Appendix B: Proposal Summary Information Please complete this proposal summary information and include it at as the cover page of your full proposal, due by midnight on December 7, 2012. Name of Applicant Organization (or lead applicant): Save the Children Federation, Inc. Organization Street Address: 8025 St. Charles Avenue City, State, Zip: New Orleans, LA 70118 Website: www.savethechildren.org Federal Tax ID Number: 06-0726487 Executive Director: Mark K. Shriver Contact Person & Title: Erin Kopaigorodsky, Deputy Director of Programs Contact Person’s Phone: Contact Person’s E-mail Address: (504) 342-2828 x103 ekopaigorodsky@savechildren.org Project Title: East Baton Rouge Early Steps to School Success Funding Request: ☒ Our organization understands it must provide a Matching Funds Type of Organization: (If not a 501(c)3, state tax-exempt status) Geography to be covered by proposed project: (check all that apply)
Focus & Outcome Alignment: (required: check all that apply)
Model to be followed by proposed project: (for priority consideration: check any that apply, if applicable)
Evidence Effectiveness (select one)
1:1 cash match if awarded a subgrant.
☒501(c)3 ☐Ascension ☒East Baton Rouge ☐East Feliciana ☐Iberville ☐Livingston ☐Pointe Coupee ☐St. Helena ☐St. James ☐West Baton Rouge ☐West Feliciana ☐Birth outcomes improve ☒Parents are engaged, supported and educated to meet the needs of their young children ☐All children have access to qualify child care and preschool ☐Children’s physical health & safety needs are met ☒Children’s social-emotional health needs are met ☐Help Me Grow/ Early Intervention and care coordination ☐Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)/ parenting education ☐Nurse-Family Partnership/ home visiting ☐Building and supporting quality child care through efforts to create diverse delivery of early education services and/or ☐Providing mental health consultation to early education providers ☒ Preliminary ☐ Moderate ☐ Strong
Section II: Executive Summary of your proposal For 80 years, Save the Children has been helping children all across the world survive and thrive by improving their health, education, and economic opportunities as well as by rapidly mobilizing lifesaving assistance to help children recover in the aftermath of conflict and natural disasters. In the United States, Save the Children’s work focuses specifically on improving early childhood education, literacy, and the health of our nation’s children. Save the Children’s programs are currently benefiting more than 70,000 children in some of the U.S.’s poorest and most remote communities. To facilitate improvement in early childhood education, Save the Children partners with schools and community-based organizations to provide Early Steps to School Success (ESSS). ESSS provides education services to children from birth to age five, support to parents and other caregivers, and ongoing training to community educators. Through a home visiting model for children ages 0-3 and transition-to-school activities for children ages 3-5, the program assists children with language, social, and emotional development. It also equips parents with the skills and knowledge to successfully support their child’s growth and develop strong home-school connections. Through ESSS, Save the Children is building strong foundations for parenting and school readiness, as well as serving as a powerful catalyst to help children achieve a lifetime of learning. In East Baton Rouge Parish the numbers of children in poverty and children in single parent households are more than double that of the national benchmarks. ESSS intends to deliver its early childhood development services to at least 150 of these children in need and their families.
Section III: Narratives 1. Program Outcome With few, if any, early childhood education services available in poor, rural communities, Save the Children launched Early Steps to School Success (ESSS) in 2006. It launched as a costeffective, replicable initiative that establishes relationships with expectant parents and then helps children transition into their early school years. ESSS is an evidenced-based and highly respected home visiting model for parents of children ages birth to five years. The program focuses on language and pre-literacy development and builds strong foundations for parenting and school readiness that is a powerful catalyst in helping children achieve a lifetime of learning. Through ESSS, Save the Children will ensure that parents are engaged, supported, and educated to meet the needs of their young children and that children’s social-emotional health needs are met. In 2011 Save the Children’s U.S. Programs, recognizing that the effectiveness of our programs could extend beyond rural areas to many different diverse communities, launched an urban strategy. The goal of this strategy is to serve children in need in urban areas where we already have established relationships and where we know we will have the most lasting impact. Two of the urban areas we were first active in are Washington, DC and Kansas City, Kansas. By expanding our ESSS programming to children and families in urban areas we have been helping to meet their ever growing need for quality early childhood development. For this grant, Save the Children has a targeted focus on serving children living in East Baton Rouge Parish’s communities with the highest need. We propose to serve 150 children by developing ESSS sites in three communities. Save the Children defines a “site” as 50 children aged prenatal to 5 years. While each program is tailored to meet the particular needs of each community, all ESSS sites are equipped to provide: bi-weekly home visits for 20 children ages prenatal – three years, weekly centered-based(in collaboration with a local provider such as Head Start or State Preschool) literacy and transition to school activities for
30 children ages 3 -5 years, a monthly Parent-Child Group Meeting, and a weekly book bag exchange program. The diagram below identifies the ESSS model’s components. A detailed overview of the model follows.
Staff Training and Support
Community Connections
ESSS Curriculum Home Visiting
Early Steps to School Success
Transition to School
Parent-Child Education + Support Groups
Dvlpmntl. Screenings and Referrals
Book Bag Exchange
I. ESSS Curriculum ESSS is an evidence-based effective home visiting, family support, language, and pre-literacy development model. The Early Steps to School Success Curriculum was co-branded and co-developed with ZERO TO THREE (ZTT): National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. ZTT is a national nonprofit organization that informs, trains, and supports professionals, policymakers, and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of very young children. The curriculum materials meet professional standards of developmentally appropriate practices, are based on strong evidence from the field, are solidly grounded in research, and developed to result in a high standard of care by professionals. Through this partnership we have also developed ESSS curricula materials for: Plan and Play Sets; Parent/Child Groups; Child Transitions into Public Schools; Dual Language -- specific to the populations ESSS serves; Coordinator Guide; ESSS Program Specialist Guide; and Portfolio Templates.
II. Home Visits The core activity for children 0-3 and their parents/caregiver are home visits. The individualized, culturally appropriate early childhood home visits help provide a strong foundation of learning for children and provide parents with the knowledge and skills to healthily foster their children’s development and education. Each ESSS Coordinator (home visitor) makes regularly scheduled home visits that focus on a child development area that the parent selected. They conduct regular child screenings and plan individualized goals for every child based on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). During a typical visit, the Coordinator will bring a book bag equipped with books tailored to the age and culture of the child to then leave with them and their family. The Coordinator and the parent discuss the developmental activities that the family and child have worked on since the last visit and asses the progress the child has made. Coordinators work with parents in individual and group settings. The following are examples of typical visit topics based on the age of the child: For a pregnant family the visits will focus on prenatal health and care, understanding the baby’s developmental progress, helping parents to provide an appropriate environment for the preterm infant, and support for smoking cessation and substance abuse if necessary. Parenting groups for pregnant families are held, and pregnant teens receive services particular to their developmental and situational needs. For a very young child, through the Plan and Play Curriculum, parents and Coordinators talk about essentials such as the importance of talking to your baby and building strong relationships. Coordinators help parents understand that through loving, healthy relationships with the adults who care for them babies learn that they are important, safe, and secure. That knowledge gives children the confidence to explore and be open, curious learners.
For a toddler, a typical home focuses on communication, language, and healthy growth and development. The Coordinator may encourage parents to talk with their children using new words and to frequently read to them. Together with parents, the Coordinator will add information to the child’s portfolio, writing down new words and new tasks that the child learns. Additionally, Coordinators will share information on how to introduce new healthier foods to children, what intervals foods should be offered to children, and how to encourage children to try new foods. The Coordinator and parents record the child’s growth and developmental milestones, as well as any assessments or referrals that may be useful as the child enters school. Additionally, Coordinators work through home visits and community partnerships to strengthen and maintain a referral network for families, including: Home visiting nurses; Nutritionists; Information on safe and stable housing; Child care referrals; Case management; Medical care referrals; Mental health services, support, and counseling; Early interventions; and School-based assistance. III. Developmental Screening and Referrals During home visits Coordinators and parents conduct ongoing screenings with the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) and build child goal plans on the results. Individual child goal plans guide the home visit’s activities and experiences. If developmental concerns are identified, referrals and follow-ups for further evaluation are made. The Home Observation Measure of the Environment (HOME) and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) are used to track parent and child outcomes. IV. Book Bag Exchange All children, birth to five, enrolled in ESSS participate in the ESSS Book Bag Exchange. For 3 to 5 year olds, we partner with a local agency, usually a center-based Head Start or State Preschool program, and provide the Book Exchange to a classroom of children. Each week the Coordinator
provides the child with a book bag filled with age and culturally appropriate books and models with the parent in dialogic reading. V. Parent-Child Education and Support Groups Regularly scheduled parent-child support and education groups are held at the local school. Parent child groups consist of: •
Toddler storybook hours
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Socialization and play groups
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Parenting education groups
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Family Nights
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Building connections with school personnel
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Building connections with community services
The Family-School Connection: All of the sites are located at or very near the primary school that the child will attend. Each ESSS program has regularly scheduled parent group meetings at schools, and child storybook hours or play groups. These meetings help parents become familiar with school staff and feel comfortable in the environment. The principal will sometimes read to the children of these groups and parents may be included in other school parent groups. Building this home-school relationship for children, parents, and school staff early on is one of the important cornerstones of ESSS. VI. Positive Transition to School By partnering with the local school we create positive connections between home and school from the time a family is pregnant. Through our seamless catalytic system, we work with the family until the child enters kindergarten. Transition to Preschool: The Coordinator helps parents develop an individualized transition plan for each child as they approach three years of age. When applicable, the Coordinator assists the family in
choosing and applying for preschool (Head Start, Pre-K, childcare, etc.). Information from the child’s portfolio is given to the school to help teachers recognize and respond to each child’s interests and abilities. Transition to Kindergarten: As the child approaches kindergarten, the Coordinator helps parents develop an individualized transition to school plan. Transition activities include helping parents and children know what to expect, visits to the kindergarten classroom, meeting the kindergarten teacher, meeting other children who will be in the class, etc. When the child is ready for kindergarten, information from the child’s portfolio is given to the school to help teachers recognize and respond to each child’s interests and abilities. Often parents of the children in ESSS have not had positive school experiences themselves and almost all teen parents in ESSS have not yet finished high school. ESSS supports a positive and strong connection of home and school from pre-birth right up to when the child’s first day of kindergarten. VII. Community Connections ESSS Coordinators are locally hired and trained in understanding how to connect families to available services in respectful, culturally appropriate ways. We believe that it is important for families to build continuous local connections with services so they are able to advocate for themselves in a sustainable way. Our role is to help facilitate those connections. In addition, our Coordinators work with community partners to: •
Conduct regular child screenings during home visits and make referrals to community providers for follow up assessments as needed.
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Establish partnerships and coordinate with community programs, local schools, and other community agencies.
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Promote awareness and understand referral processes, service availability, and criteria for participation.
VIII. Staff Training and Support Ongoing training and support are essential to ensuring the quality of ESSS services and the success of the program. Save the Children provides ESSS sites with ongoing, high-quality professional development including: 3-4 group trainings per year; regular mentoring visits by an Early Childhood Program Specialist; monthly training calls and webcasts; regional trainings; and assistance in pursuing early childhood degrees and certifications. Research from the ESSS Evaluation shows that staff receives an average of 70 hours of professional development per year. 2. Population From mountains of Appalachia in South Carolina and Navajo country in the southwest, to California’s Central Valley and the Pacific Northwest Coast, ESSS programs span the country. Every area has distinct cultures. The area traditions, languages, beliefs about parenting and families, and approaches to education all differ from one another, not to mention from mainstream American culture. The demographics of the communities we serve are diverse, and together, represent Caucasian, African-American, Native American and Hispanic families. The families we seek to enroll in ESSS face many barriers including affordable housing and transportation issues, language barriers, a limited community tax base to fund early childhood programs, and limited sources of reading materials. Children and their families in the areas we serve suffer many unique challenges that result in severe stress and negative experience. Social risk factors have been found to be especially harmful when experienced by infants and very young children living in these environments. Any interpretation of outcomes relative to the norm must be considered in light of this disadvantage. With ESSS, Save the Children is reaching underserved children in their earliest and most critical years with the best practice methods designed to overcome these fundamental challenges. ESSS tracks 30 risk factors faced by children. A full list of risks can be found in the attachments, but
included are: poverty, unemployment, level of parental education, domestic abuse, premature birth, substance abuse, teen parents and food insecurity. The children in ESSS cope with a very high average of 4.8 risks per child. We know from research that families who face numerous personal, social, and economic stresses may be overwhelmed and unable to focus on encouraging their children to talk, to be curious, and to be self-confident (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000). Hart and Risley (1995, 1999) found a vast disparity in the amount of language heard in the home among the poorest children. In their study, children in the lowest socio-economic group heard on average 616 words per hour, compared to those in the middle and high socio-economic group who heard on average 1,215 to 2,153 words per hour. This resulted in the poorest children hearing 13 million fewer words than children in the middle socio-economic group and 32 million fewer words than children in the highest socio-economic group by age 4. Simply put, the parents in the lowest socio-economic group exhibited using fewer vocabulary words than the children in the highest socio-economic group. As Bloom (1995) stated, this finding is “heartbreaking” (pp. xxi-xiii). Save the Children chose working with poor, underserved communities as our mission because we believe it is imperative to work where there is the greatest need and the fewest resources. The hardships endured by children in poor communities are often concealed – and thus perpetuated – by the statistical averages on which decisions about resource allocation are based. Because averages lump everyone together, the poverty of some is obscured by the wealth of others. One consequence of this is that children already deprived remain excluded from essential services. Running programs that achieve successful results in underserved communities is very challenging. It requires a tremendous amount of experience, knowledge and training in the communities themselves. Most importantly, however, it requires a model that is designed to address these challenges head on. As we started to implement ESSS in urban areas, we were able to draw
from our extensive experience in rural areas and use this innovative model to work within these new settings. ESSS addresses challenges in rural and urban areas by: •
Lowering Costs o Meeting families where they are and where the support is needed. o Providing onsite training and mentoring.
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Creating Connections o Collaborating with existing local agencies for resources and referrals. o Providing families with a Community Referral and Resource List.
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Building Capacity o Training paraprofessionals from the community. We know that in order to increase local capacity and to institutionalize the services we must build local networks and expertise. o Social capacity for families: connecting with peers, reducing isolation and rates of depression. In some communities there is very little acculturation and trust is a huge issue when individuals are coming in the home. ESSS Home Visitors are from the community and are trained to quickly and reliably develop trust.
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Building a Culture of Literacy o Helping parents foster a love for reading when there are no books in the house and no library. We provide families with books on a weekly basis and educate parents in dialogic reading. o We find many of the parents we serve can’t read or write. We offer creative and meaningful opportunities for parents to build their own skills as well as strengthen their child’s development.
3. Geographic Service Area
We will be replicating Save the Children’s Early Steps to School Success early intervention model for the first time in East Baton Rouge Parish. The ESSS model is currently being implemented in Washington and St. Martin Parishes in Louisiana, as well as in 118 different sites throughout the country. Save the Children first started working in East Baton Rouge Parish school district in early 2012, providing Resilient and Ready emergency preparedness workshops to 1,500 elementary age children. While working with the area elementary schools, we were made aware of the tremendous need for early school readiness programming for children and families living here. The area we intend to serve in Baton Rouge is currently 100% African American, with close to 100% of the students on Free and Reduced Meal plans and 17.9% of people living below the poverty line. The birth to five age range is incredibly underserved, with 800 to 1,000 children being declined early childhood services. The current Pre-K program operates with a lottery system for selecting children and, unfortunately, hundreds of needy families are turned away each year. Because of this, schools in East Baton Rouge Parish report that large amounts of students enter Kindergarten without basic school readiness skills. In partnership with the local school district, our ESSS program will serve a total of 150 children, age 0-5, and their families at 3 sites with 50 children enrolled at each site. Save the Children has been working with the Greater Baton Rouge community providing emergency preparedness programming, and we are eager to bring our effective early childhood education programming to this area as well. By partnering with the local school district and hiring local staff to run programming on-the-ground, we ensure that this program is tailored to meet the specific needs of the East Baton Rouge community. 4. Impact The Early Steps to School Success Theory of Change has been included as an attachment. Program theory provides a basis for causal assessment in that it makes predictions that, if corroborated, allow fewer plausible alternative explanations for the effect of a program. ESSS
postulates, based on substantial research evidence, that the home environment and relationships surrounding very young children will affect their development. Given nurturing and stimulating environments, children can maximize their enormous potential for learning. In stressful or neglectful environments, their development will be hampered. In the communities ESSS serves, poverty and isolation are meta-environmental factors that put young families at risk. ESSS attempts to mitigate those risks by teaching and supporting parents to create home environments conducive to optimum development. The theory of change simply stated is as follows: ESSS programming will produce positive outcomes for the children by building capacity in the communities, schools and early childhood staff that will allow them, in turn, to teach, mentor and support parents to create a language and literacy rich environment for their children. It then falls to research to test the theory. Four programmatic goals ground operations in the logic of the program theory: 1) parents will have the knowledge and skills to support their children’s education, 2) children will enter school with the skills necessary for school success, 3) home/school connections will be strong, and 4)early childhood knowledge and skills in communities will be significantly increased. 5. Models: Identify which (if any) of these especially desired models your proposed program follows: • Help Me Grow/ Early Intervention and care coordination; • Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)/ parenting education; • Nurse-Family Partnership/ home visiting; • Building and supporting quality child care through efforts to create diverse delivery of early education services; and/or • providing mental health consultation to early education providers). None 6. Level of evidence Preliminary, see below 7. Support
Summary of current ongoing evaluation A descriptive ESSS evaluation, preliminary level, was designed and carried out concurrently with the initial piloting of the program. Dr. Deborah Brown is the project leader and principal investigator for the evaluation. It was designed to be a preliminary, developmental evaluation and, as such, has helped guide program planning and implementation. The evaluation infrastructure that has been established involves the organization at all levels in the process of critical inquiry. Such integration enables the use of research and evaluation data to support and monitor programs, and informs strategies for implementing and sustaining programs. The evaluation design has three components to answer three general questions for each articulated goal: •
Process evaluation and performance management: What services were provided? Who was engaged, with what intensity and for how long?
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Outcome evaluation: What were the outcomes of engagement overall?
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Qualitative longitudinal evaluation: When the program is fully implemented and families are engaged, what happens for parents and children? and why?
Three sites in two regions have been chosen as case study sites for a qualitative longitudinal study: Knott County, Kentucky; Taholah, Washington; and Mound Bayou, Mississippi. The findings from these studies are documented in the following Save the Children evaluation reports: Kentucky Stories; Mound Bayou Stories; and the Washington State 2010 report. The significance and implications of the findings were further discussed in the monograph, entitled Dilemmas of Belonging published by the Patterson Research Institute in “Early Childhood Education in Rural Communities: Access and Quality Issues” (Brown, 2011). The preliminary results documented in the descriptive evaluation are very promising. Research cited above shows that children’s early language development is an essential precursor to later
literacy development. The Early Steps to School Success program is specifically targeted toward building a foundation for language and literacy. As noted in the literature review above, it has been documented that home visitation may lead to improvements in literacy outcomes if the programs are focused on child development or family literacy specifically (Bryant & Wasik, 2004; Raikes et al, 2006, Olds et al., 2004). At ages 3 and 5, ESSS uses the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) to measure a child’s receptive vocabulary acquisition. PPVT scores are highly predictive of school success. As of June 2012, 630 Early Steps children had met the indicator 3-year-old criteria (one year in the home visiting program and attaining 3 years of age), and 129 met the 5-year-old criteria (one year in the home visiting program and attaining 5 years of age). The table below shows cumulative and annual (FY2011-2012) mean standard scores. Number of ESSS Children Assessed Cumulative: All eligible 3 year olds years PPVT Eligible 3 year olds this year Cumulative: All eligible 5 year olds Eligible 5 year olds this year
630
Nationally ESSS Normed Average Average Standard Score Standard Score 100 96.8
169 129
100 100
97.1 99.2
80
100
98.4
Other highlights include: •
Demographic data indicates that ESSS is serving very at risk children with the average number of risk factors per child being 5.
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Longer stays in the program correspond with better outcomes on average.
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Most children are maintaining or increasing PPVT scores in the years between 3 and 5.
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76% of parents and children are reading together at least 3 times per week.
Reports and published article Several studies have been carried out as a part of this developmental effort including: 1.
Ethnographic research to answer the question “What are the ways in which the following
contribute to program outcomes and issues in implementation: local culture, setting, economic situation, social factors, and family history. Three distinct populations were studied in Appalachia, a Native American Tribe in northwest Washington, and an African American community in Mississippi. The results and interpretation of results were published by the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute in the article entitled “Dilemmas of Belonging: Balancing Loyalty to Home with Desire to Succeed” (Brown, 2011). 2.
Longitudinal Outcome Analysis to determine program child outcomes at 3 and 5 years of
age. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) is administered to each child who has been enrolled in ESSS home visiting for at least one year when that child is three years old and again at five years. As of June, 30 2012 that constituted a population of 630 three year olds and 129 five year olds. The average standard scores were 96.8 and 99.2 respectively. Scores were positively correlated with length of time in the program. Given the high risk nature of the population such outcomes are much higher than would be predicted and higher than those found in research for other programs such as Early Head Start. 3.
To test the effectiveness of the training and assistance for the home visitors and to support
home visitors’ capacity to fully implement the ESSS with integrity to the model, the independent evaluator worked with a group of Save the Children specialists to develop a rubric to delineate progress from novice to expert along 8 competency areas expected of coordinators when ESSS is operationalized in the field. The matrix is scored annually for evaluation purposes but is meant to be used on an ongoing manner. When coordinators were reassessed after one year, scores on all
competencies increased. By the 2nd annual assessment they averaged proficient in all scales.(The ESSS Competency Matrix has been included as an attachment.) 8. Model adherence The Early Steps to School Success model has been created specifically for Save the Children. The ESSS curricula has been co-branded and co-developed with ZERO TO THREE (ZTT) and is based on ZTT’s evidence-based training curriculum, Cradling Literacy. In order to ensure fidelity to the model, it is important to build in systems, including program standards, which help all Save the Children staff implement the program as intended. We already have several data collection and monitoring tools in place that support quality and continuous improvement and program fidelity. Currently we incorporate the following tools and activities: •
Standard Program Indicators: As part of building a strong programmatic foundation nationwide, ESSS has quality standards in place. Standards provide consistency across regions, and give us a firm institutional knowledge of what constitutes a quality ESSS program wherever it is being implemented. By working from a common set of quality standards, Save the Children will be better able to build its own organizational early childhood knowledge and expertise, while at the same time working to build early childhood capacity in our ESSS communities.
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ESSS Web Database: Used by partners, Regional Offices, and ESSS teams to track monthly implementation of services and for program continuous improvement.
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Program Quality Assessments (PQA): Conducted every 2 years at a site to assess quality of services and implementation—program focused, not operational.
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Site Visits: Monthly coaching/mentoring site visits by Program Specialists.
Save the Children uses quality guidelines, success measures, resources, and decision making tied to our intended impact. Accountability is one of our core values. In 2009, Save the Children developed
an Accountability Framework that applies to the entire organization and all program contexts (humanitarian response, transition, and development). The Accountability Framework serves four major purposes: •
Identifies Save the Children’s accountabilities at the overall agency level, including related benchmark, stakeholders, specific indicators, and compliance systems.
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Acts as a guide for Save the Children and its partners to improve accountability and transparency at all levels of the organization.
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Serves as the reference for Save the Children to identify gaps and areas of overlap, and then to address them adequately.
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Helps Save the Children to establish a common approach with Alliance members to achieve shared objectives and to improve compliance with internal and external quality and accountability standards.
Our accountability benchmarks include: good governance, quality programs, fiscal integrity, child safeguarding, communications and advocacy, and professional staff management. Indicators of our success include: meeting or surpassing internal and external standards as measured and reported annually using this framework, addressing any gaps with speed and precision, documenting our impact, and increasing the quality of child participation in our programs. 9. Data collection The ESSS Evaluation has a data collection and knowledge management system anchored by a web-based and user-friendly database. Early Childhood Coordinators (ECCs) at each program site enters enrollment and demographic data, service-delivery information, assessment results, etc. They are trained and supported in the use of the database and their accuracy and compliance is carefully monitored by the data manager and regional Program Specialists. Specific information collected in the database includes but is not limited to:
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Community Outcomes
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Number of connections with community partners
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Number of hours of professional development for ECC’s
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Home/School Connection Outcomes
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Number of child and parent group activities sponsored jointly with the school
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Transition activities
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Parenting Outcomes
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The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory which is designed to measure the quality and quantity of stimulation and support available to a child in the home environment. The focus is on the child in the environment, and the child’s stimulation from objects, events, and people occurring in the child’s home. The intent is to understand the child's opportunities and experiences; in essence, to understand what life is like for the particular child in the child's most intimate surroundings. The HOME Inventory has been extensively used in studies of the cognitive development of children.
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Child Outcomes
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The number of referrals and follow-ups are tracked
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The number of times parents and children share stories together is tracked at each visit
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When a child reaches 3 years of age s/he is ready for the first specific outcome assessment. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test is a norm-referenced, wide-range instrument for measuring the receptive (hearing) vocabulary of children over 2.6 years of age. The level of vocabulary acquisition is a strong indicator of school success. The PPVT is widely used in Early Childhood programs so Early Steps results can be compared to those of other programs. The PPVT is re-administered when the child is 5 years old.
The ESSS evaluation enlists program staff at all levels in a process of critical inquiry. This is done to foster an organizational culture that facilitates the use of evaluation results to improve practice and maximize program adaptation to local conditions. The ongoing developmental evaluation proceeds with the question framed this way: “Are the ESSS programs developing the tools, professional development, and support systems that build capacity in the communities, schools, and early childhood staff that will allow them, in turn, to teach, mentor, and support primary caregivers to create a language and literacy rich environment for their children, that will, in the end, produce positive outcomes for the children?� Enrollment forms, risk and resource inventories, developmental screenings/assessments (Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ)), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test IV, assessments of the home environment, service tracking, and other data collection protocols are integrated as part of the program. Formal National Research In the fall of 2011 ESSS has begun a formal research agenda to be carried out over the next 5-6 years. Save the Children has engaged a team of experienced researchers: Helen Raikes from University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Brenda Jones Harden from University of Maryland, College Park, and Rachel Chazan Cohen from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The research will be conducted in 20 sites implemented in the years, 2011 to 2012 with approximately 400 children in the program group and 400 children in the comparison group. The study will employ two design approaches: 1.
A quasi-experimental comparison of program participants, children and parents who are the
first in their community to receive the 0-3 home visiting ESSS program, and a group of children for whom the program was not available, those who are the first in their community to enter the ESSS Book Bag Exchange at age 3; and
2.
A community level study looking at vocabulary knowledge of kindergarten children in the
community before and after the ESSS program is implemented in the community. Together the study approaches can answer whether participation in the 0-3 home visiting ESSS program is associated with better child and family functioning then is true for the comparison group. Research through the Social Innovation Fund in Colorado Save the Children’s ESSS program was awarded a Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant by the Mile High United Way in Colorado. Through that grant, the organization has augmented the National Evaluation design to achieve the Moderate level of evidence as defined by the SIF. Specifically, the design is a quasi-experimental evaluation with two differently constituted comparison groups: 1) a group formed from a neighboring community, and 2) one formed from within the study community which is motivated to enter an intervention to address supplemental questions. Propensity score matching procedures will be used to form comparison groups that are equivalent to the treatment group. The study will control for participant characteristics which may affect post-treatment outcomes. As of this date, the design has been given conditional approval as a moderate level design using the definitions given in the 2011 SIF NOFO. We have submitted a revised document that addresses the questions raised and expect final approval this month. Preliminary plans for research through this proposal The Baton Rouge sites provide a valuable opportunity to add to our research agenda. Although ESSS was begun as a program for rural areas, we have begun to expand into urban areas as well. The National and Colorado studies focus on rural communities. A study of the program implementation and impact in an urban setting would add valuable insight into the applicability of the model in that venue. The proposed research would replicate and adapt the Colorado design for East Baton Rouge. That is we would undertake a quasi-experimental evaluation with the 3 proposed ESSS sites
as a treatment group and form a comparison group from neighboring underserved communities. In the of fall 2012, district-wide, there were 3,460 incoming Kindergarteners, and only 2,235 attended Pre-K (65%) –leaving 1,225 children with no access to Pre-K education. That provides an adequate population from which to draw an appropriate comparison group. Propensity score matching procedures will be used to form comparison groups that are equivalent to the treatment group. The study will control for participant characteristics which may affect post-treatment outcomes. 10. Outcomes-based Investment Save the Children’s Early Steps to School Success has developed a comprehensive, integrated knowledge management system. Timely and relevant knowledge of the real conditions in an organizational system is essential to effective planning. To facilitate organizational performance, information stored in databases and electronic archives must be put to use. Knowledge is more than just information. It is the right information with appropriate structures for using the information embedded in a culture that supports their use. The system is anchored by a web-based and user-friendly database created by the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team of Save the Children, as described above in Question 9. M&E also maintains an electronic archive, known as the portal, where all staff can access a wide range of organizational documents, presentations, manuals, guides, protocols, training information, etc. The system has reporting capacity to make information accessible for multiple uses including: •
Monthly summary reports of local data compiled by the data manager and sent to site personnel including home visitors;
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Monthly analysis of quality indicators;
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Ability to generate local in-house reports at any time;
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Comprehensive annual analysis and reports by an Independent Evaluator;
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Data sharing with outcome researchers to provide background and context; and
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Periodic analysis of quality issues or questions that arise.
The information in reports and on the portal informs the discussions and process of the various formal and informal structures designed to maintain and improve quality. •
Monitoring – Regular review of data and reports to determine compliance with expectations
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Reflective Supervision – knowledge provides the foundation for reflection and the grounding basis for discussion
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Communities of Practice – Shared knowledge creates common ground, inspires members to participate, guides their learning, and gives meaning to their actions
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Research and Evaluation – Information is analyzed to answer questions about effectiveness, outcomes, and impact
The above-described practices and structures are supported by an organization culture that expects and rewards reflection, criticism, and openness to change. The Knowledge Management system encompasses all the components described to give the organization the capacity to leverage, improve, and refine programs to meet goals and targets for supporting young children. 11. Organization Background Save the Children, the leading independent organization creating lasting change for children in need, serves some of the poorest and least-served children in the United States and around the world. Founded in 1932 to help children and families in rural Appalachia weather America’s Great Depression, Save the Children today responds to the urgent and long-term needs of poor and marginalized children worldwide. We serve an estimated 64 million children globally with quality programs to ensure children are safe, educated, healthy and better able to attain their rights. In the U.S., our programs focus on child development and emergency preparedness, response and recovery. Our child development programs address early childhood education, literacy, and physical activity and nutrition. Through this work, Save the Children provides young children with a strong
foundation for learning and equips school-aged children with the skills they need to succeed academically and live healthy, active, and productive lives. ESSS was developed by Judith Jerald, former National Director of the Early Head Start program under Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush. There she was charged with, among other things, early childhood policy planning and implementation, managing national training and research, and technical assistance. Under her guidance, ESSS has grown to provide services to 118 communities across the country. Drawing upon our expertise in early childhood development, Save the Children has expanded programming to include the urban areas where we believe we will make the most difference. Although urban and rural areas each have their own unique challenges, our ESSS program has transitioned extremely well to the urban market. Currently we are implementing this program in Kansas City, KS, Lincoln and Omaha, NE, and Washington, DC serving over 200 children and their families. In the United States, our goal is ensure that all children, regardless of their economic circumstances, have the same fair chance to succeed in school and in life. For over 80 years, Save the Children has been working with low-income communities, providing services to help break the cycle of poverty that these families have been living in for generations. Most of the families we work with live below the poverty line and many of these children’s parents have little education beyond high school. We prioritize the enrollment of low-income children in our programs, using Free and Reduced Meal (FARM) Program eligibility rates -- a proxy indicator of poverty -- as one of the determining factors for bringing our programs to a community. The majority of our partner sites have FARM rates over 80 percent. Through our ESSS program, Save the Children is staying true to our mission of achieving immediate and lasting change in the lives of children by empowering parents and schools to support children’s early development, and ensuring that children living in East Baton Rouge Parish are entering school with the skills needed to learn and thrive.
12. Early Childhood Program Experience Since 2006, Save the Children has implemented its Early Childhood Education program, Early Steps to School Success in 118 communities across the country, reaching more than 5,500 children and families. This program has rapidly expanded since its inception, now serving children living in communities in Appalachia, the Gulf States, Tribal Regions in Arizona, California’s Central Valley and San Bernardino County, and the Pacific Northwest Coast. Early childhood research has shown that when young children participate in early childhood education programming, they receive the encouragement, stimulation, emotional attachment, and play opportunities that they need for future learning and growth. Early childhood development programs, like ESSS, build children’s intellectual curiosity and cognitive skills, encourage socioemotional competences, and ensure physical health and well-being. ESSS also focuses on teaching parents to be their children’s ‘first teachers’ and in serving everyone in the family. Other centerbased ECD care providers only target the child within the program and rely on experts to be the teachers, as opposed to our focus on empowering parents to provide development activities at any time, and for any young child in the family. In just six years, Early Steps is already proving to be as, if not more, effective than other early learning programs. At age three, participants’ language development is assessed using The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Children who had been enrolled for at least one year scored an average of 97.4, well within the national mean-range of 85-115. This achievement is especially significant because our program participants have an average of 4.5 risk factors (e.g. poverty or teenage parents). Children with four or more risk factors enrolled in Early Head Start were shown to have scores far below this mean. Our results demonstrate a significant improvement over conventional expectations and the effectiveness of this program. 13. Community Partnerships
Early Steps to School Success has strong local, state, and national partnerships. To develop the ESSS curriculum we partnered with ZERO TO THREE (ZTT): National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, a national nonprofit organization that informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of very young children. We are proud to be continuing our partnership with ZTT for our work in Louisiana. Additionally, we partner with Raising A Reader, a book exchange program that focuses on engaging parents in a routine of daily “book cuddling” with their children from birth to age five. Books and materials are age-appropriate and tailored to suit the diverse cultural traditions, ethnic and linguistic demographics present in the community. Of course, our most important partners are the local partners with whom we develop partnerships and implement ESSS. By working through the East Baton Rouge Parish school district, hiring from within the community and creating strong community collaborations, we will build a system that has local ownership and capacity. In addition to the East Baton Rouge Parish elementary schools and Pre-K centers, we will partner with local agencies such as libraries, public health offices, WIC offices, social services, and early care and education providers (including Head Start and the adult education center). What helps make the ESSS model sustainable is its low cost, its community focus and partnerships, its connections with the local schools, and its strategy of hiring members from the community. These partnerships are the ways in which early childhood services will become imbedded in the community over time and are extremely important. 14. Staff Qualifications Save the Children’s Deputy Director of Programs for Louisiana will be responsible for the overall project management and implementation, about 10% of their time. The Senior Early Childhood Development Specialist is responsible for providing national level support in the
implementation of the ESSS program, about 6% of their time. This involves training and support for the Program Specialist and the development of training and support for the Early Childhood Coordinators in the areas of infant/toddler development, home visiting, parenting education, and the facilitation of parent groups. The ESSS Program Specialist position is the on-the-ground Save the Children staff member providing technical and management assistance to partners to ensure the effective coordination, implementation, and monitoring of early childhood education programming through monthly site visits and regular communication via phone and email. This will account for about 50% of their time. Each school/center will hire an ESSS Early Childhood Coordinator (position 100% funded by the grant) that will be directly supervised by a site supervisor identified by each school (typically the site supervisor is the principal or the early childhood director). The ESSS Coordinator has the following responsibilities: •
Provide home visiting services to 20 children birth to age 3 and expecting parents (60 children total);
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Support parents in preparing their young children with the skills necessary for school success;
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Help parents create an environment in the home for children birth to 5 that is literacy rich;
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Empower parents to take an active role in their child's education;
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Create positive home and school connections for parents with young children in the community;
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Provide parent/child education groups; and
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Provide a book exchange program for 30 children ages 3 to 5. Through the book exchange, children borrow books weekly to encourage a home environment that fosters literacy (90 children total).
The ideal candidate would have the following qualifications: AA degree in Early Childhood or related field; Experience and training working in a home visiting, infant/toddler early childhood/parenting education program; Experience working with pregnant women, children ages birth to five, and families; Experience leading parent groups; Experience with timely reporting and maintaining accurate records on program activities; and Experience in collaborating with early childhood programs in the community. 15. Program Replication/Expansion Operating in 118 sites today, the number of Save the Children early childhood programs has increased over 900% since 2007. Built on the belief that gains can be made for children living in poverty, while at the same time be affordable and replicable, our formula for expansion is simple. Each home visit Coordinator supports 50 children prenatal through 5 years of age (home visiting for pregnant moms and children up through the age of three, transition to school activities for children 3 to 5 years of age in center-based programs). Each Save the Children Early Childhood Program Specialist supports 6 to 8 home visitors, providing onsite mentoring, coaching, and training and technical assistance. Adhering to this formula as we’ve expanded has allowed us to maintain fidelity and keep our cost per child reasonable at $1,600 per child per year. As previously stated, the ESSS model was developed to be affordable and replicable in poor rural areas with limited resources. We are already successfully implementing replications, and expanding the model across the U.S. with no obstacles. In recent years, trends have suggested that in the future the majority of the population growth will come from urban areas. There is also evidence to suggest that urban averages mask extreme disparities in urban populations and there are extreme poor and vulnerable populations in urban areas that are missed by poverty reduction programs. Therefore, in 2011, Save the Children made the commitment to expanding this program to urban areas where we knew we could have a strong impact. We have successfully taken this proven program to Kansas City, KS, Omaha and
Lincoln, NE and Washington, DC serving an additional 217 children ages 0-5. Funding from this grant would enable us to further expand into an urban market in a state we have been active in for almost a decade. Save the Children has undertaken the task of expanding and extending its presence in the U.S. In the case of ESSS programming this effort will require collaboration with local, state, and federal agencies. Both federal and state resources are increasingly being allocated to programs with proven practices. “Proven� in these cases is generally taken to mean that the model is shown to be effective in research studies with experimental or quasi-experimental models. The ongoing evaluation of the program allows us to recognize our successes as well as engage in continuous program improvement. In September we launched an evaluation lead by nationally renowned researchers (see Question 9). Through this research, we will apply a quasi-experimental design to study implementation of the model (fidelity), the role that training and technical assistance plays in implementing quality services, and how duration and intensity of services impacts outcomes for children and parents. We will also be studying the effect on communities and their knowledge and commitment to early childhood services. 16. Compliance Experience Save the Children’s U.S. Programs has raised approximately $9 million in public funds annually over the past three years, and $12.2 million to date in the 2012 fiscal year, which supports programs in 16 states and the District of Columbia. From State Education Agencies to governors to lawmakers, Save the Children has achieved buy-in from stakeholders which has been critical to our continued success. For example, the Kentucky and Tennessee Departments of Education wrote us into their Race to the Top applications, and the South Carolina Department of Education recently directed discretionary funds to support our Rural Literacy Program in two schools. Over the last several years we have also been successful in winning 33 21st Century Community Learning Center
(CCLC) grants, 16 of which were directly fiscally managed by Save the Children. 21st CCLC grants are the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to afterschool programs. In addition, this past August Save the Children was awarded Head Start grants from the Federal Government to serve 100 children in the poor rural counties of Lee, St. Francis, and Woodruff in the Delta region of Eastern Arkansas. Save the Children developed local partnerships and collaborations that enhance and extend the resources of the Head Start program. The program options that Save the Children is implementing with this funding will be part and full day and full year programming in all 3 counties partnering with Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) - the state pre-k program – to work toward blended classrooms in these school districts. In December of 2012 we also expect the results of an additional Head Start application to serve hundreds of additional children in Arkansas. 17. Key Challenges In recent years, funding streams have consistently become more and more designated, with Save the Children seeing only three sources of undesignated funds: private sector donations ( less than 3%), cost recovery via grants and contributions, and investment income. This limits our ability to grow where needed and also to invest in the back-end and personal systems, which enable us to secure additional undesignated funding. In addition, prior to the 2010 fiscal year, Save the Children’s U.S. Programs was receiving, on average, over $1 million per year in Federal earmarks. This funding stream went away in the 2011 fiscal year and it is unclear when federal earmarks might be a possible funding stream again. Over the next three years, we are committed to increasing our undesignated funding, while also growing our grants and contracts with a specific focus on grants that allow for a match in funding helping to ensure sustainability. 18. SIF Budget: See attached budget 19. Organizational Funding
Save the Children’s U.S. Programs’ annual budget is $35 million. We have a strong track record of raising the necessary foundation, corporate, and individual funds. In fact, approximately 70 percent of our budget comes from private sources. This includes a number of high-profile, longterm partnerships with corporations and foundations such as T.J. Maxx, Toys “R” Us, Zynga, Frigidaire, IKEA, Scholastic, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Bulgari. The Idol Gives Back Foundation also invested nearly $25 million in our U.S. Programs from 2007-2012 bringing both significant attention and resources to our work. We look to match up our strong track record in securing public grants with support from our private partners to ensure that no one site ever relies on once source of funding. In Louisiana we also receive a grant from the Federal Government to run a Head Start Center serving 182 high need children. Save the Children’s goal at all of our sites is to continue the benefits for children in the community long after a grant has expired. Our sustainability plan focuses on building private resources, increasing public funding, and integrating the program to become a permanent part of the community's operations. 20. Match Capacity As previously stated, Save the Children has a strong track record in raising both private and public funds. Because we have developed strong partnerships to ensure we have flexible funding, we feel confident that we will have no issues securing the match requirements for this grant. Our fund raising and grant writing team has a success rate of over 80% and we have already established strong private funding relationships with donors in the area who are interested and invested in early childhood education. These include Entergy Corporation, The Irene W. and C.B. Pennington Foundation and the Huey and Angelina Wilson Foundation. Additionally, we have strong private individual support from board members and long term donors in the area who are committed to helping us secure necessary funds to expand our programs to serve more children.
As a well identified national non-profit, we are also fortunate to have long term continual funding from major corporate cause marketing campaigns. This funding allows us the flexibility to support new programs which require a private match. 21. Financial System Save the Children currently has segregated fund accounting providing us with the ability to track and manage various funding sources. We utilize Grant and Contract Review Systems for approval of potential opportunities, Award Authorization Database which identifies a unique code for each funding source after approval of agreements, and SUN Accounting software for General Ledger expenses. We are subject to the A133 Single Audit Act and manage $250 Million in federal funds. 22. Qualifications Eid Natour, Senior Director, Finance, US Programs has been with Save the Children for 21 years, serving in his current role for the last six years. Previously he was in the Middle East/ Eurasia field office as Director of Sub-grants. Kelli Clark, Finance Director for US Programs, has been with Save the Children since 2006. In her time with the organization she has helped to manage over 200 grants that range from federal to private with budgets from $5000 to $10M. Corey Dillow, Deputy Director-Grants and Contracts for US Programs/MEE, has worked with Save the Children since August 2009. His previous positions with the organization include ManagerBudget & Timesheets and Manager-Grants and Contracts. Corey has extensive experience working with Federal, State, and Private funding sources including setup, reporting, and closeout of grants.