"OUTCOMES ARE SIMPLY A STATEMENT of where we are… not good or bad. What happens next?" The child outcomes system, one of the Head Start mechanisms to increase the quality of services to children and their families, is having a profound effect on the way Head Start programs view the work they have done and plan the work they will do. Outcome information allows programs to make the subtle, yet powerful, shift from focusing primarily on the activities that have been completed to focusing on the results of those activities. Documentation and reporting of the level of effort continues to be important. However, the addition of child outcomes as part of the continuous improvement process guides programs to ask, "So what?" As a result of the investment of resources, have we made a difference in the lives of their children we serve? What are the benefits they have gained? What knowledge? What skills? What attitudes?

Beginning in 2000, the pilot year for implementing a child outcomes system, an emphasis was placed on two assessment areas in Head Start: child assessment and self-assessment. As stated in ACYF IM-HS-00-18, Head Start programs are required to look at the effectiveness of the process by which each child's comprehensive development is assessed as well as the annual process by which programs reflect on the effectiveness of their services and support systems. Furthermore, programs have been required to link the two systems.

As with any system that is composed of a number of interlocking and interacting parts, the linkage of the child assessment process and self-assessment is not isolated from the remainder of the program. Other services and systems that are closely linked, and therefore are impacted most by child outcomes, include curriculum, record keeping, reporting, on-going monitoring, and planning. A key thread throughout all of these services and systems is the capacity of the program to manage information effectively and efficiently and to use it to make informed decisions.

Using the Continuous Improvement Cycle
AS ILLUSTRATED in the Head Start Child Outcomes Continuous Improvement Cycle (see Figure 1), planning is a key initial aspect of the work done in Head Start. Short-and long-term plans are developed for those served— the children and their families— and for the program itself. All Head Start services and the organizational systems that support those services comprise a portion of the cycle involved with activities. Put simply— what is being done with resources to fulfill the mission of Head Start? Planning for activities and actually doing the activities are critical but not sufficient for change to occur.

The final portion of the continuous improvement cycle focuses on answering the question, "Are we doing what we said we would do and did those activities actually make positive differences to those we serve?" By comparing what we planned to do with what we actually did and then comparing all children's progress in the eight domains of child development throughout the year, we address a critical aspect of the continuous improvement cycle— analysis of the information we have gathered. A number of systems are in place that provide a review of a program's work such as performance appraisals of staff, parent satisfaction questionnaires, the Program Information Report (PIR), Federal monitoring, and self assessment.

Objectively evaluating the gaps between the plans, the actual accomplishments, and the degree of children's progress during their Head Start experience brings us to the point of reflecting about the self-assessment results. The three levels of reflection are content, process, and premise. Content reflection involves focusing on what has been done. Process reflection examines how these activities have been done and the efficacy in performing them. Premise reflection increases awareness of why these particular activities were done in a certain manner. (Mezirow and Associates 2000)

Like all systems, continuous improvement is cyclical in nature. The activities and experiences during the previous year and the learning and wisdom gained through the self-assessment, analysis, and reflective processes serve to better inform the next planning process. The third assessment required of Head Start programs, the community assessment, is also a significant influence in the planning process. It focuses on whether the program is being responsive to the needs of the participants— the eligible children and their families.

An integral part of the outcomes paradigm is the development of a logic model, linking certain activities with certain results. Coupling the results of the program's child outcomes with current research findings, each program must ask several questions during the initial part of the planning process: What do we need to keep doing? What do we need to do more of? Less of? What do we need to add? What do we need to stop doing? What do we need to modify in some way?

The child outcomes initiative has created a powerful mechanism for Head Start programs to continuously improve the quality of their services to children and their families. It insures that the curriculum is enhancing and supporting each child's development in all domains and that the ongoing child assessment process provides useful measures of each child's development. In addition, the effectiveness of the planning, record-keeping, reporting, information management, and self-assessment systems continues to improve in order to better support the child outcomes system and to respond to the information provided by the data and its analysis.

Regulatory Foundations for the Continuous Improvement Cycle
Head Start Program Performance Standards

REFERENCES

Mezirow, J. & Associates. 2000. Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Jeff Hoffman is Nebraska State Liaison, Community Development Institute/ Head Start Quality Improvement Center, Region VII. T: 402-484-0265, E: JefKHoffman@cs.com.

JoAn Knight Herren is Chief, T/TA Branch, Head Start Bureau. T: 202-205-8566, E: jherren@acf.hhs.gov.