Introduction
Research Questions
- Identifying family needs: How did Head Start programs assess and identify individual family needs and develop individualized plans for family support services?
- Connecting families with services: How did Head Start programs link or refer families to family support providers and services and help them navigate services if multiple needs were identified?
- Maintaining connections with and for families: How did Head Start programs track service uptake, particularly for services delivered by community partners? How did programs determine whether referrals and services were meeting families’ needs?
- Building partnerships with community providers: How did Head Start programs identify service agencies in the community that provide family support services? How did community needs assessments inform and affect how Head Start programs coordinated services, and how were partnerships with service agencies developed and maintained?
- Contextual factors and supports influencing service coordination: What were the facilitators and challenges to coordinating support services at the family, program, and community levels? What resources at the organizational or systems level supported this effort?
One of the hallmarks of Head Start is its whole-family approach to the services it provides: improving children’s well-being by supporting families’ well-being. For children, that philosophy means supporting their health, development, and school readiness, while for families it includes their physical and mental health, housing, and financial stability. Head Start aims to do this over the long term by providing a comprehensive, integrated set of support services that are tailored to meet the individual needs of parents and families as well as the needs and resources of local communities.
Beyond basic information about the services that Head Start programs offer, little is known about exactly how the programs coordinate the provision of those services. To fill this knowledge gap, the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation contracted MDRC and its partners—NORC at the University of Chicago and MEF Associates—to conduct Head Start Connects: Individualizing and Connecting Families to Comprehensive Support Service. The project aims to gather information on the strategies, processes, and practices programs use to coordinate family support services so that service coordination is aligned with individual family needs and fosters family well-being.
The Head Start Connects research team conducted case studies with six Head Start programs across the country to learn about their processes. The case studies used a multiple-case design to explore the service coordination from multiple perspectives—Head Start staff, families, and local community service providers—via semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Although data collection took place from September to December 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, this report focuses on coordination practices at case study sites prior to the pandemic. A separate brief published online in March 2022 focused on how the six sites adapted their coordination of family support services in response to the pandemic.
Purpose
The Head Start Connects case studies aim to fill the knowledge gap about the strategies programs use to coordinate family support services and the processes or practices they use to ensure that service coordination is aligned with individual family needs and fosters family well-being. The design, with in-depth, semi-structured interviews and intentionally selected programs and respondents, allowed for a thorough examination of the coordination process from the perspectives of Head Start staff members, parents, and community providers associated with six Head Start programs. This report provides a detailed account of how the case study sites coordinated family support services.
Key Findings and Highlights
The main findings from the Head Start Connects case studies detail key aspects of family support services coordination and factors that facilitated the process:
Site Structure and Organization
- Family support service coordination was led by family support workers, with supervision and support from their managers and occasional involvement from other Head Start staff, usually teachers.
- Family support workers’ roles extended beyond direct family service coordination.
- Caseload size varied across Head Start programs.
- Head Start program directors, family and community partnership managers, and family support workers described supervision as an essential component of family service practice, along with team learning and support. Supervision practices varied: Regular group or individual sessions ranged from twice a week to once a month.
Coordination Process
- Family support workers coordinated family support services through a series of standard activities tailored to individual families’ needs and aligned with what is specified in the Head Start Program Performance Standards .
- Head Start programs varied in the tools they used to determine families’ strengths and needs. Some tools were created by outside developers (for example, Parent Gauge, Mobility Mentoring) while others were created in-house.
- All Head Start sites used the ChildPlus management information system.
Engaging Community Providers
- Head Start sites worked with multiple public agencies, nonprofit social services providers and community action agencies, and faith-based and community organizations to meet families’ basic needs and provide family support services.
- Identifying community providers and establishing relationships with them required ongoing effort from Head Start staff.
- Having partnerships with community providers (both informal and formal) and a broad array of services available in the community facilitated family support workers’ ability to connect families to the services they needed.
Engaging Families
- Building rapport and relationships with parents was key to getting families necessary support.
- Family support workers exhibited dedication to supporting families and put a lot of effort into engaging parents in family support services, at times going beyond their formal job requirements.
- Despite family support workers’ efforts to engage families, not all parents fully participated in family support services or took up services after receiving a referral.
- What families got out of family support services varied, but most parents agreed on one thing: They valued their relationships with their family support workers.
Methods
The Head Start Connects case studies used a multiple-case, qualitative design to describe similarities and differences in coordination processes across the six participating sites. Case study sites were sampled to reflect variation on two key factors thought to shape how Head Start programs coordinate support services: umbrella agency type (hypothesized to be related to the types of services offered and the structure of the coordination process) and family support worker caseload size (hypothesized to be related to the general coordination process and extent to which services were tailored to individual families).
From September through December 2020, the research team conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews by video conference or phone and asked respondents to reflect both on coordination processes prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic. Interview participants included: 30 Head Start staff (program directors, family and community partnership managers, family support workers, and other staff, such as teachers), 18 parents, and seven community providers, spread across the six sites.
Citation
Strassberger, Marissa, Carol Hafford, and Kate Stepleton. 2023. Coordinating Services to Support Families: Findings from the Head Start Connects Case Studies. OPRE Report 2022-252. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- Umbrella agency:
- Refers to the public agencies, private nonprofit and for-profit organizations, tribal governments, and school systems (that is, the grantee or delegate agencies) that receive grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), to run Head Start, Early Head Start, and Migrant/Seasonal Head Start programs.
- Parent:
- Refers to the adult/parent/guardian in a child’s home.
- Program:
- Refers to all the centers that one umbrella agency oversees to provide Head Start services to children and families.
- Center:
- Refers to the facility that houses Head Start services at a single location. A Head Start program may provide oversight over multiple centers.
- Site:
- Refers to the six Head Start programs that participated in the case studies.
- Family support worker:
- Refers to the Head Start staff who have primary responsibility within a Head Start program or center for coordinating family support services. Case study sites used varying terms for the “family support worker” position, including family service advocate, family support staff, family advocate, family support coordinator, family support specialist, and family empowerment specialist.
- Family support services:
- Refers to the Head Start staff who have primary responsibility within a Head Start program or center for coordinating family support services. Case study sites used varying terms for the “family support worker” position, including family service advocate, family support staff, family advocate, family support coordinator, family support specialist, and family empowerment specialist.
- Family support services:
- Refers to services that may be provided by Head Start programs, their umbrella agencies, or community providers. These services may include education and employment services, financial capability services, housing and food assistance, emergency or crisis intervention services, substance use treatment, physical health services (such as tobacco cessation, nutrition, or other services to maintain and promote physical health and well-being), and mental health services.
- Coordination:
- Refers to the process through which Head Start staff work with families and with other organizations and staff in the community to connect families to services. Coordinating family support services takes place through a series of activities: Recruiting and enrolling; building relationships; conducting intake, completing strengths and needs assessments, setting goals, and creating individualized plans; connecting families to services (including making referrals) and helping them overcome barriers to access services; and following up and measuring service receipt. Head Start staff also coordinate family support services through their work with other organizations and staff in the community. Head Start staff learn about resources in the community, establish formal and informal partnerships with community providers, and work together with community providers to serve their mutual clients.