Recruitment Tips for Head Start/Early Head Start DRS Applicants
Because the Demonstration of Need section is where Head Start and/or Early Head Start recompetition applicants will begin to describe their unique story, it is important for applicants participating in the Office of Head Start’s Designation Renewal System (DRS) to clearly describe their population(s) and how they plan to recruit them.
For example, you’d be surprised at how many grants I’ve read where they say they are an Early Head Start program but then fail to describe their plans to recruit pregnant women. If you’re proposing a birth to five or EHS program and you leave pregnant women out of your responses, you aren’t fully describing your populations. In essence, you’re only describing a partial story.
Recruitment Tips to Consider:
Throughout your Demonstration of Need responses, you have shared what’s unique about your community and service area, you’ve identified your community’s greatest needs and gaps in services, and now you need to describe how you will identify and recruit the people you plan to serve.
For example:
What is your recruitment plan?
- Will your recruitment efforts target where families/children work, live, receive services, etc.?
- Will your recruitment strategies differ for pregnant women vs children?
- How will you recruit children who are categorically eligible to ensure they receive prioritization?
How will you use y
our community assessment to identify eligible children/pregnant women?
How do you ensure your recruitment practices are culturally and linguistically relevant to your population(s)?
- Do you have applications written in other languages or use bilingual recruiters?
- How do you build trust with families who do not speak English?
What community partnerships help you identify and recruit eligible participants?
- For example, if you have a strong partnership with local labor and delivery nurses, then mention that. Talk about how you will make sure they are aware of your openings and recruitment efforts. Same goes for other community partnerships you have.
Do you work with Part B & C agencies to have them identify and refer children to you?
- How does that process work?
- How frequently do you receive referrals?
- What is your collaboration like?
Do you visit other agencies that serve the same population(s) and share information about your program?
- What agencies?
- What do you do?
- How effective is it?
I hope these tips are helpful. If you’d like to discuss more ways to be successful, feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from you.
These examples are meant only to help you start thinking about providing a very explanatory description—one that is easy to follow and meets all the required Performance Standards and regulations. Each program must assess the best way to respond to the Office of Head Start evaluation criteria.
Need Help? Gain an Advantage Over Your Competitors!
As an OHS vetted, trained, and experienced recompetition reviewer, I can help you assess your response to the evaluation criteria before you submit it to OHS.
I will evaluate your responses line-by-line against the evaluation criteria so that you can strengthen your grant before you submit it.
I can assess whether you’ve answered the questions thoroughly, as well as answer questions you may have about the process. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
To your success,
Kimberley
About the Author
Kimberley Seitz, Ph.D, is an experienced, OHS vetted, recompetition grant reviewer with a 12-year history of supporting Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Whether it was working as a Deputy Director in an Early Head Start program, providing Program Design and Management Training & Technical Assistance, or consulting, coaching, and training staff, Kimberley is committed to quality improvement and program success!
Family Photo courtesy of: Akarakingdoms@ freedigitalphotos.net
DRS Tips from Cohort 3_Part 2
In a previous post, http://www.kcoachconsult.com/?p=1946 I shared 7 tips from Head Start and/or Early Head Start Recompetition Applicants from Round 3 of the Designation Renewal System (DRS) in order to help the individuals preparing to compete in Round 4 gain some sage advice from those who “have been there, done that.”
In this post, I continue their tips, and would like to once again thank all of them for their contributions. They know who they are.
Here’s there tips to Round 4 Applicants:
1. Put your best foot forward. There is nothing more important than making sure you are successful, so don’t be afraid to turn down requests, skip meetings, and prioritize this grant
2. Identify your plan for improving quality before your FOA comes out. You will have to look at the numbers and the budget to make decisions about what is the most important to incorporate. We chose to always focus on improving quality even when it meant we had to lower our enrollment numbers
3. You may forget to use the information written in the FOA for the budget development if you only look at the evaluation criteria. Follow all the suggestions in the overview of the budget section to ensure that you are providing what they expect to see
4. Even though it may be hard, let go of any resentment or bad feelings about having to go through DRS. We’re all going to go through this in the end, so you might as well get your turn over
5. Gather as much data as you can for your Demonstration of Need section before the FOA is released (in addition to your Community Assessment). That will give you time to think about how you want to present the data and meet the needs of your community
6. Make sure your technology is compatible. If you have people who have to review the grant or sign it and they’re out of town, their iPhone may not work with such a large document. This happened to us. You might also have software that needs to be updated or even in some cases you need to use a lower version so it’s compatible with their technology requirements
7. We estimate that it took at least 240 hours to write this grant. Plan for it to take more time than you think, so you’re not struggling last minute or disappointed in your final grant
8. Get professional help. You may want to hire a DRS consultant and/or grant writer since the stakes are so high. There’s no room for mistakes
I hope these tips were helpful. I got a lot of positive comments and replies to my last blog, and there’s a few more blogs left to fully account for all their great advice, so stay tuned for future posts! You can also contact me directly if you have a question.
Need Help? Gain an Advantage Over Your Competitors!
As an OHS vetted, trained, and experienced recompetition reviewer, I can help you assess your response to the evaluation criteria before you submit it to OHS.
I will evaluate your responses line-by-line against the evaluation criteria so that you can strengthen your grant before you submit it.
I can assess whether you’ve answered the questions thoroughly, as well as answer questions you may have about the process. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
To your success,
Kimberley
Kimberley@kcoachconsult.com
About the Author
Kimberley Seitz, Ph.D, is an experienced, OHS vetted, recompetition grant reviewer with a 12-year history of supporting Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Whether it was working as a Deputy Director in an Early Head Start program, providing Program Design and Management Training & Technical Assistance, or consulting, coaching, and training staff, Kimberley is committed to quality improvement and program success!
Addressing Repeat Violations in Your DRS Grant
A primary focus of the Designation Renewal System’s (DRS) Past Performance section is to ascertain whether the Head Start and/or Early Head Start recompetition applicant is capable of implementing high-quality services for the individuals it serves.
As part of that assessment, the DRS evaluation criteria require existing grantees to identify and describe repeat violations, deficiencies, non-compliances, and audit findings.
Addressing Repeat Violations
If you have had a repeat violation in your Head Start and/or Early Head Start program, you will be required to provide a description of the violation. However, you should not stop there. If you only describe what has happened, you are only providing Reviewers with half the story. You need to also include what you’ve done to remediate the problem and to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
For example, if you are in Designation Renewal because you have lower CLASS scores, you might discuss what you’ve done to improve teacher-child interactions since finding out your results:
- Maybe you’ve retrained staff?
- Perhaps you’ve sent your content managers, supervisors, and even some of your teachers to CLASS training?
- You might have asked your State Early Childhood Consultants through the T/TA system to provide assistance?
- Maybe you even hired an independent consultant to conduct CLASS observations after you’ve provided all the training and assistance to teachers and content managers?
- Another popular item grantees often implement is to hire a consultant to provide validation checks to see if the independent observer arrives at the same CLASS scores as the grantee’s internal CLASS observers. This helps identify possible reliability issues and can provide direction as to where to focus additional attention.
Identify Your Solutions to Repeat Violations
You want to be very specific in your response to fix the problem. Explain exactly what you did, who was involved, why you did it, and what outcomes you’ve seen since. In other words, did you fix the problem?
Also, you may want to identify how you know this isn’t going to be a problem in the future. Some items you might consider addressing are:
- What’s changed since the initial finding? What have you put into place—your checks and balance system?
- How often is it monitored?
- Who is conducting the monitoring and how well trained are they?
- What evidence do you have that your remediation plan is working?
- What other safeguards do you have in place to prevent future occurrences?
- How confident are you that you have prevented future occurrences and why?
These examples are meant only to help you start thinking about providing a very explanatory description—one that is easy to follow and meets all the required Performance Standards and regulations. Each program must assess the best way to respond to the Office of Head Start evaluation criteria.
Need Help? Gain an Advantage Over Your Competitors!
As an OHS vetted, trained, and experienced recompetition reviewer, I can help you assess your response to the evaluation criteria before you submit it to OHS.
I will evaluate your responses line-by-line against the evaluation criteria so that you can strengthen your grant before you submit it.
I can assess whether you’ve answered the questions thoroughly, as well as answer questions you may have about the process.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
To your success,
Kimberley
About the Author
Kimberley Seitz, Ph.D, is an experienced, OHS vetted, recompetition grant reviewer with a 12-year history of supporting Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Whether it was working as a Deputy Director in an Early Head Start program, providing Program Design and Management Training & Technical Assistance, or consulting, coaching, and training staff, Kimberley is committed to quality improvement and program success!
Describe Your Professional Development Plan in Your DRS Grant
If you’re competing or recompeting for a Head Start and/or Early Head Start grant available through the Designation Renewal System, then you will be required to answer evaluation criteria regarding your professional development system.
Tips to Professionalize Your Development System
The evaluation criteria ask you to describe your PLAN. Notice the emphasis on the word, plan? Many applicants miss that aspec
t. Instead of a describing a well thought out professional development system, they quickly discuss CLASS, professional development goals, and their hierarchy. Yet, this is only part of the story.
To create a robust response, you need to share the entire story. In other words, share your professional development PLAN. For example:
- If you’re an Early Head Start program, do you have a tool to observe classroom staff? If so, what is the tool called? Is it a formal tool or one you developed yourself?
- How often do you observe staff? Who observes them? How do you utilize the data you collected during observations to improve the quality of staff interactions with children? What about for teacher’s aides?
- What is your feedback process like? Are there goals established as part of that debriefing? How often do you follow up? What happens if a staff member does not meet the goals or improve performance?
- How do you individualize the observation and development of staff that work with children who speak languages other than English?
- Describe the entire system: the “who, what, where, when, and how” elements of your professional development practices, as this helps establish that you have a formal PLAN for professional development that is integrated
- Don’t get distracted and focus on observation of children or on CLASS. This is about your professional development system and how you improve the quality of teacher-child interactions and instruction
- Make sure your system supports the program options you described in your grant. Be sure it’s congruent and compliments the approach you planned. For example, if you have a HB program, how do you provide supervision and observation of home visitors to improve their quality?
These examples are meant only to help you start thinking about providing a very explanatory description—one that is easy to follow and meets all the required Performance Standards and regulations. Each program must assess the best way to respond to the Office of Head Start evaluation criteria.
Need Help? Gain an Advantage Over Your Competitors!
As an OHS vetted, trained, and experienced recompetition reviewer, I can help you assess your response to the evaluation criteria before you submit it to OHS. I will evaluate your responses line-by-line against the evaluation criteria so that you can strengthen your grant before you submit it.
I can assess whether you’ve answered the questions thoroughly, as well as answer questions you may have about the process. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
To your success,
Kimberley
About the Author
Kimberley Seitz, Ph.D, is an experienced, OHS vetted, recompetition grant reviewer with a 12-year history of supporting Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Whether it was working as a Deputy Director in an Early Head Start program, providing Program Design and Management Training & Technical Assistance, or consulting, coaching, and training staff, Kimberley is committed to quality improvement and program success!
DRS Tips from Cohort 3 Applicants
One of the questions I’m often asked by Head Start and/or Early Head Start recompetition applicants is what advice I have for them as they prepare to go through the Designation Renewal System (DRS). One of the things I’ve found most helpful to them, is to share tips from the previous cohort group regarding their experiences with recompetition.
Before I share some of these tips, I want to give a big THANK YOU to all the individuals who took the time to speak with me about their experiences in order to help the cohort group from Round 4 of the DRS be more successful. It’s because of their generosity, that I can share these tips with you:
DRS Tips:
1. Use this as an opportunity to focus on the future instead of thinking about the reason(s) you are in DRS. Don’t stay focused on the problem because it won’t help you write and dream creatively. This is your chance to re-envision the program, so process your emotions and then bring your team together to start imagining the possibilities again
2. Don’t be lackadaisical about the timeline or the waiting time before your FOA is released. You will assume you have plenty of time. But, it takes much more time to develop the grant than you are anticipating, so start developing your outline now before your FOA comes out
3. If you are using a team approach to developing your grant, don’t get hung up on the words you are going to use or spend too much time discussing them. It’s unlikely that you won’t get funded because you didn’t pick the “right word” so concentrate your time instead on getting it written
4. Spend time before your FOA is released getting tables and other graphic illustrations developed because they take a long time to get them the way you want them to look–time that could be spent writing the grant when the time matters most
5. Read the previous Round’s FOA. Get very familiar with it. Bring your team together and discuss it. Not just the evaluation criteria but the intent too. Everyone should be very familiar with the previous FOA before yours is even released
6. Make the Board aware of their responsibilities early in the process and develop a plan to ensure that they are available at least 1 week before the submit date to review the grant. Same thing goes with Policy Council. You should also be giving updates throughout the process, so there are no surprises when you bring them the final grant to review and approve
7. Double check that everything you need to submit the grant is current. You should verify that your SAM number is still valid-don’t just assume it is. Make sure you know the difference between your Point of Contact and your Authorized Organizational Representative
If you found these helpful, stay tuned for future tips and recommendations from them. There were so many great ideas that it will take several posts to cover them fully.
In the meantime, for those of you who have previously gone through DRS, what advice or tips would you like to contribute to this list? We’d love to hear from you.
These examples are meant only to help you start thinking about providing a very explanatory description—one that is easy to follow and meets all the required Performance Standards and regulations. Each program must assess the best way to respond to the Office of Head Start evaluation criteria.
Need Help? Gain an Advantage Over Your Competitors!
As an OHS vetted, trained, and experienced recompetition reviewer, I can help you assess your response to the evaluation criteria before you submit it to OHS.
I will evaluate your responses line-by-line against the evaluation criteria so that you can strengthen your grant before you submit it.
I can assess whether you’ve answered the questions thoroughly, as well as answer questions you may have about the process. Please don’t hesitate to contact me.
To your success,
Kimberley
Kimberley@kcoachconsult.com
About the Author
Kimberley Seitz, Ph.D, is an experienced, OHS vetted, recompetition grant reviewer with a 12-year history of supporting Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Whether it was working as a Deputy Director in an Early Head Start program, providing Program Design and Management Training & Technical Assistance, or consulting, coaching, and training staff, Kimberley is committed to quality improvement and program success!
