How Management Systems Support Child Safety and Supervision

Kathy Wilson: Welcome to you all that have just joined us. This is Kathy Wilson from the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations. I'm joined today by David Jones from the Office of Head Start, and Stacy Dimino, who is our director at PMFO. And we're here for this Thursday presentation of Active Supervision week with a conversation around how management systems support child safety and supervision.

Many of you, perhaps, have been participating in the events throughout the week. This is an important topic that we're bringing to you as a real collaboration between the National Centers and the Office of Head Start to share different pieces of information this week around safety and supervision. This is a very, very important topic in our Head Start world.

I'm going to move us on, and Stacy's going to do just a little bit of hello and introduction.

Stacy Dimino: Great. Thanks, Kathy. And welcome everyone. My name is Stacy Dimino from the National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations. And I'm currently the director of the project.

But I want you know that I'm also a past Head Start and Early Head Start Director. So I've walked in your shoes, and I remember what it's like to run a program and be keenly aware of the importance of safety and ensuring that our children are safe when they leave their homes and enter our programs, and then when we return them back to their homes. So this is an important topic. And we're so happy that you've joined us to talk more about it.

So, Kathy, we'll move on. And I want to have the pleasure to introduce David Jones. So David is a program specialist at the quality assurance division for the Office of Head Start. And he wants to give some opening remarks and talk about child safety and provision. So, David?

Thank you, Stacy, and Kathy as well. Wow, what an exciting week. I am really honored to be here. On behalf of Ann Linehan, my colleagues in the quality assurance division, and, of course, our PMFO team, I'd like to welcome you to today's discussion on active supervision, which is going to focus on program leadership.

This topic is near and dear to my heart, because leadership sets the tone for literally every aspect of service provision, everything that takes place within the context of a program. There are many important connections between leadership, staff supervision, strong management systems, and child safety. Normally, when we think of child safety in Head Start and Early Head Start programs, what comes to mind are up-to-date immunizations, precautions for communicable diseases, and playground safety protocols in an effort to prevent trips and falls. Solid management systems influence program communication, planning, ongoing monitoring, and record keeping and reporting, to name a few.

What are some of the ways program leaderships can contribute to child safety? Management staff must ensure that policy counsel and governing bodies work collaboratively to develop a budget that supports the purchase of essential equipment and supplies. Hiring well-trained staff, who are involved in a process of ongoing professional development to enhance not only the quality, but also the quantity, of their interactions with parents is another example.

Creating policies and procedures to guide a process to ensure facilities are up to code, well-maintained, and in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations is an example. Providing regular, reflective, and task supervision is another. And finally, arranging schedules to ensure staff are available and ready to meet the need of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers walking through their doors is essential.

Of course, there are so many others. But when programs are operating under solid leadership, facilities are safe, employees are ready to receive children, and families are genuinely happy whenever they enter and exit the program. And we can never, ever, ever take for granted the importance of active supervision as it relates and connects to child safety. I hope you enjoy the webinar. Thank you.

Thank you, David. We're so pleased that you're joining us today. And thank you for your great remarks, which really connect to the systems conversations that we're going to have as we move forward today.

I'm going to take just a minute to just outline our objectives for our conversation today. And at the beginning of that, just think about how we can become better systems thinkers about child safety. And we'll look at the Head Start management systems, and talk about some specific systems. But know that all systems can be used and should be thought about as we're supporting safety in our program.

There's an objective about that Keeping it Simple with Systems tool that I talked about in the lobby. This is a new tool that we've developed. It's an adaptation of a tool that we have shared sometimes with new leaders in looking at management systems. And we've given to a laser focus on safety and supervision. So we will be introducing that shortly.

And then, at the end, many of you, probably, if you've been participating this week, are aware that we now have, across national centers, a guide-- the Active Supervision Tool Kit-- available on ECLKC. We'll take a little bit of a look at that, and we'll show you where some of this management agency wide conversation and resources lie within the Active Supervision Tool Kit. So we're real excited about all of those pieces.

I'm going to move on. And Stacy's going to talk to us a little bit about systems.

Thanks, Kathy. So we said in our outcomes for this session that you're going to become better systems thinkers. And so, I wondered if that sounds strange. And what does that mean, to be a systems thinker?

So we have here a constellation of visuals that shows the 10 Head Start program management systems. And you'll see in the light blue that there are the services that our program provides. And then, in the center, in that very targeted center, is the child safety and supervision.

So here, we're really showing the focus of child safety, and the adults to supervise children, in our program. And parents, and how we can model for our parents the supervision of children, and work together and partner with them to ensure that all children are safe. And surrounding them, now, in that light purple, are our 10 management systems.

So in David's opening remarks, he talked about the commitment of a program to budget appropriately. So when you're thinking about that piece of supporting child safety by having the right ratios, and the right staffing, you're really thinking about your fiscal management systems supporting child safety. So that's over on that left-hand side there. And what are the pieces of that budget that are going to ensure that all children are safe?

And then, on the right side, hand in hand with fiscal would be your HR. So making sure that human resources, with hiring of new staff, and the orientation, and the ongoing training, is making sure that the folks that are responsible for child safety really know those responsibilities. They know their role. They know their responsibility outlined in their job description, but also supported through their ongoing supervision and training.

And then I heard David also call out the importance of looking at our facilities. So that's right below our human resources system, is facilities, materials, and equipment. So we know that's really important, because we have a wide age range of the children that we serve. And we also have the ability level of our children.

And so, we need to ensure that our spaces are safe for the children that they're intended for, that our playgrounds have those important safety features-- the fall zones-- to make sure that children have an ability to use those outdoor experiences. Try some new things so they can grow and learn. But they do that safely.

So I'm just helping you see how walking through the 10 management systems help support and strengthen your supervision of children.

I'm going to move us along. And Kathy's going to talk about a new resource we have for you.

Great. Thanks, Stacy. There we are again with our systems constellation. We love this graphic. And just as Stacy was describing to you, it's a great way for us to start to think about our Head Start programs, and all of the different pieces-- those 10 management systems-- that support all of the work we do.

And you can see here the title page of the document. I'm actually going to ask Alicia, who is our tech wiz-- you may hear us referring to Alicia today. She's our awesome behind-the-scenes person. She's going to pull up a copy of the document.

This is the document that the link led you to, that you were able to download at the beginning. And we'll have other abilities for you to access this document. Keeping it Simple with Systems, with a focus on active supervision, child, and safety and supervision.

I just want to show you briefly-- I will pull down through the document a little bit-- how this is organized, and tell you how you can start to think about perhaps using this as a tool in your program with your management team, with a cross-representation of your staff and your stakeholders. But start to have those systems level conversations about safety and supervision.

So the tool kit is, as you saw at the beginning, arranged around the 10 management systems. And it's set up by providing you with just a selection of yes and no questions related to each of those systems.

So if I pull down through here, you'll see that the first system that is in the tool kit, in the guide, is program governance. And so, it will ask you a couple of questions about program governance. And the thought around this tool is to come to this with an open mind and ability to know that in Head Start, we are constantly refining and becoming better and better at all of the things that we do.

So there might be some questions in here that spur you, at whatever level your program is, to think about, how do we ensure that continuous quality improvement? And it'll ask you some thoughtful questions just to think about, do we do this, or don't we do this? And to come into it, again, with an open mind. And then, a place to record, how does this system support active supervision in our program?

And you'll see that all 10 of the systems-- it gives you a chance to walk down through each of those, asking some really pointed questions around all of that. Now, our questions in our conversation today will come from some of these questions that are in the Keeping it Simple with Systems document. So you'll get to hear a little bit more from some of these questions. But again, we wanted to show you this and know that, like I said earlier today, this is hot off the press. And we're so excited to be sharing this in the field to continue the growth conversation around safety and supervision.

So Alicia, if you would like to bring that down. Great. Thank you.

As Stacy mentioned, 10 management systems that we look at in Head Start-- and as I shared in the KISS document, we will address each of those. But for our purposes today, we pulled out four of the different management systems that we want to do a deep dive on, and talk about more specifically, and to actually hear a little bit from you about. So that first management system we're going to look at today is program governance. And Stacy's going to get us started on that.

So as you heard it in the very beginning, as David Jones was talking about, the importance of leadership and really setting the tone for active supervision and child safety. And here we're calling out the leadership of our program government. And at Heat Start, we know who that is. That's our governing body, our tribal council, and our policy council. saying

Thinking about how does that priority of a culture of safety, the organizational program culture of safety-- how does that actually happen? And so we're really starting to think about that it's how we talk about safety and, in a preventive way, how we respond when we have a lapse, perhaps, in safety that we have found. We need to strengthen our child safety.

So it really calls out the need to become a learning organization from the top. And that's where the Office of Head Start would really like programs to be. It's starting to be, and continuing-- because some of you are already a learning organization-- to continue to really have the conversations, both verbally, in writing, and through training and support to our staff that leads to continuous program improvement.

And how does that happen is to be able to look at our mistakes and talk about them. And talk about how-- what we don't want is that we wait for a child to be unsupervised before the governing body starts to talk about the importance of active supervision and safety. So it's really calling out that this is something that everyone can improve on, and that leaders can set the tone and set the vision for.

So one of the things that a governing body and policy council might do is think about we are improving hirings. And we see that we have some turnover of staff. Are we using some more substitutes than we thought we were using? Or look, we have a great new group of volunteers that are coming into our program.

How do we ensure those new folks-- those new hires, the substitute teachers, and the volunteers-- understand our culture of safety? How do we indoctrinate them into what we think is important? How do we do it with our orientation? How do we support them side by side as they're doing their work with mentoring? So those are the nice conversations, that collaborative approach that David talked about, that leaders can have.

So why don't we pull up our chat and see if you could join us in this conversation.

Thanks. I'm going to move us right-- oh, excellent. Thanks, Alicia.

Thank you. Good. So we have a chat question. And it's asking what data do your governing body and policy council review for program safety?

And you can start typing. And I see people are already starting to type. In the bottom, there's a type feature. And just click on the little quotation on the right, and that will post your response.

And we wanted this to be an interactive session, so we'd love to hear from you. Oh, good. And we have things coming up. So let's see what we get in, Kathy.

This is great. So great to see your responses. Stacy and I love to have conversation and webinars. And when we were planning this, we said, we hear so many times from grantees that we learn so much from each other. So we're so pleased to see you're sharing here today. Stacy, let's look at a few of these.

So Tabitha's pulling up the importance of written communication. So looking at policies and procedures that are going to support your supervision of children in active supervision. So that's great. And what happens with that.

And as David's reminding us, we can start from a strength-based approach, and get our input to see how it's working from the staff. So our staff feeling comfortable with the responsibilities and their roles around supervision of children.

Stacy, I was thinking and hoping to talk about record keeping, and reporting, and recording. And I see incident reports. At the end of the year, the governing gets to take a look at those reports and be really excited at the fact that there were less incidents in the center than there were in previous years. So that's a good thing. So when it's coming from a strengths-based perspective, it's always really important to look at that, and acknowledge that, and make sure you can continue to sustain that.

And I think it's so great to see so many folks sharing that your governing bodies and your policy councils are looking at your incident an accident reporting. And you're sharing that data with them. Because just like Stacy talked about, that culture of safety-- it's so important that is a global conversation. And they're having the ability to review that and see the good work that's happening. And like David said, to be watching that data and seeing ongoing improvement that's happening.

Lots and lots of good pieces. Robin talks about learning about bus safety. So our governing board and our policy council are also looking at information and data around bus safety. See lots on policies and procedures. Oh, Stacy, I see health and safety checklists. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. This is great.

Great. Wow, look at all this. And oh, I love Mary. You're calling out self-assessment, and the role of the policy council and governing body members in self-assessment. And looking at facility reports. Fabulous.

Great.

You think we should move on? I see you typing. I love it.

I know. It's awesome. We're so happy. We have folks from across the country. And we said, let's see how we can record all these ideas. And it's just great to see all the awesome work that's happening already across the country around this. Terrific.

I think, Alicia, this has been fantastic. Good conversation on program governance. And we can move on, I believe.

Great. I'll move us along. So that's what we've just done, that focus, and heard from you. And we're going to now look at another program management system of communication.

And we really thought, as you can well imagine, how important communication is. We want to make sure that what we have set as a priority for the program really is woven in, and filtered through, the work that we do. And how do we do that? Through communication.

As a matter of fact, management gurus talk about that they can tell what's important to a program just by sitting into a meeting, any meeting, and listening in to what that program's talking about. So if you've thought about that-- if you could be the fly on the wall in one of your management meetings-- to listen in to what's being talked about. How often are we bringing up this important piece of active supervision, and ensuring that our staff are ready for the roles and responsibilities that they have?

So one of the things I thought about is kind of an example. And this is around being a learning organization and learning from our mistakes. And one that I have actually witnessed in a program is that one of the teachers has a pattern of leaving the room. Leaving the room to get some more supplies, leaving the room to possibly talk to a parent, leaving a room to take a break. But that regularly leaving of the room is leaving that classroom and that group of children out of ratio.

And so what happens when that happens? Do we wait for there to be an injury of a child so that the injury report then shows that class was out of ratio? Or is there a communications system, and a way that the program supports having that staff talk about the issue? So the other teacher that's left in the room being able to lift up with their co-worker, and also to talk about it in supervision.

So what we're talking about is honest conversations. Developing a culture where the children's safety comes first, and we can have those harder conversations of monitoring each other and making sure we're accountable.

And then I think about communication with parents, because we want to partner with our parents and help them see how at different stages of children's development, they have to think about safety in different ways. So as children, they're exploring, going from crawling to walking, for instance. And how can we model that for them? With our socialization groups, with our other parenting sessions, and, certainly, reinforcing it on home visiting. So, really, bringing up that safety conversation in our interaction with our families is really critical.

So I wanted to bring up a chat. And David or Kathy, would you like to join this conversation at all? Is there anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I actually would, Stacy. What's interesting is-- I don't know if there was a strategic plan in terms of how you laid out the slides. But if a program has strong governance structure, they typically should have practice engaging parents, which helps when they need to have what can be perceived by staff and parents as difficult conversations. And when you're talking about safety within a family's home, that's their jurisdiction as parents.

So it is really about making sure you have really good supervision, have really good language, and really explanations for the parent for why you're addressing a particular issue. I just thought it was really important to make that connection since you talked about the home as well.

I think that's great, David. And it fits into the whole systems conversation, that as each of those systems are strengthened, remembering that center focus, child safety and supervision. And for all of our programs across the country, that we continue with this continuous piece of improvement. And the thing that gets better and better is the experiences for our children. I think that's terrific. Should we [INAUDIBLE] a little bit?

Alicia, do you want to pull up the chat?

So we're asking now, how does your program communicate that priority for program wide safety? And please just join the chat. You did it before on governance so well. And if you could just give us, in a couple words, how you communicate that program wide safety, so we can learn from each other. And I see people are starting to type, so thank you.

So we're talking about standards of conduct during parent orientation. And regular staff meetings. Good. Things are coming fast and furious, good.

Staff meetings.

Margaret's talking about--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

I imagine that Margaret's pulled up this safety campaign with handmade posters, meetings, and activities. That's great. How exciting.

And what you're doing, Margaret, is getting buy-in from many different levels of your program. And that's where we know it starts to take hold, when everybody understands their role and responsibility. But there also is this really strong commitment to active supervision. Fabulous.

Cheryl is sharing about an online training for new staff. Includes the standards of conduct and specific information on active supervision. So looks like a really good system there around communication and HR that has a nice safety and supervision focus. Great.

And Vicky, I have to say, because I wanted to talk about-- because it's communication-- I wanted to talk about how we communicate, and the different strategies. And you're pulling up emails and texting in different ways that we need to communicate with our parents and our staff. And so, thank you for doing that. So, written-- the handbooks are important, as we have always had. But thinking of other ways that we can reach our families. So thank you for that. And the visuals of posters and bulletin boards, I see.

Great. Dolores noting parent safety meetings. So again, a real focus there, it looks like, on some time with parents, specifically around that topic of safety. Because we know, with young children, safety in the home, safety in their away from home care, is super important. And great to see that large focus.

Chelsea's noting some information about job descriptions. So have we considered, as we're beginning to communicate with our new hires, are some of those first pieces of information that we share, including what the description is for this job-- is it evident that safety is a priority for us in our Head Start program? Nice.

What I like about what you're all writing is that we're learning this together, and we're strengthening it together. And we're working with parents, but we're learning together. These safety committees, these different activities of family engagement. How wonderful is that, and that we can keep each other accountable? So I love that. Thank you.

Kate's using GPS on their buses. Good thoughts. I agree with Stacy. It's so great to see all the awesome things that are happening in the field.

We did have a question about whether these lists of information can be available. And we will do that. We will organize each of the chats because, again, we just know there's so much good information out there in the field, and we learn from each other in so many ways. And it's just terrific to see all the things that are going on here.

So I think we should probably-- we could spend more time, and we know that. But we should move on because we have two more management systems that we'd like to cover.

Sounds great.

So I advance the slide? Let me do that. And Kathy, would you talk about facilities, materials, and equipment?

Absolutely. So the third management system that we chose to highlight today is around facilities, materials, and equipment. And David talked a little bit about this in his opening remarks since he was talking about budgeting. How are we thinking on a systems wide level about our facilities and our materials?

When we start to think about this, and we start to ask questions around this, some of the things that we ask, and some of the things that you'll find in this section of the Keeping it Simple document, are things like, do we have the facilities, material, the equipment to meet health and safety regulations? And do we have regular practices for completing safety checks? I love that safety checks came up in your board discussions, that some of you have board members and policy council looking at some of the documentation around safety checks.

So are we asking ourselves and our program, what are our systems around that? And then, do we document those systems? And how do we follow through? And how do we ensure and monitor that those safety checks are followed up on, and that materials are updated, and any repairs are made? So those are important questions to have around this management system as you're talking together with your management team, and with your leadership, for sure.

Important to ask, how effective are our systems for assuring that timely repair of maintenance? Do we follow up on that? Do we collect data about the time it takes between a report of a maintenance need and actual completion of the maintenance need? Are we paying attention to those kind of things?

So as I think about this management system, and anecdotes that might happen in a classroom, it could certainly be around that conversation around clear visual access in the classroom. So are we ensuring that we have the appropriate materials, and arranged in the appropriate ways-- so, the appropriate learning environments-- so that our classroom don't have blind spots, so that all children are able to be seen and supervised at all times.

And that can really be an equipment and materials conversation. So have we been really thoughtful about not having those big, tall bookshelves that someone might be able to be behind and not be seen. Or how we design our learning environments so that all children are being able to be seen at all times.

And even around the bigger facilities conversations about being honest with ourselves about what are some of the possible safety and supervision concerns that exist in our facilities? So do we have design areas that prohibit children from being seen at all times? And how are we having those conversations at the board level, at the strategic planning level, if that we want to make change around that? So sometimes those can be very big, long-term budgetary and program changes-- are we having the systems in place-- that we're always having those kind of conversations.

Kathy, now, this is the system, too, where we're talking about transportation. So I wanted to make sure that we think carefully about, when we transport children, how do we ensure that we account for children at all times, that we have those redundant-- those backup systems so that we are checking those transition times of arrival and departure of children. And maybe David wants to talk about this as well? Is there something you'd like to add, David?

Mainly, I just wanted to make sure we discuss programs. A few years back, the Office of Head Start was really focused on making sure the program was also discussed with parents-- just pedestrian safety as they were traveling back and forth on their own set of programs, as well as when they were being bussed into the program. So it's just another one of things where, as you're thinking about policies and procedures, then maybe some things that need to happen, if there's a busy street that parents need to cross to get to the center. Just having some of those conversations and parent meetings at the policy council. Those kind of things.

Excellent. Absolutely. And I like your example about are we looking at those situations that we might have for drop off, whether it's but transportation, parent transportation, and considering how those play into safety. Thanks, David.

So just as we've done before, we know that you all are doing great things around that. So regarding facilities, we have a couple chat questions that we want to look at with you. And I'm going to ask Alicia to bring those up.

So here are just two different things to think about. One is for staff to vet safety checks. And asking you just in a couple of words not whether we're doing safety checks, but how are you using safety checks? How are you making those real documents that inform everyday work?

And then another piece around-- what are some of the things that are really working for you around that timely maintenance, specifically around repair of playgrounds? Because we know that constantly monitoring our playgrounds is real important. And what are some things that are working out there for all of you?

Great. Thanks. There's lots of responses coming in. So regarding safety checks, Jane's talking about doing them at random times. What a great idea. So we're varying the time that we're making this because different things might be happening at different times of the day. Really nice way to keep that very alive and get great data out of those.

And I'm going to ask Stacy and David to help me watching, because now we've got two going here. And lots and lots of good stuff.

You know what I also like about the random times, Kathy, is that staff aren't gearing up for a certain period. But there's a sense that we check each other. And we check each other morning, afternoon, during different transitions, to make sure that we have safe environments at all times. And so I think that's really important. We know that after meals, that we have to make sure that the floors aren't slippery, and that we've done the cleanup that we need to do so that children don't slip and fall. And so it isn't that one time thing. It's really a good timely thing to do at different periods of the day. So I like that.

I also see people talking about playgrounds here, and making sure our playgrounds are safe before children use them. Absolutely. How important it is that we are doing that visual check that everything is OK, and that our children are ready to use the outdoor equipment. So thank you for that.

One of the pieces that went by kind of quickly, and I saw, a procedure for daily checking and maintenance reporting within 24 hours that we have. We're intentional, and we've defined a process whereby we have an immediate time frame that we're going to deal with these things that come out. Great.

And on that theme, on the second strategy for the timely maintenance, I saw that someone was doing a follow up phone call to see if the repair was done and met the need. So that's fabulous. So not only do we fill the form, but we're checking to see if the safety issue has been resolved.

And I saw something about the immediate removal of any equipment that's found in need of repair, which is really important.

Really important. And again, think about the kind of systems program discussion and understanding that makes that really strong. I know that in my program children's safety is of utmost importance. I'm taking this out because I know that's what we do here. It's OK, I can remove this. And we have systems in place to either replace or repair. That's a great one.

In the safe environments now, we're really starting to talk about transportation and buses. So the pre-trip inspection, the walking around the bus, the logs, the review of logs. How important.

And then that third party check. So that's that redundant system that I mentioned. That we're checking to make sure all children are off the bus and there's no child left behind. So we want to make sure that not only one person is doing that, but a second or third party are checking these things, so that it's a back up. We can have some human error, but we want to have a system in place so that human error is caught, and children are visually supervised at all times. So thank you for bringing that up.

Here's someone talking about encouraging parents to complete safety checklists. So we're engaging our parents. And it's not clear about whether it's in the center or in the home, but both, as we're talking with parents. And what a great, engaging way for a parent to be involved in a classroom. How important that is that they can help with that task and be involved in that way. Nice idea.

Kathy, I'm glad you mentioned the home because interestingly enough, when we look at are role and responsibility with safety, a lot of times it's so focused around center-based activities. But again, in the home, child proofing the home, and having those conversations with parents about safety for children. Safety for an infant is different from safety for a toddler or a preschooler. So it's really important to think about the home environment as well.

Definitely agree. And I think, again, as we come back to that culture of safety, if families and parents know how important safety for young children is through their Head Start program, and they're hearing us talk about that, and then we're sharing those ideas with them, it will definitely trickle over into more and more attention at home.

And Kathy, one more thing that I see it on the strategy side for timely maintenance and repairs. What I see in your responses is that you have a really strong communication between program and facilities, facilities director, facilities maintenance teams. But you must also have a very strong connection with fiscal to make sure that the budgeting is not an obstacle for repairs, and that things seem to be flowing really well. And that means that your systems are working to support that child safety. If you think about that constellation, what you're showing me is that you have that in place with some of these suggestions and answers.

Fantastic. So many great responses. And again, great to see all the good work that's going on around the country and for you all to get ideas from each other about how you can continue to improve the good things that you're doing.

We have one management system that we're going to look at, and that's ongoing monitoring. So I'm going to ask Alicia if she will bring down this chat. We'll talk a little bit about ongoing monitoring.

And as you'll see as you look deeply at the Keeping it Simple with Systems document, if we got to thinking about safety and supervision, and ongoing monitoring, there's a lot that lives here. There are a lot of things that live in our management and leadership level of how we are supporting the folks that are with children every day, and following through on policies and procedures, and ensuring safe environments, and good supervision.

So as we talk about ongoing monitoring today, I think we'll bring things back to our six strategies of active supervision. So as you're thinking about these pieces of setting up the environment, positioning staff, scanning and counting, listening, anticipating children's behavior, and engaging in redirecting-- and again, those are those six strategies for active supervision. There's conversation to be held at each of those levels about how we're supporting staff in using those strategies and those skills. So questions like, do we have intentional plans to notice when those active supervision strategies are being used?

I think the beauty of the active supervision conversation, at this point, is it's given us common language that we can start to use in our classrooms, and in our homes, about children's safety and supervision. So in ongoing monitoring, are we intentional about talking with classroom staff when you see them scanning and counting, when you see them paying attention and listening, and you see those good examples of engagement and redirection. So do we have those monitoring systems in place?

And do we have some internal-- as Stacy talked about earlier-- some peer to peer support for those strategies? So our staff helping monitor each other in that, and noticing when those good things are happening. So as they're paying attention to how they set up the environment or, again, as they're using those strategies around scanning and counting.

And then, I think the last thing that I'll put on the table is, are we intentional in ongoing monitoring about thinking about all the different places that children are, and things that our children are doing throughout the day? So are we monitoring on the playground? Are we monitoring on our buses? Are we monitoring during transitions?

How about field trips? We know that any time we take children out of the regular routine and change experiences-- which we know we want to do with them. We want to have rich, engaging experiences. But are we thoughtful about including those opportunities for ongoing monitoring, so that we know that our policies are being followed true, even when those pieces come up?

So some things to think about as we gauge our ongoing monitoring conversation. And bringing that back specifically to those six active supervision steps. And thinking about designing our ongoing monitoring, or pieces of it around that.

So I'm watching the clock and seeing that we're approaching two o'clock, but we'd love to hear from you on this one. So Alicia, will you pull up our chat for ongoing monitoring? And we do have two here, one specific to transportation, transporting children, because we know there are great things that are happening out there in the field. So we'd love to hear those.

And then Stacy talked about that redundant system. And if you've been participating in active supervision, you've heard our folks and our friends from the National Center on Health talking about checking and rechecking. What are some of our redundant systems that are working well?

I see Maria has written face to name procedure. And I know that in Ann Linehan's remarks at the beginning of the week, she talked about an earlier webinar where they talked about face to name checking of children as they come on and off the bus. So we have a picture of the child and the child's name. Excellent. Great, there's another, Wilma. Photos to names. When I first heard that strategy, I thought, what a great idea.

Now I'm going to ask my colleagues to help me. They're coming in fast and furious again. Lots of great ideas.

Yes, wow. Gia head counted every transition.

Exactly.

I see Maria there. Before leaving the bus, the driver does a walk through, then the bus monitor does another check. Redundant system. Excellent.

Keeping that seating chart current on the bus. Right, Vicky. We know that our bus groups might be changing. Kids might be changing. But if we're intentional, and we know that keeping that current is part of our supervision procedures-- really, really important.

Wow, they're coming up fast, Kathy. Wow. And they were really calling out the transition piece. And we know that's where this child safety piece is so critical during transitions. So you're right on the money to think about transitions very carefully, and to have those redundant systems in place. Fabulous.

And to remember the ongoing monitoring twist on all these awesome systems that we have in place, are we also making an intention to-- even in the consideration of redundant systems, then, that bus monitor is walking through. The bus driver walks through, the bus monitor does a check. And we also have a system from the leadership perspective that we have regular observation of that, so that we can know that absolutely we know this is happening regularly on this bus. If there are lapses, we have ongoing monitoring that we can note that there is a lapse, and we can immediately make a correction and address that.

And Tina here is calling about fire drills. So that's an unexpected transition. Sometimes we have groups of children practice fire drills and let them know. And other times, we call a fire drill, and they don't know it's coming.

And I remember as a director, a brand new child in our program was frightened by the fire drill alarm and hid under the table. So the teachers took out the group, and we had in place a redundant system of a sweeper who came into every room and checked that, as you do, Tina, where your director is making sure every room is cleared. And that sweep person found the child hiding under the table with her hands over her ears, and she was crying at the sound the alarm. So it can happen where new children aren't used to what's happening and are really frightened, and we have to look for that as well. So that was interesting piece that I thought of it as you said that.

Kathy and Stacy, I was just wondering. We haven't seen anything, and it may not exist, but whether any program staff out there were using technology to assist them in the safety monitoring.

I did see early on, David, something with some camera pieces that I think we have brought up. Let's see if we can find that. That's great.

It would be great to know. I saw-- it has kind of gone by-- but there was one that talked about announcing the number of children we have, doing some auditory counting of the number of children, and some systems in place so that we always know how many children are in the classroom. Because those of us who have been in a classroom, we know that children may be leaving the room to go home early with a parent. Lots and lots of different reasons why the number of children, at any given time, is changing.

And so, again, within the culture conversation, that everyone in the classroom knows that it's important that, at all times, they know how many children are there. And then systems in place where we can find somebody to keep track of that.

I see somebody typing. Some of that technology stuff is coming up now. A device that can track the bus, so you know where they're at at all times. And then there's cameras on the bus that not only monitor on board, but also shows the speed of the bus driving. So that's good stuff.

Excellent.

Well, thank you so much for all of your awesome comments to all of the conversation and chat. And we absolutely will make this available to you. And honestly, thinking, count it as really great information collection for, certainly, up here at PMFO, and to share around the country with folks all of the terrific strategies that you're using around each of these systems. And then knowing that in that Keeping it Simple document, you can use that to jump start these same kind of conversations around each of the systems, and how much the information that you'll all glean from your own programs. And think about your continuous quality improvement.

Alicia, I'm watching the time. And I'm going to ask if we move on. We're going to move very quickly. I want to show you one more thing, and then wrap up a terrific hour. Really great participation and a really nice time of sharing.

The last piece that we want to show to you-- and again, if you've been participating in Active Supervision Week, this is something that you maybe have seen. I spoke about this earlier. This resource is on the ECLKC. And Alicia, I'll just ask you to pull up the document. And we're going to look only very, very quickly at this.

As I said earlier, this is the piece that is a nice collaboration between the Office of Head Start and the National Centers, where we pull together many, many resources that support different pieces of the safety and supervision conversation. And you will find live links in this. So you were able to look directly at different resources that define active supervision. And I'm going to get us down to a certain section here talking about Head Start, Early Head Start programs, infant-toddler programs.

And then the section that is probably most connected to-- and I will go a little quickly here because I know we're looking at time-- our conversation today. This section of the tool kit, the agency wide section, has links to a number of resources that support our work in the Head Start management systems, our work as leaders. So some of our what Head Start leaders need to know documents are there. Some foundational materials about leadership systems and services, some information about our governance trainer. So again, just some agency wide connections.

And I will show you one last piece of the tool kit, if you have not yet seen that. Scroll down. There's our constellation. The tool kit also includes this great reference guide, where it takes the resources that are noted in the tool kit, and then lays them out by different areas. And so you can see the leadership systems and governance-- it was there on that side. [INAUDIBLE]

Just a really quick commercial for the tool kit. Keeping children safe with active supervision. I see that in the toolbar, if you get to this on the ECLKC, it's a great resource. Alicia, do you want to pull that down? Thank you.

So Kathy.

Stacy, go right ahead.

As we're ending this time together, and then going to go into our question and answers time, I just want to let-- people have been asking. Participants have been wanting to get the lists that we've generated in the chats, because they are very rich. And we're learning from each other, which is the best way to learn. So we're going to contact you and let you know how we can share those with you. We have your email address. And so we'll let you know where we'll post them to, and when you can, retrieve them. Because I think there was such really rich and good exchange in each one of our chats. So we thank you for that.

Great, Stacy. Thanks. So before we transition to kind of a live chat, where you'll have opportunity to type in some more questions, and we'll be here to respond and answer to them, we're going to conclude this section of the webinar. And we would like you to use that SurveyMonkey link to take a short survey evaluation of the webinar. Your feedback is so important to us. We're constantly making changes and adjustments, so we are anxious to hear your feedback.

The other piece of that is, after completing the survey evaluation, you will then be able to print a certificate of attendance for today's session. So we will actually give you a little bit of time to do that, and then we will move, in a couple minutes, move ourselves into a period of chat. If you have residual questions, ongoing questions, you'd like to have a little bit of time to share with us, we'll spend about half an hour looking at those questions.

Stacy, any other pieces that we've missed?

No, I think people are asking about the KISS tool and how they can access it. So I will give you that link. And I think Rob has it posted there. Maybe we should post it to the full group if we would. And that way, everyone can-- if you didn't get a chance to download it prior to this session, you'll be able to access the tool.

Great.

So David, do you want to say any closing words to this group before we go into our Q&A?

No, I just want to thank them for their participation-- the interactive responses. Like you said, I just want to echo the sentiment that we learned a lot from each other. So we really appreciate the active participation. And we hope that this was meaningful.

Thank you all for joining us. And here we have it posted, again, at the bottom of your screen, the Keeping it Simple with Systems Active Supervision. And you can download that there. There is the link for you.

I'll just reiterate. I see a question that's come up in the chat. As you're completing the SurveyMonkey, you should then be able to access the certificate. We had a question about that. So go ahead and follow the link to the survey. You should be able to get the certificate from there.

So we'll give you a couple of minutes to do those things, and then we'll start with our Q&A. So thank you very much for joining us.

Yes, thank you, everyone.

So Kathy, do you think we should begin?

I do. I think so, Stacy. I think folks have been able to do that.

So if you've decided to stay on with us for the live chat, I will move us into that now. And Alicia is pulling up a spot where you can enter some questions that you might have.

So this is your opportunity to ask us at PMFO, but also ask each other some pieces that you might have heard. And we might be able to facilitate some conversation back and forth. So anything that you were thinking of or that went by a little bit too quickly for you during our one hour webinar, this is the opportunity to really get your questions answered, and to think about that important piece of active supervision, and child safety and supervision. And Kathy, do we have a couple things we've heard from the field that we want to start with?

We do, Stacy. I I'm just going to back us up a little bit, because I'm seeing that Alicia's answering a question around the certificate. And I wanted to address that as we move on. So after completing the evaluation, you need to enter your contact information, and then the certificate should pop up. So be sure to move on that far. Thanks, Stacy. I wanted to just address that so folks can complete that.

So Stacy, just to begin conversation, I think that one thing that we're hearing from the field, related to some of our systems conversation today, from our folks at the National Center on Health. And I think it's a part of Ann Linehan's remarks at the beginning of the week.

Regarding some of the more global aspects of supervision and staff performance, and how, when we might have lapses in supervision, you want to begin to look at that from a systems perspective, not always just an individual's performance perspective. I think that feeds into our ongoing monitoring conversations. Does that make a little sense?

So Kathy, we have a question here that asks, can you suggest a way to track data on injury reports? Do you want to give that one a shot? I know we've just talked about tracking and how important that is.

I think I would-- Stephanie, are you starting to look at some of your regular tracking systems? What are the pieces of your reporting? How does your reporting system file into all of that tracking? And how are you bringing together individual reports to look at trends?

There are lots of different ways to do that. Simple ways, through some Excel spread sheeting. Some programs have a management information system. You can start to look at that, but it's great to hear that you're thinking about doing that. How do we start to look at trends around injury reporting?

And then how did dis-aggregate that information? And I know our friends at the National Center on Health talk about that. So we're not only looking at our injury reporting, but are we able to look at it by time of day? And are we able to look at it by place? Or are we able to look at it by area of the classroom?

Because that's that exciting piece of really looking at data in an aggregated, analyzed kind of perspective. So are we using our data to really fine tune where some of our areas for improvement might be lurking? So I think thinking about systems for bringing together your reporting, and then using that data in specific, disaggregated ways can help strengthen your response.

And Kathy, the National Center on Health has a great technique, and a tool, for that tracking of injuries. And looking at hot spots that might be happening. Where are those injuries happening, and how can we look to prevent future injuries? And it's called hazard mapping.

So we had the opportunity to work alongside National Center on Health with hazard mapping tool that really starts to take injury reports, aggregate those reports to see where-- because you're usually writing in those reports not only child and the injury, but time of day as Kathy suggested. But also the location. Was it in the playground? Was it on a specific slide? Was it in the classroom? Near the sink? Is there a slippery zone or something that we need to think about-- rubber matting?

So the hazard mapping tool can really help you pinpoint a hot spot for injuries, and do preventive maintenance to those spots. So I want to make sure that we call that out as a really good resource for programs to use.

Excellent.

We have another question here, Kathy, about Active Supervision Tool Kit, and where can a program purchase it, and how to get a hold of that tool kit. Can you talk about that?

I can talk about it a little more. I'm searching through to try to find the question. But let me review that again, because we were definitely watching time at the end of the webinar. The Active Supervision Tool Kit is a new resource that is available on the ECLKC through keeping children safe through active supervision link. And it is free, available to the public-- public domain-- and it lives there with the links to all of the resources from a variety of National Centers that support different ways that programs are thinking about active supervision.

Great. We also have a question. It says, many of us were not able to receive the audio on Tuesday's webinar of this week with the EHSNRC folks, Keeping Babies Safe, and wondering if the information was archived. And absolutely. All of the webinars for this week, each and every day, will be archived and be able to be re-broadcast. So we will give you information when that's up and posted, and there will be an e-blast that will tell you that the information is ready to be available to you. Anything else you want to add about that, Kathy?

I think Stacy's definitely right. You'll be able to get all of this week's webinar broadcasts. Again, read through the Keeping Children Safe Active Supervision spot on the ECLKC.

I see a question on hazard mapping. I'm going to do a little outreach, Stacy, unless you have a direct connect to that. Perhaps our NCH friends are still with us and can help a little bit.

So maybe they can tell us where the access is to the hazard mapping information. Thank you.

And while we're doing that, I'm going to check our work. Let's see. I'm going to post in our chat the ECLKC. It may come at the bottom of Stephanie's. But you had asked about the link to Active Supervision Tool Kit. And you can copy that and paste it onto a page and access that. So click through that link right there.

We also have a question here about asking about our written plans and forms. So should there be forms and written plan for all the ways we do active supervision for each individual classroom, designating who's responsible for each step. So I think what that is really suggesting that we are much better off when we can identify the who. Who is responsible for what, when, and how. And how are we going to make sure that person has the tools, has the support, to fulfill that role and responsibility.

So I like where you're going with that. I think it really just helps tighten up. When we say everyone's responsible for something, what does that really mean? So identifying the who for what piece is really important. In some of the chats, people said, our staff are responsible for making sure they have the attendance sheet of the children at all times. So if you said that all teachers have to do that, maybe it wouldn't be clear who. So sometimes giving it that role-- that's either the teacher assistant's to job to do, and that they would be the person to hold onto that. And the teachers double check that so that the redundancy there.

But I like what you're going for in terms of being very specific. Because that's when we are more clear, and people know what they're responsible for.

Stacy, I absolutely agree with that. And remember earlier today, we had a little bit of conversation around active supervision, and just the assurance of some quality language and quality description of good practices. So by following through on this idea, Janice, that we have some plans in place to address, as Stacy said, the who and the how, we're ensuring that language becomes a part of our vocabulary in our organization. That active supervision is something that we're talking about. Those strategies are things that we're talking about and looking for all the time. That is absolutely a way to continue strengthening that.

I did see some added conversation and questions about certificates for things earlier this week, and knowing that the National Centers are meeting together to review the week. And we will certainly take your questions about that there. As Stacy mentioned, all the webinars will be posted in archive form on the ECLKC. And we'll continue to explore the certificates.

[INAUDIBLE]

Steve Shuman from the National Center on Health has joined us. And so he's typing in. And thank you, Steve, for telling us where we can locate the information on hazard mapping. So there's a way for you to access it on ECLKC, page 75 of the Health Manager Orientation Guide. Or you can write directly to NCH Info at aap.org, and they will be able to send that to you directly. So thank you, Steve, for helping us out.

And Lauren is just commenting, Kathy, about that assumption. Everybody's responsible, but then we assume somebody else is going to do it. So really pinpointing who's going to do a checklist, who's going to double check it? What task and what the specificity of that who is so important.

Because that no one wants to leave a child behind. Nobody wants to have a child that's left alone. It's really our worst nightmare. So we want to just double check and have the systems in place, and have those very specific policies and procedures and checklists that help us double check, triple check, the work that we do. So thank you for calling that out, Lauren. And that's really important.

Definitely. I do think, now, you can see, from Rob O'Connor, our help there around the tool kit, and a link to the tool kit. So thanks for solidifying that for us, Rob.

Stacy, I think you're calling out that lapses in supervision and unattended children. That is absolutely a devastating thing to happen in a program. And that all of the things that we talked about today, the systems strengthening you help to ensure that programs have the practices in place, and are constantly vigilant about that issue.

And then, you don't wait for the mistake. That we now, especially given all the sharing that we've done with each other, can be proactive. And we can keep this front and center in our meetings, in our discussions, and talking about it regularly. And as David pointed out, making sure that we connect with our families to make sure that they're doing it in the home. And that we really help each other out to keep it front and center in the way that we're talking about our work.

So by you attending this session, I can see that it is also a passion of yours, and that you care deeply about keeping children safe. So I think we have lots of resources here that we will share. And we will be able to share the chat boxes so that you can also read through and see how you can even make your program stronger and safer.

I thought it was so affirming in the governance conversation, Stacy, when so many folks were talking about that their governing board were regularly looking at some of that data around safety. And to know that governing boards are engaged at all times, not after something happens, a problem happens. That we want our governing boards to be on board around safety and supervision from the beginning. And the first that they should be hearing about our efforts around safety and supervision, and the first that they should be hearing about active supervision, should not be when something goes wrong. But it should be part of their ongoing conversation.

I see that we're almost out of time. So if anybody has a last question to ask, please do. And then we will be able to get that done before we conclude today. And really, again, I congratulate you for the work that you're doing. And I can see that you've really put some very careful procedures, and policies, and professional development, and trainings in place that prepare us for doing the work we're doing. So I congratulate you for all of that work. And thank you.

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