current crises and be prepared to address future crises;
Competency Goal #8: Respect and respond competently to the culture, traditions, lifestyle, language, and values of each family and community.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Be knowledgeable about and sensitive to
each family's values, beliefs, traditions, cultural influences,
makeup, and circumstances;
- Work with families representing different
cultures using a culturally competent and flexible approach.
- Identify and reflect on personal values, experiences and biases that facilitate and present barriers in working with certain groups of people.
Competency Goal #9: Contribute to effective program practices and maintain a commitment to professionalism.
Indicators: Head Start staff working with families must demonstrate their ability to do the following:
- Perform record-keeping and internal and
external reporting tasks in a timely and objective fashion;
- Effectively utilize supervisory
professional development and technical assistance resources to
improve competence;
- Contribute to and participate in
strategic planning, program self-assessment and other efforts to
improve program services and agency responsiveness to families;
- Make decisions and act based on family
support principles, theories, practices, and code of ethics;
- Articulate an awareness of self, values,
and ethics as they impact on work with families; and
- Maintain professional boundaries and confidentiality.
