WSA Head Start & ECEAP

Past Events & Trainings

Link to WSA Monthly Conference Call Notes

Annual Early Head Start Conference

The 11th Annual Early Head Start and Infant/Toddler Conference, "The Essential Elements of Hope", will be held July 29 - 31, 2008 in Vancouver, Washington.

This is a great conference for Early Head Start programs and other early learning professionals as well. In addition to the quality training and networking available, this year's keynote speaker is Dr. Brenda Jones Hardin from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Jones Hardin has devoted the past three decades of her professional life to children at environmental risk, specifically children reared in impoverished circumstances and children in the child welfare system. She is the author of the book "Infants in the Child Welfare System: A Developmental Framework for Policy and Practice.

This year the folks at Portland State have included a pre-conference track on July 29th that may be of interest to many Head Start programs - a full day designed to help programs that may be considering converting some of their Head Start slots to Early Head Start.

Schedule and registration information available here.

Head Start/Early Head Start Director Retreat, July 9-11, 2008

The annual WSTC Head Start/EHS Directors Retreat was held at Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat in Leavenworth in July. Directors heard from a wide variety of experts in early learning and discussed a number of issues arising in programs throughout Washington State.

We'll be emailing out the notes from the retreat, and the presentations are available here:

WSTC Summer Institute 2008

This year's Washington State Training Consortium Summer Institute at Central Washington University was a rousing success! Nearly 180 staff from Head Start, ECEAP, and Early Head Start attended one of six different credit-bearing 20-hour courses, selected based on surveys with members:

Creating Positive Social-Emotional Support for Children with Challenging Behaviors
Implementing an Inquiry-Based Curriculum
Management Training (Advanced)
Math & Science within an Ecology of Children & Childhood
Calming Ourselves in a Stressful World
Working with English Language Learners and Families

We also spiced things up this year with evening activities (a great barbecue at the fairgrounds, Movie Night with Joel, and a special session 'Wellness is More Than Your Annual Physical' with Jean Hill-Miller) and keynote speeches from Gene Sharrat and from the Washington Dental Service Foundation , who sponsored the Summer Insitute along with Kaplan Early Learning Company.

Participants seemed to have a great time, with 97% giving it an Excellent (69%) or Good (28%) rating!

Literacy Training

WSTC Family Literacy Training April 24-25, Renton WA
The Washington State Training Consortium, the training arm of WSA, in cooperation with the National Head Start Family Literacy Center, is offering a great series of seminars April 24th and 25th in Renton.

This is the second of the new Regional Trainings that we’re offering through WSTC – this time our region is Puget Sound, though all are invited to come on over! Clock Hours and STARS credit will be available.

We surveyed our members about their course preferences and decided to expand the training to a day and a half to be able to offer the top 3 choices. You can choose to take one, two, or all three seminars!

On Thursday, April 24th, 1-4pm, you can attend a seminar in Strengthening Systems to Support Family Literacy. This seminar is great for directors, leadership teams, and Policy council. Participants will delve into linking family literacy throughout their Head Start/ECEAP program to make family literacy seamlessly intertwined into all aspects of individual programs.

Friday, April 25th is focused on teachers, family support staff, education managers and others interested in family literacy. From 9 am-12 noon we are offering Vocabulary Development: Key to Reading and School, which will provide teachers, family support staff and parents simple, research-based, and fun strategies to promote children’s vocabulary development in the course of day-to-day activities. This interactive session will introduce research-based materials and resources, actively involve participants, and focus on key strategies that are easy to learn and use. The afternoon session is a fun one - Home: Where Learning Begins. Participants will be able to take key messages back to their programs, access training material to take back, and plan ways to support parents to expand on the work they are already doing to promote their children’s learning.

Fees are as follows :

1 Seminar- $30 for WSTC Members/$50 for Non-Members
2 Seminars- $50 for WSTC Members/ $90 for Non-Members
3 Seminars- $75 for WSTC Members/ $120 for Non-Members

Sign up now! More detailed information about each seminar and our fabulous trainers can be found in the info and registration form below. Deadline for Registration is 4/21/08.

Info and Registration Form

WSA Winter Meeting & Advocacy Day

February 21st was our biggest WSA Advocacy Day ever! Nearly 300 ECEAP and Head Start parents, staff, directors and friends stormed the Capitol in Olympia and met with their legislators to talk about the Washington Head Start proposal and other issues important to children and families.

Governor Gregoire was one of our fabulous speakers at the Rally on the Capitol Steps, and Rep. Roger Goodman, the prime sponsor of the Washington Head Start bill, provided a great keynote and stayed to listen to the great stories shared by parents and staff.

We also had a great WSA Fall meeting that included some great training and lots of opportunities for WSA members to get together and share their experiences. Some of the breakout session topics included:

Working with English Language Learners and their families
Never Underestimate the Power of Parents
Grassroots Organizing
Working with Children with Social, Emotional and Behavioral Issues
Best Practices/Innovation Session with the Bremerton school district
Town meeting with Jone Bosworth

Rep. Ruth Kagi, a great champion of early education, presented the first annual WSA Excellence Awards to members of the Head Start and ECEAP community who accomplished great things in 2007. WSA parents, staff, and directors do amazing things within their programs, communities, and in advocating with their elected officials and beyond. The WSA Excellence Awards recognized folks who have made a significant contribution to children and families, whether it is through hard work and enthusiasm, innovation, leadership, or just all-around excellence.

The 2007 Parent Excellence Award went to Frank Parker, a hardworking and involved grandfather with Early Childhood Opportunities Northwest who donated countless hours and expertise to enhance learning experiences for children in Head Start in Bellingham.

The 2007 Staff Excellence Award went to Linda Chugani of Neighborhood House in Seattle, for her creativity and deep commitment to the children and families in her diverse classroom.

The 2007 Director Excellence Award went to Jim Skucy, who has provided exemplary leadership in his 18 years at Benton Franklin Head Start.

The 2007 Excellence in Innovation Award went to Skagit/Islands Head Start staff, who demonstrated innovation in the areas of bilingual language learning in a wide variety of ways. We look forward to hearing from the folks at Skagit/Islands at future WSAmeetings, as we learn from each other how to implement innovative, successful programs.

For more information about each of our winners, click here.

Head Start/Early Head Start Directors Meeting

Nearly 40 directors from Head Start, EHS and ECEAP programs met December 5-6 for the Winter Directors Meeting. Among the topics discussed and presented were:

HS/EHS Reauthorization and Funding (Joel)
ECEAP/Head Start Linkage Proposal
ECEAP Expansion RFP (Joyce Kilmer)
Region X Update (Nancy Hutchins)
2008 WA Legislative agenda (Caucus Staff)
Collective Bargaining Legislation (SEIU/AFT)
and much more.

If you're interested in more detail about what happened in the meeting, we've attached a number of useful PDFs, including notes from the meeting, handouts and various PowerPoint presentations from guest speakers.

Head Start/ECEAP Linkage Proposal

Guest Presenters:

WSA Fall Meeting, 2007

Over a hundred people attended the WSA Fall Meeting this year October 10-12 in Wenatchee, as well as 35 who attended the special one-day WSTC Management/Human Resources training that kicked off the event on October 9th. Both events were a great success. In addition to our usual schedule of director & affiliate meetings, advocacy goal discussions and elections, participants enjoyed:

Two great keynote speakers: Jone Bosworth and Dr. Gene Sharratt
Training opportunities in grant writing, family literacy, grassroots organizing and media
Introductions to a number of great opportunities for Head Start and ECEAP programs, including the statewide roll-out of both the Health Care Institute (info below) and Pierce County’s Smoking Cessation program, and the Collaborative Leadership Institute program for emerging leaders in early learning
A fabulous reception complete with Mariachi band from Wenatchee High School!

The membership approved new Advocacy Goals for 2008 and welcomed four new members of the WSA Board of Directors, Damaris Allred, ECEAP parent representative from Educational Opportunities for Children and Families (Vancouver), Wendy Shuell, Regional Rep-Staff from EOCF, Amanda Jennings, AI/NA representative from Lower Elwha Head Start, and Cathy Garland, Head Start Director representative from Children’s Home Society.

Some of our speakers and trainers provided copies of their PowerPoint presentations and handouts, available below. If you have more questions about any of these or if you have photos of the event to share, please contact Katy Warren.

Attachments

(Note: All PowerPoint presentations have been converted to PDF due to file size.)

October 9th Management/HR Training

Gil Sparks Employment Law Presentation

Heather Kawamoto Presentation

WSA Fall Meeting Oct 10-12

Gene Sharratt Keynote Presentation

Ariella Herman -- Health Care Institute