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Part 1: Center-Based Programs
Early Head Start Program Profile
Educational Alliance Early Head Start
New York, New York
October 15-20, 1997
The Educational Alliance, a community-based organization that began as a settlement house and now provides many services, including Head Start, in New York City, operates an Early Head Start program for 75 families in 3 centers. One center is located at the Educational Alliance headquarters, one is located in a school for pregnant and parenting teenagers, and one is located at a residential program for pregnant and parenting substance-abusing women. The families served by the program are ethnically diverse, predominantly single-parent families, about one-third of whom receive welfare cash assistance. The program emphasizes the development of supportive relationships and mental health, and in addition to center-based child development services, provides families with psychotherapy services.
OVERVIEW
The Educational Alliance is a large, century-old
social service agency that began as a settlement house and Jewish community
center in lower Manhattan. It currently provides a wide range of services,
including Head Start and child care services. It operates an Early Head
Start (EHS) program with three sites in New York City: (1) the Educational
Alliance headquarters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan; (2) Teen Aid,
a Brooklyn school that is part of the New York Board of Education's Program
for Pregnant and Parenting Services; and (3) Veritas, a residential drug
rehabilitation program for pregnant and parenting substance abusing women
in the Manhattan Valley area of Manhattan. The Veritas site was added
in July, 1997; it replaced a planned site in another New York City public
high school that did not work out.
Community Context. The Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the
Education Alliance headquarters are located, has a history of being home
to recent immigrants and is the most racially diverse area of the city.
Housing projects and old tenements are the dominant types of housing.
Poverty, unemployment, drug trafficking, and a lack of affordable child
care--especially for infants--are problems in the area. The Teen Aid and
Veritas sites serve mothers who come from all over New York City. Nearly
all of these young mothers are members of racial/ethnic minorities; most
are Hispanic or African American.
Program Model. The Educational Alliance EHS program is a center-based child development program with state-of-the-art classrooms in each of the three sites. This EHS program emphasizes the development of supportive relationships--among family members, between staff and families, and among staff members themselves--and mental health. It also stresses infant mental health. In keeping with these emphases, the program provides families with psychotherapy services, including individual counseling, parent-infant therapy, group therapy, and marital/couple counseling.
Families. Slightly more than one-third of the families served by the Educational Alliance EHS program are African American, about one-third are Hispanic, and the remainder belong to other racial and ethnic groups. Most of the families are single-parent families. Nearly one-fourth of the mothers were pregnant when they enrolled in the program. More than one-third of the families were receiving welfare cash assistance when they enrolled.
Staffing. The staff of the Educational Alliance EHS program consists of a program director, a social worker, three clinical case managers (one for each site), a father involvement/adult educator, three educational supervisors (these are head teachers--one for each site), and four to eight paraprofessionals for the classrooms. The program director has extensive experience in infant mental health and serves as the co-president of the New York City Zero to Three Network.
RECRUITMENT AND ENROLLMENT
Program Eligibility. To be eligible for the Educational Alliance EHS program, families must have incomes at or below the poverty level and have a child younger than 12 months. In addition, at the Teen Aid site, EHS participants must be pregnant and parenting teenage mothers who are enrolled in that high school. At the Veritas site, participants must be homeless (this includes those recently released from other institutions, especially prison), substance-abusing, pregnant or parenting women.
Recruiting Strategies. Educational Alliance staff members use a variety of strategies to recruit families. Staff members distribute pamphlets, go door-to-door in housing projects, and stop mothers and children on the street. They also conduct community outreach by making presentations at hospitals, obstetrician-gynecologist offices, and community service agencies. The program director identified these community outreach activities as the most fruitful recruiting method.
Recruitment for the EHS Teen Aid site is conducted through the public school system and through the "Babygram" program within the Board of Education's Pregnant and Parenting Services division. The Babygram program identifies and recruits teenage mothers in the hospital immediately after they have given birth. A special effort is made to recruit young mothers who have dropped out of school, especially those who have dropped out in anticipation of not having child care for their children.
Recruitment for the Veritas site is conducted at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility by an EHS staff member who previously worked at the prison and has maintained contact with Rikers staff working with substance-abusing women.
Enrollment. The Educational Alliance EHS program has contracted to serve 75 families. At the time of the site visit, 28 families were enrolled at the Educational Alliance, 18 were enrolled at Teen Aid, and 36 were enrolled at Veritas.
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The Educational Alliance EHS program serves families from all over New York City. The program site at Educational Alliance's headquarters is located on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The Teen Aid site is located in Brooklyn, and the Veritas site is located in the Manhattan Valley area of Manhattan, but both of these sites enroll families from all over the city. In 1990, the population of New York City's District 3 (the Lower East Side of Manhattan), where the Education Alliance headquarters is located, was approximately 163,000, although this number does not reflect the many illegal immigrants. It also does not reflect the many illegally housed (two and three times as many people in a household than is legally permitted, which is perceived to be the case in at least 20 percent of Lower East Side households). District 3 is the most racially diverse district in Manhattan, with a history of being home to recent immigrants. At the turn of the century, this population consisted principally of former Eastern Europeans. Today, most of the Lower East Side's recent immigrants are Hispanic (mostly Dominican) or Asian (Chinese and Vietnamese). Approximately 32 percent of Lower East Side residents are European American, 32 percent are Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican), 30 percent are Asian American, and 8 percent are African American. On the Lower East Side, 16 percent of the households are headed by a female, and 62 percent of these include children. About half of the residents of the southern portion of the Lower East Side (the area served by the Educational Alliance) are unemployed, and the median household income is approximately $19,000. Approximately half of the residents have high school diplomas, and about half of the children belong to families living below the poverty level. Although it has many problems, the Lower East Side also has a tradition of strong community service organizations. The Educational Alliance, in particular, has played a pivotal role in the community for more than 100 years. The Educational Alliance is a major social service provider for the Lower East Side and provides physical education, ESL, and GED classes; computer literacy training; substance abuse treatment; services for older adults; and child care. It also provides adult and child mental health services; recreational camps for children and senior citizens; home care services; and cultural activities such as art classes, a lecture series, and Jewish holiday festivals. Another major health provider in the area is Governeur Hospital. Two other Early Head Start programs also operate on the Lower East Side. Except for a dire shortage of full-time child care for infants and toddlers, services to meet families' needs are generally available. |
Since the Educational Alliance program began, 14 families who enrolled in the program have been removed from the rolls for one or more of the following reasons: (1) they needed full-time child care, which the program was attempting to create but did not provide at the time of the site visit; (2) they were interested in attending a more conveniently located program (for example, one of two EHS programs that have recently opened on the Lower East Side); (3) they were moving out of the area; and/or (4) they were experiencing an overwhelming degree of life stress and chaos that interfered with their ability to take advantage of program services.
The families served by the program are racially/ethnically diverse. African American, Hispanic, and Asian American families attend the Educational Alliance site. African American and Hispanic mothers predominate at Teen Aid. The Veritas site serves mostly African American families but also serves a few white families. According to program staff members, participants' principal strengths are their love for their children and their motivation to better their lives. Families' principal needs include education (including English as a Second Language [ESL] classes), child care, and mental health treatment.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Clinical Case Management. The program begins with the assignment of a regular clinical case manager to each infant and parent. The clinical case manager is the family's primary therapist, who serves as the family's first point of contact and continuing liaison with the program. The clinical case manager also coordinates all of the child's and family's services. Clinical case managers are required to have at least a bachelor's degree.
The program assigns clinical case managers to families based on race/ethnicity, gender (if the child's primary caregiver is his or her father, the father will be assigned to the single male staff member, the father involvement/adult educator), the apparent needs of the child and family, and the skills of the staff member.
At the Educational Alliance, cases are shared among the clinical case manager, the social worker, and the father involvement/adult educator, with the clinical case manager responsible for at least 20 of the 28 families. At the Teen Aid site, a single case manager is assigned to all 18 mothers. This clinical case manager also tries to keep track of Teen Aid mothers who have left the Teen Aid school but are still part of the research sample. At Veritas, the 30 cases are split between the EHS clinical case manager and the parent educator, who is supervised by the EHS social worker.
| The Educational Alliance EHS program emphasizes relationships as engines of and pathways to change. According to program staff, it is within supportive relationships with program staff members that parents will grow and develop as adults and as parents. Similarly, it is within supportive relationships with their parents and with program staff members that children's socioemotional and cognitive development will best be fostered. |
Home Visits. Direct child development services are delivered principally in high-quality child care centers and secondarily in home visits. In the Educational Alliance and Teen Aid sites, child development services begin with a home visit by the family's clinical case manager. Home visits, which generally last one hour, are conducted every two weeks during the mother's pregnancy and until the child begins attending the child care center.
The home visit activities are planned in staff conferences and vary depending on the stage of the mother's pregnancy and age of the child. If the mother is pregnant, the clinical case manager may counsel the mother on prenatal health care or discuss her fantasies about the pregnancy and the child. As soon as the child is born, the clinical case manager monitors the child's general well-being, begins to educate the primary caregiver about infant development, and supports the infant-caregiver relationship by identifying and praising supportive parenting activities. If the clinical case manager identifies other problems, she will provide additional services either directly or by referral. The program director and/or program social worker may participate in a home visit to assess or treat more severe problems.
Center-Based Child Development Services. The Educational Alliance EHS provides part-time child care in centers at each program site. At the time of the site visit, all children enrolled in the program were attending one of the three centers. The Educational Alliance EHS program does not refer families to other child care providers. If an eligible child is too old to fit into the research window or requires full-time care, however, the family will be referred to one of the other New York City EHS programs. The program applied for Head Start Quality Improvement grant funds to enable it to offer full-time care, but its application was not successful.
The child care center at the Educational Alliance site consists of two connecting infant-toddler classrooms that combined can accommodate up to 17 children at a time, with child-staff ratios of up to 3 to 1. Classroom caregivers consist of a head teacher, an assistant teacher, a teacher's aide, and up to five caregiving interns. (These interns are Head Start parents who have been competitively selected to serve as caregiving assistants and, at the same time, to enhance their own parenting skills and caregiving training and development.) There are two classroom sessions per day (2.75 hours each), with a 30-minute lunch break between the sessions. Depending on their parents' schedules, children attend between 5 and 10 sessions per week. Some children stay through lunch.
Consistent with the program's emphasis on supportive relationships, each child is assigned a primary classroom caregiver, matched in part on race/ethnicity. Infants and toddlers attend the same classroom so that the children can remain with their primary caregivers over time.
Within the classroom, another guiding philosophy is that children need to learn but adults do not necessarily need to teach them. The teachers and paraprofessionals are viewed as active models and facilitators of children's development and learning. There is no formal curriculum, although some guidelines have been adapted from the Hawaii Early Learning Profile, the Infant/Toddler Environmental Rating Scale, and Magda Gerber's Resources for Infant Educators program. Individualized activities are designed to match each child's needs, temperament, and activity level. They focus on caretaking routines and self-care activities; free play and exploration in a safe, rich, inviting and responsive environment; socialization with loving caregivers; and physical contact between adults and children, with adults holding the children and rocking them while making eye contact.
The child care center at the Teen Aid site consists of two infant-toddler classrooms that combined can accommodate up to 18 children at a time, with a child-staff ratio of up to 4 to 1. Classroom caregivers consist of a head teacher and four paraprofessional caregivers hired by the New York City Board of Education. There is one full-day session that all children attend five days per week. During this time, the teen mothers are attending classes in the building. They frequently come into the classroom to have lunch with their children and, if necessary, to administer medication (New York state law prohibits anyone except parents from administering medication in child care settings).
The Teen Aid classroom operates according to the principles that apply throughout the New York City school district's Living for the Young Family Through Education (LYFE) program for student parents, which closely parallel those underlying the operation of the Educational Alliance EHS classroom. As in the Educational Alliance classroom, each child is assigned a primary classroom caregiver, and infants and toddlers attend the same classroom so that the children can remain with their primary caregivers over time. There is no formal curriculum, although, again, some guidelines have been adapted from the Hawaii Early Learning Profile, Gerber's Resources for Infant Educators program, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices. As in the Educational Alliance classroom, Teen Aid classroom activities are designed to match each child's needs. Holding infants while making eye contact is a clear priority for the youngest infants.
Veritas has three child care classrooms. Classroom caregivers consist of an educational supervisor (head teacher) and eight rotating paraprofessional caregivers. At the time of the site visit, EHS and Veritas staff were planning to combine two of the classrooms into one mixed-age setting, while leaving one classroom for newborn infants up to the age of four months. The mixed-age classroom will be able to accommodate 16 to 20 infants with a child-staff ratio of 3 or 4 to 1. At least one-third of the Veritas infants exhibit symptoms of in utero substance exposure and are very small and sensorially fragile. The separate newborn room allows for the special care of these young infants. The newborn room accommodates 8 to 10 infants with a child-staff ratio of 3 to 1.
The Veritas classrooms operate according to
the same principles as those underlying the operation of the Educational
Alliance EHS classroom. As in the Educational Alliance classroom, each
child is assigned a primary classroom caregiver, and infants and toddlers
will soon attend the same classroom so that the children can remain with
their primary caregivers over time. Again, although there is no formal
curriculum, some guidelines have been adapted from the Hawaii Early Learning
Profile, Gerber's Resources for Infant Educators program, and the NAEYC
guidelines for developmentally appropriate practices. As in the Educational
Alliance classroom, the Veritas classroom activities are designed to match
each child's needs, especially special needs resulting from in utero substance
exposure.
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Across all of New York City, the demand for high-quality, affordable child care--especially for infants and toddlers--has long exceeded the supply. Child care for children under age 13 is guaranteed to families receiving Family Assistance when the parent(s) are working (including working in community service jobs and participating in approved vocational education and training). Families who meet these criteria receive child care vouchers (in New York City, $76 per week). There are no criteria governing the type or quality of child care to which these vouchers can be applied. There is a fixed number of child care vouchers available; therefore, long waiting lists have developed. The New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) operates child care centers that charge fees on a sliding scale basis and subsidizes child care slots in private-sector centers for poor families. The New York City ACS also provides training for welfare recipients interested in becoming family child care providers. This training can count toward a WEP placement. The training, however, is limited to 15 hours, and future monitoring of quality is limited to one drop-in visit. The EHS leaders view the use of Head Start parents
as classroom caregiver interns as making a special contribution
to the community. The caregiver interns are receiving specialized
training and hands-on experience in caring for infants and toddlers.
After working in the Educational Alliance EHS program, they should
have the skills to get a salaried job as a child care provider or
to offer high-quality home-based care; in either instance, the quantity
and quality of child care in the community are likely to improve.
The program director described this system as a cottage industry
and noted that last year's caregiver interns are now in "real"
jobs in the community. |
All of the Educational Alliance classrooms also carry out the following mandates: (1) pay special attention to health and safety (no street shoes are permitted in the classroom, and all toys and equipment are cleaned and disinfected several times a day); (2) provide a child-centered environment, with child-sized furniture, activities, and materials set up at a child's level; (3) have adult-sized furniture (including a rocking chair and a couch) to create a homelike atmosphere; (4) pay attention to the race/ethnicity and culture of the child's family, and its rules for childrearing; and (5) have caregivers create daily reports to share with parents at the end of each session or day.
Other Child Development Services. Parent education and support services consist of "Mommy and Me" play groups, dyadic therapy sessions for infants and their parents, individual therapy sessions, group therapy sessions, and parenting education groups for parents. The Mommy and Me play groups are part of the Teen Aid EHS program and are unique to this LYFE program. Each Wednesday afternoon, mothers and their infants sit together on the floor and play, simply to have unstructured, one-on-one time together, to build the infant-mother relationship. During these afternoons, the EHS program director and social worker are available to conduct dyadic therapy sessions with the infants and their mothers. In these sessions, which are also conducted with Educational Alliance parents, the therapists focus on identifying and praising supportive parenting behaviors (including those viewed together on videotapes made at early home and center visits) and on helping parents read their infants' behavioral and emotional cues.
In addition, Educational Alliance parents receive weekly individual psychotherapy with the EHS social worker and clinical case manager and may attend group therapy sessions led by their clinical case manager. Parents from all three sites come together for biweekly parent education meetings covering such topics as developmental milestones and appropriate disciplinary practices. Child care is provided during the meetings. At Teen Aid, the young mothers attend weekly support group/parenting education sessions led by the Teen Aid clinical case manager. These sessions cover a range of topics and activities, from developmental milestones, to the young mothers' romantic relationships, to mothers' questions and concerns about the EHS-LYFE classroom activities, to the planning of a baby fashion show. At Veritas, all mothers receive classroom-based parenting education as well as individual counseling and group therapy.
Child Development Assessments. During the initial home visits and meetings at the center, the clinical case manager administers a bio-psycho-social assessment developed by the Educational Alliance EHS director. This assessment gathers a wide range of information on demographics, the mother's family of origin, the mother's mental health history, the history of the pregnancy, and the parents' perceptions of the child's temperament. This assessment helps the clinical case manager and parents get to know each other.
During all home visits in the infant's first two months, the clinical case manager videotapes infant-parent interactions. Together, the bio-psycho-social assessment and the videotapes are used as diagnostic tools. The clinical case manager and parent share relevant information with the child's future child care provider(s) and with the program director and program social worker.
Health Services. Clinical case managers monitor families' health care and work to ensure that all families have a medical home. At the Educational Alliance and Teen Aid sites, many of the mothers and their infants receive medical care covered by their own or their parents' Medicaid benefits, with an increasing number of families participating in Medicaid-funded managed care.
Veritas has an on-site medical clinic run by Saint Claire's Hospital. At the Educational Alliance site, Bellevue Hospital has been contracted to provide 15 hours a week of on-site medical care to participants in the Educational Alliance program. A pediatrician and obstetrician-gynecologist are part of the Bellevue team. Any EHS family not participating in Medicaid managed care or in some way receiving regular health care services is encouraged to take advantage of the on-site services provided by Bellevue at no charge to families. Periodic dental clinics are also offered at the three sites by New York University pediatric dental students.
Services for Children with Disabilities. The Educational Alliance EHS program coordinates services for children with disabilities with the New York City Department of Mental Health's (DMH) Early Intervention Program, which is the local agency for Part C. If an EHS infant is suspected of having a disability, the family will choose a facility where their child can receive a formal evaluation. Subsequently, a city caseworker from the DMH Early Intervention Program must take responsibility for coordinating the child's service plan. To make it as easy as possible for families, these coordinated services frequently will be provided at the Educational Alliance or Teen Aid sites. For example, a sign language teacher will come to the EHS classroom to instruct a toddler in signing. Veritas has an on-site Part C provider. At the time of the site visit, 13 EHS children across all three sites (16 percent) had disabilities and were receiving Part C services.
Transitions. When children are within six months of their third birthday, the program will invite their parents to a series of workshops designed to help them with their transition out of EHS. Children who are eligible will be given priority for enrollment in the Educational Alliance's Head Start program, and the EHS social worker will visit the Head Start classroom with parents and facilitate a meeting with the Head Start social services coordinator. Children who are not eligible for Head Start will be referred to the Educational Alliance's fee-for-service nursery school.
FAMILY DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Needs Assessment and Service Planning. Clinical case managers assess family needs, develop individualized family plans, and make referrals for necessary social services, many of which are available at the Educational Alliance. At the Educational Alliance, family members have access to physical education classes, ESL and General Educational Development (GED) classes, computer training, substance abuse treatment, and adult and child mental health services. Clinical case managers also work with parents individually on job searches and help parents integrate their computer training with training in writing a resume. At Teen Aid, mothers receive referrals for needed services. At Veritas, mothers spend much of the day in substance abuse treatment, but they also attend parenting classes and counseling with the clinical case manager and parent educator.
| The Educational Alliance EHS program's approach to family development centers on the relationship between the clinical case manager and the parent developed in therapeutic sessions. The program aims to foster parents' self-esteem and self-sufficiency so they can do things for themselves, both socioeconomically and as supportive parents. Education is seen as a key to this goal. |
Clinical case managers avoid doing things for parents, and they encourage self-assertion and self-motivation, especially in accessing other types of services. Clinical case managers work with parents to break down barriers of mistrust and suspicion of others and to build parents' abilities to seek help. Frequently, linking parents to mental health services takes the form of increasing awareness of infant mental health and working to lift the stigma of receiving mental health services. This stigma is especially evident in the Asian American community. In the Hispanic community, acceptance of the value of mental health services has increased noticeably.
Father Involvement. In the past year, the Educational Alliance EHS program has expanded its efforts to include fathers. The full-time father involvement/adult educator conducts a weekly fathers' group, leads a relationship group with the Teen Aid clinical case manager, and publishes a newsletter, "For Men Only," that has fathers on the editorial board. At the time of the site visit, this staff member was also organizing an EHS fathers' basketball team with fathers from all three sites. Staff members have found fathers less accessible and more difficult to engage than mothers.
Parent Involvement in the Program. The Educational Alliance EHS program also views parent involvement in EHS as a stepping-stone to increased self-esteem and self-sufficiency. The Educational Alliance EHS program has formed a parent policy committee. At the time of the site visit, the parent policy committee was holding its first meetings and conducting elections. Parent policy committees were forming at Veritas and Teen Aid. Parents on the committees will be integrated into the Educational Alliance Head Start Parent Policy Council.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Training. Before beginning to work with families, all EHS staff caregivers participate in a comprehensive training program in infant and toddler care and development that was created by the LYFE program. The EHS program has contracted with LYFE to provide this training. The program has submitted a request to the Head Start Bureau asking that this curriculum be considered an infant-toddler equivalent of the child development associate (CDA) credential.
Ongoing training takes place in weekly all-staff meetings and monthly study groups that explore a current topic in the child development literature. At the Teen Aid site, the head teacher conducts ongoing training for caregivers in the classroom. In addition, each LYFE staff member is granted two days per year for professional development activities. Other EHS staff members also receive time for professional activities such as attending CDA training, conferences, and workshops.
Support and Supervision. The Educational Alliance EHS program's approach to staff development is consistent with its emphasis on supportive relationships--the program provides a considerable amount of ongoing, one-on-one debriefing and reflective supervision sessions with staff members.
The EHS program director meets weekly with the program social worker and the head teachers to give them individual supervision. The program director is also in regular contact with the assistant principal of Pregnant and Parenting Services (director of Teen Aid) and the director of Veritas. The program social worker meets weekly with each clinical case manager for individual supervision, and the head teacher meets weekly with the assistant teacher and each caregiver for individual supervision. In addition, the classroom staff holds weekly group meetings.
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The New York State Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, called Family Assistance, was initiated in December 1996. The Family Assistance program specifies that, after two years of welfare receipt, recipients must go to work. Families also may not receive benefits for more than five years, total, over their lifetime. Pregnant women are exempt after the eighth month of pregnancy, and new parents personally caring for a child under age 1 are exempt for 3 months (although the state Department of Social Services can extend this exemption up to 12 months). Minors age 19 or younger are exempt from work requirements if they are in school. To receive full benefits, however, mothers age 19 or younger must either work or attend school as soon as their child is three months old. The Work Experience Program (WEP) provides job placements when private-sector jobs are not available. The percentage of parents receiving cash assistance varies across the centers. Approximately 90 percent of parents at Veritas and 60 percent of parents at the Educational Alliance center receive cash assistance. At the Teen Aid site, 20 percent of parents receive cash assistance, but all parents receive Medicaid and Food Stamps. Since the advent of welfare reform, EHS staff members have witnessed families' increasing need for child care. Staff members reported that EHS mothers are ambivalent about leaving their young children in the care of others while they work. The assistant principal for LYFE reported that, before welfare reform, poor families relied on Head Start for child care, whereas working poor and middle-class families used ACS-subsidized full-time child care. Now, welfare reform requirements are driving more poor families into ACS-funded child care slots. This change, in turn, has made it harder for working- and middle-class families to find affordable child care. The assistant principal for LYFE expressed concern that the struggle for these working- and middle-class families to find affordable child care would force them to leave work for welfare or to accept low-quality child care arrangements. The Educational Alliance EHS program director has made an agreement with the New York City Office of Employment Services for EHS caregiver interns (drawn from Head Start parents) who are welfare recipients to have their work at EHS count as a WEP placement. The Educational Alliance staff members expressed concern that the welfare reform requirements are too demanding and that, by forcing poor young parents into dead-end, low-skill jobs, they will prevent these parents from becoming fully self-sufficient. EHS parents expressed more mixed feelings about welfare reform. Some parents approved of welfare reform, because it would force able-bodied people to make more of an effort to take care of themselves. One mother currently receiving welfare described it as a temporary crutch and expressed concern that welfare recipients were viewed as universally lazy and self-serving. Many of the parents agreed that welfare caseworkers treat their clients disrespectfully. Many parents also agreed that, before welfare reform, the public assistance system allowed some people to abuse the system at the expense of those who more legitimately needed help. |
At the Teen Aid site, the head teacher and the assistant principal of Pregnant and Parenting Services, who oversees the entire LYFE program, meet regularly in person and hold frequent phone meetings. In addition, the head teacher, the Teen Aid clinical case manager, and the EHS social worker meet weekly to discuss individual Teen Aid cases.
At Veritas, the clinical case manager and educational
supervisor work closely together. The educational supervisor holds regular
meetings with the child caregivers, and the clinical case manager attends
these meetings. The clinical case manager and educational supervisor also
meet weekly with the EHS social worker to discuss Veritas cases. The educational
supervisor
conducts biweekly individual meetings with caregivers.
Staff morale was generally high at the time of the site visit. Most staff members perceived their pay as low but comparable to other human service positions.
Staff Turnover. During the year prior to the site visit, the program experienced a fair amount of staff turnover, particularly at the Educational Alliance site. The assistant to the educational supervisor at the Educational Alliance site left to pursue a different career path. In addition, the Educational Alliance head teacher resigned, and the father involvement/adult educator left to pursue a different type of work. All of these vacancies have been filled by people that the program director views as equally or more qualified than their predecessors.
COMMUNITY BUILDING CORNERSTONE
The Educational Alliance EHS program's approach to community development stems from an ecological view of the program community as the outermost circle of a set of nested circles. According to this scheme, the family is nested in the program, which is nested in the agency, which is nested in the community. The program aims to address child and family development by increasing families' ability to use their community. It also aims to address community development by raising community awareness of the importance of the first years of a person's life, of providing needed services for infants, and of nurturing and strengthening its youngest citizens.
The EHS staff anticipates that it will enhance the development of this community's children and families; this development eventually should enhance the quality of the community as a whole. As EHS services increase parents' education and self-sufficiency, these parents should also become more productive citizens, role models, advocates (for example, in the public school system), and community leaders. In addition, the parent policy council links EHS parents in new ways. The program also anticipates that staff members' development will enhance their contributions to the community as a whole.
Program Collaborations. Although the Lower East Side houses many other service agencies, collaboration and coordination across agencies has been lacking. The Educational Alliance EHS program is trying to address the problem through formal agreements with the Board of Education and Bellevue Hospital. The agreement with the Board of Education stipulates that the Teen Aid school will provide the physical space and access to the teen mothers in return for enhanced (EHS) services in the LYFE classroom there. The Educational Alliance's agreement with Bellevue stipulates that, in return for on-site services, Bellevue may bill these services to Medicaid. In addition to having these formal agreements, the Educational Alliance is a member of the United Neighborhood Houses, a group that represents 35 New York City settlements.
The EHS program also has many informal relationships with other community service providers and organizations (for example, local hospitals, early intervention [Part C] providers, and the New York City Head Start Bureau) with whom they trade information and referrals. In addition, the program has special agreements with several residential substance abuse programs to enroll pregnant or parenting women who are eligible for Veritas services but get randomly assigned to the comparison group. Finally, the EHS program director has been invited to participate in a newly formed group of the seven New York City EHS directors.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND LOCAL RESEARCH
Early Program Support. The program has received training and technical assistance from its Resource Access Project (RAP) consultant on working with children with developmental delays. The technical assistance focused on identifying specific developmental delays and adapting the child care environment and materials for sensorially fragile infants. The program has also received support from its federal project officer.
Continuous Program Improvement. The Educational Alliance EHS program is working on continuous program improvement with data analyzed and interpreted by its local research partner, a team of researchers from New York University's School of Social Work and Applied Development Psychology department. The team includes researchers with expertise in program development and evaluation, prevention and treatment of violent/aggressive youth, post-traumatic stress disorder (especially in youths exposed to violence), and early child language and cognitive development (especially within the context of child-mother interaction.
Continuous improvement efforts focus on families' use of, perceptions of, and satisfaction with EHS services. Data for continuous program improvement and local research are collected in child and mother assessments conducted when the child is between 5 and 6 months old, and again at 14, 24, and 36 months of age. The local research team also has developed a survey to assess the effectiveness of staff training for paraprofessional child care staff. In addition, qualitative data collection methods are being used to gather data on cultural values about childrearing and satisfaction with EHS services.
Local Research. The local research focuses on examining the effects of the Educational Alliance EHS program on a wide range of outcomes across each of the four cornerstones. Substantive focuses of the local research include the impact of culture on childrearing, and family and community violence and their effects on childrearing and child development. The local researchers will assess child cognitive and social competencies, propensity for aggressive and violent behavior, and coping skills; parental health, mental health, and self-sufficiency (school and/or work performance, use of social and career-development services); staff members' skills in working with infants and their families, and staff burnout; and availability of community service providers and collaboration across community-based service organizations.
PROGRAM SUMMARY
The Educational Alliance EHS program provides part-time center-based child development services and parenting education to diverse families, including parents from diverse ethnic backgrounds, teenage parents, and substance-abusing parents, in three settings. The program emphasizes mental health and provides psychotherapy services.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Barbara Greenstein
The Educational Alliance, Inc.
197 East Broadway
New York, NY 10002
LOCAL RESEARCHERS
Catherine Tamis-LeMonda
New York University
Dept. of Applied Psychology
239 Greene Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Mark Spellmann
New York University
School of Social Work
One Washington Square North
New York, NY 10003
Joanne Roberts
New York University
239 Greene Street
New York, NY 10003
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