The following is an excerpt from WIC and Head Start: Partners in Promoting Health and Nutrition for Young Children and Families.

Supportive Factors and Strategies

Understanding and Accommodating the Differences between Head Start and WIC
Confidentiality
Key Issues To Address in Building Successful Collaboration
Clear and Frequent Communication
Coordinated Planning
State and Federal Support
Coordination Takes Time
Factors That Support Coordination

Programs were asked to identify key issues, factors and strategies that support collaborative efforts. Respondents identified two key issues that needed to be addressed to support their efforts to coordinate Head Start and WIC services for children and families.

Understanding and Accommodating the Differences between Head Start and WIC

Understanding and accommodating the differences between Head Start and WIC programs was frequently cited as a key issue to confront in working toward successful collaboration. Thus, respondents focused their strategies on collaborative efforts that met the needs of both programs. In areas of service in which program requirements vary (i.e., eligibility criteria or varying methods/time schedules for collecting physical exam data), collaboration strategies must employ creativity and flexibility. Respondents also cited the need to consider differences in program administration,

funding, staffing, policies and procedures. A respondent for Gering, Nebraska points out that it is helpful if agencies can view their specific program needs and requirements as only part of the equation in a successful partnership.

"Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Appreciate the demands on their time and try to keep your own needs in perspective relative to the whole."

Confidentiality

Maintaining confidentiality while sharing child and family data was also cited as an important issue to confront for successful collaboration between the programs to occur. Both programs provide a high degree of confidentiality for medical, income, and other personal and family data. The majority of programs surveyed reported some sharing of medical and nutrition assessment information facilitated by release forms, joint collection instruments containing a release, or unified data collection. While release forms signed by parents/guardians can help to alleviate this problem, ensuring security for these records while allowing personnel from different programs access to information is a challenge. Respondents from both WIC and Head Start in Spartanburg, South Carolina reported the following experience:

"We developed a memorandum of agreement with each Head Start center and share information with parents’ consent. We must get a release form from parents and have to make the form work both ways. A lot of paperwork is sent home to parents to sign—consent forms, release of information forms, etc. Many parents find these papers intimidating and either cannot fill them out or do it incorrectly. The child loses out and that is a major barrier we have not resolved. Our goal is to get one release form for both Head Start and WIC."

Other programs are further along in creating joint release forms. The WIC agency in Greenville, Ohio, has a joint release form with Head Start that is very specific about what type of information will be released. It is limited to income, family size, hematocrits, height, and weight. WIC and Head Start have a combined information form throughout Ohio which helps reduce the confidentiality barrier. This enables them to share information, but still protects information that is, and should remain, the property of only one program.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, there is a county-wide release form for all agencies that interact with parents. The parents fill out the form, initial each agency that can share information, and sign on the bottom. This form was developed in response to a parent’s complaint about having to sign so many forms. They reported the hardest part was getting all the agencies to agree on the form. Once they did, however, it has worked effectively.

Key Issues To Address in Building Successful Collaboration

• Understanding and accommodating the differences between Head Start and WIC programs.
• Maintaining the highest level of confidentiality when sharing child/ family information.
• Creating joint release forms to facilitate information sharing.

Respondents also identified the following factors and strategies that support collaborative efforts.

Clear and Frequent Communication

Clear and frequent communication was reported as a very important prerequisite to success by several programs. The Virgin Island WIC-Head Start collaboration shared how they use communication to foster cooperation:

"Each island is different...what works for one may not work for the other. We try to encourage people to talk to each other not at each other. Informally, state what you want to do first. Get a small group together, decide who will do what and share the jobs. This way no one feels threatened if their turf is violated."

Coordinated Planning

Extensive involvement of both programs in the planning for coordinated services was cited as an important contributor to successful partnerships. The WIC-Head Start collaboration in Trenton, New Jersey pointed out the importance of involving staff at all levels, from both programs, in the collaborative planning and process:

"They must be there at the beginning to buy in and participate. If you set it all up and then bring people in, it never works out....From the bottom up and the top down, everyone has to buy into collaboration.... Collaboration needs to be throughout the infrastructure of the agency. There are so many different programs and criteria that you need to be aware of in dealing with other agencies. You also need to be aware that people don’t always communicate on the same level. When people can come to the table with something to offer and feel they are getting something out of it for their own mission, it works better for the collaboration."

State and Federal Support

The support and involvement of State and Federal Head Start and WIC entities was also cited as a supportive factor to collaboration. Several programs reported that the strong encouragement to collaborate from State and Federal agencies greatly facilitated collaborative activities. Head Start has a State Collaboration Office in each state and the District of Columbia. These offices were established to coordinate Head Start with state programs that serve families with young children. State Collaboration projects can play a key role, as in this example from a New Mexico respondent:

"The Head Start collaboration project was the moving force that got us started on the collaboration. [The result was] significant training through seminars that taught the participants how to partner effectively. This was a great learning experience and was vital to the success of the collaboration. It gave each program a real sense of the cultures of the other programs."

Coordination Takes Time

Finally, many programs reported that another prerequisite to facilitate collaboration is time. The Cheyenne, Wyoming collaboration stresses the importance of taking the time needed to make things work smoothly:

"Time is a big factor. Most programs are now having to do more with less. Staff planning sessions and meetings are an important ingredient, but unfortunately this most often is the thing that gets put off when there is a crunch for time."

Most programs reported that the time investment decreases once a collaboration is in place and functioning smoothly. Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation, however, still cited the importance of investing time in ongoing communication and planning:

"You need to let your mid-management staff in both programs meet about three times per year, just to see what you could be doing to better serve these families."

Factors That Support Coordination

• Clear communication.
• Involvement of both programs’ staff, at many levels, in collaborative planning and process.
• Support and encouragement by State and Federal agencies to collaborate.
• Adequate time committed toward planning, implementing and evaluating collaborative efforts.