Quality and Professional Development Action Team Meeting #2

April 8th, 2016

  1. Attendance

Jonathon Bennett, AshanaBigard, Kirsten Breckenridge, Alan Brickman, Jon Cosper, Maggie Daly, Marti Dumas, Dr. Samantha Francois, Kellie Chavez Greene, Dr. April Johnson, Jeremiah Jones, Ann Kiefer, Michael Januzzi, Denali Lander, Dana Reed, Farrell Richardson, Jen Roberts, Jamie Schmill, Antonio Travis, Tom Trouve, Luella Williams, Gina Womack

  1. Introductions
  1. Share your name and organization or Constituency you represent.
  2. With each person contributing one word, form a sentence that answers the question: “How do you define quality youth programming?”

“Quality! Needed for our survival of meaningful engagement. Quality is an extremely important aspect of youth-led experiences!”

  1. Our Objective as an Action Team:
  2. By July 31st, prepare an action plan for how to coordinate, expand and sustain efforts to define, measure and support quality in programs and services for New Orleans children and youth.
  1. Today’s Objectives (Meeting #2)
  2. To review our Action Team’s objective and proposed process for addressing this objective
  3. To continue to establish a sense of team among Action Team members
  4. To improve our collective understanding of what existing research says are the key ingredients of “quality improvement systems” across settings for children and youth.
  1. A Review of Quality Improvement System Research: Small Group

We broke up into six groups and review reading excerpts that looked at program quality improvement across four different settings: (1) early childhood, (2) K-12 schools, (3) Out-of-school time, (4) Non-youth settings [industry]. Each group was asked to discuss and report back on the following questions:

  1. What is included in the definition for quality in this setting?
  2. Based on your reading and prior knowledge, what are they key ingredients of quality improvement efforts in your group’s setting?
  3. What are the key takeaways the rest of the group should know about quality in this setting?
  1. Early Childhood Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS)

Readings: QRIS framework one-pager, QRIS Resource Guide,

  • Administration for Children & Families Office of Child Care. QRIS Resource Guide. April 2015, pp. 1-6.
  • Mathias, D. Rising to the Challenge: Building Effective Systems for Young Children and Families, a BUILD E-Book. Build Initiative. 2015,Chapter 8.
  • QRIS Framework for the Early Care and Education System. BUILD.
  • What is included in the definition for quality in this setting?
  • Methods to measure what’s working – a process is needed for follow-up
  • Its not just standards, but the full system of measurement and improvement
  • Family engagement and education
  • Constituent’s voices are needed in defining quality. What does it mean to target high needs, address needs at all levels?
  • Targeting high needs
  • Readiness for transition at all levels.It needs to focus not just on how you support the transition into first grade but transition into all grades.
  • What are they key ingredients of quality improvement efforts in early childhood education?
  • Technology infrastructure to track and manage data
  • Evidence based tools – using research in order to define those tools
  • Financial infrastructure to fund long-term change. Incentives needed for service providers, professional development and feedback look for staff too.
  • Alignment and consistency across providers. The definition of quality must be the same across all providers.
  • Collection of data consistently across providers
  • What are the key takeaways for the rest of the Action Team?
  • Quality applies to all parts of child development programming, not just early childhood
  • A systemic approach is needed
  • Buy-in requires credibility in the eyes of those who are implementing. Even down to provider level and parent level – parents won't implement at home unless they are educated and believe in it.
  1. K-12 Instructional Quality (Teacher Professional Development)

Reading: The New Teacher Project. The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development. 2015.

  1. What is included in the definition for quality in this setting?
  2. What teachers need is a supportive infrastructure and coaching. Teachers in New Orleans are not getting a year long of practicum. Teaching is about relationships with students and teachers are not given training in how to do this. Teachers are teaching to the test and are not given the opportunity to actually teach the youth development. Test prep facilitating vs teaching to the test is different.
  3. Teacher training in cultural sensitivity and behavioral sensitivity is poor and leads to teachers misreading situations. A challenge with the article is that it says that everything we know about teacher quality was untrue.
  4. What are they key ingredients of quality improvement efforts in early childhood education? What are the key takeaways for the rest of the Action Team?
  5. Highly individualized and everyone is different when it comes to reaching them
  6. Data driven decision making is needed
  7. Vision from the principal is needed
  8. Quality needs to be a priority
  9. Needs to be institutionalized across schools.
  10. Basic finding – we spend $20,000 a year per teacher on teacher training in the U.S. and it is not working. The paper was more of a critique vs. having specific solutions.
  11. Infrastructure of support for teachers is a condition for quality
  12. Teaching is more that test prep and should take into account child development
  1. Early Childhood Education Standards

Readings:

  • Child Trends and Mathematica Policy Research. Compendium of Quality Rating Systems and Evaluations. Office of Planning Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families. April 2010. pp. 1-12 and 42-44.
  • NAEYC Accreditation Standards for Center-based Programs, excerpt from Defining and Measuring Quality: An In-Depth Study of Five Child Care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems. Mathematica Policy Research. August 2011. p.110
  • What is included in the definition for quality in this setting?
  • At child care centers, quality categories include staff qualifications and cultural competency, licensing compliance, environment, family partnerships, administration and management, and accreditation.
  • What are the key ingredients of quality improvement efforts?
  • A clear rating process with diverse indicators and quality standards
  • Grounded in clear measurements tools
  • Inclusion of people receiving services in the assessment process
  • Incentives for participation and improvement
  • Training/restorative approaches to improvement (needs to be supportive not punitive, low-stakes not high-stakes)
  • What are the key takeaways for the rest of the Action Team?
  • Quality improvement systems are super complex!
  • There are definite trends across 26 child care systems but there is also variance.
  • This specific report was data heavy. In the 26 systems that were reviewed, there was a lot variety on how many scales they use and how long it took to be accredited.
  1. Youth Work Professionals and Supervisors (Out-of-school time)

Reading: New York City Department of Youth & Community Development and National Institute on Out-of-School Time at the Wellesley College for Women. Strong Directors, Skilled Staff: Guide to Using the Core Competencies for Youth Work Professionals and Supervisors. Wellesley College. 2012. pp. 1-15

  1. What is included in the definition for quality in this setting?
  2. 8 core competencies to guide and self-assess quality for out-of-school time staff and supervisors.
  3. What are the key ingredients of quality improvement efforts?
  4. Motivation, continue to improve academic and social emotional growth in the setting.
  5. To ensure the ingredients are there, you need to facilitate staff development and cultural competence
  6. Focus on hiring and training
  7. Orientation and professional development needs to be high quality.
  8. Make sure feedback is given – coach and counsel not only the children but staff members.
  9. Make sure staff have a voice in the organization.
  10. What are the key takeaways for the rest of the Action Team?
  11. Keep kids AND staff engaged and supported. Both matter for high quality.
  1. Funders of Out-of-School Time Programming

Reading: Grantmakers For Education’s Out-of-School Time Funder Network, Funders’ Guide to Quality in Out-of-School Time. March 2016. pp. 1-12

  1. What is included in the definition for quality?
  2. Independent choices, focusing on being child centered, youth choose with their feet. Their independence is met with where there interests are.
  3. Personal and social journey
  4. Individual has a sense of being valued for who they are. Develop confidence in one’s ability to master one’s environment. Quality environments are helping children reach their own individual needs. There are strong links between family, schools, and a broader community overall.
  5. Out-of-school time is positive for the individual, the family, and ties into academic gains.
  6. Pedagogy – out-of-school time vs. academics. Out-of-school time programming often tries to tie in the full brain through a more holistic approach to youth development and be a supplement to the academic benefits.
  7. What are the key ingredients of quality improvement efforts?
  8. Research exists on what quality is. This paper has who is working in that space and has who is doing the work. How can the provider and funder communities align?
  9. There are tools for funders on how to identify quality programs.
  10. There are tools on how to communicate quality programs for programs and funders alike.
  11. We are seeing a shift in funders seeing a value in funding quality vs quantity
  12. We are also seeing a shift toward recognizing the value in the nonprofit professional “youth worker” and investing in their growth.
  13. What are the key takeaways for the rest of the Action Team?
  14. What foundations are interested in quality, who is doing the research and who can we give that to?
  15. For smaller out-of-school time programs, it is difficult to master all these elements. They need to partner and assist each other to ensure quality.
  16. Investment in a quality program needs to be long term – needing to build a strong foundation to then reach more children. The first year you are building a few kids, but can go to more when appropriate.
  1. Manufacturing and Quality Control

Reading: Westcott, R. (ed.) The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, Third Edition. ASQ Quality Press, 2006, pp. xv. – xxiii.

  1. What is included in the definition for quality?
  2. Framing quality control went from agriculture to manufacturing plant and this paper was on what quality looks like in the manufacturing plant setting. Quality is defined by the industry – it’s about culling out the best stuff and is decided by what you are making. It is defined by industry and type of program. One caveat – quality is not the only function of an organization. It often gets de-prioritized and a balance needs to be considered in what you are doing and how you are doing it. When working towards quality, there is a balance to consider in terms of standardization vs thinking about quality in the individual or social/cultural setting.
  3. What are the key ingredients and key takeaways?
  4. We need to ensure we keep a focus on quality, since that is not the sole purpose of the organization.
  5. We need to balance standardization and individualization
  6. Quality is fluid and contextual
  7. Users need to help define quality
  1. Identifying Themes Across Groups
  2. Quality is hard to define. Definition depends on who is asking the questions and who gets to define it. Participants, family, and constituencies need to be engaged on defining what quality is. Users need to define it.
  3. There is a question of how we will define quality. For example, the Quality Star Rating System led to smaller and minority-run centers being defined as lower quality without an understanding of what they were doing that was quality. The people who don’t have the money and resources to pursue quality at this standard end up being closed down while those who had money and resources are able to grow.
  4. What lens are we using to define quality? Is Harvard quality and SUNO isn’t? If so, marginalized populations (delivering and receiving services) may be targeted with lower grades and lower scores which leads to minority children getting less services.
  5. Were a “quality era” – a lot of mom and pop stores who were already high quality would not fit into the ideas given to us by the outside community. We are not always given the opportunity to make decisions based on what we define as high quality.
  6. Marginalized populations when they are not involved in the definition of quality, and what the output of quality looks like, then they can be further marginalized because they don’t have access to the same resources. We need to consider the implicit bias in creating quality.
  7. Unfunded mandate to implement the quality – smaller organizations may not have infrastructure, resources, training, staffing, etc. to compete with larger organizations that have evaluation departments. Where is the investment in operational support and infrastructure? How can funders think long term?
  8. When organizations are smaller and don’t have funding, they can’t afford to do evaluations. The younger and emerging organizations need that from the beginning.
  9. Data matters and data-driven decision-making is necessary
  10. We cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater – we need self-assessment to recognize what is working and support people in assessing and improving quality.
  11. The approach to professional development and seeking quality in teacher training is not working. There needs to be continuous improvement in their professional development.
  12. Every recommendation has a cost associated with it. Evidence-based program implementation, professional development, etc., all equals cost. Funders often think that whatever money they invest in capacity building is a dollars not spent on services so it becomes a secondary priority.
  13. The flip side of engagement and constituent voice is that you also need leadership and champions who are going to carry the torch in a sustained way to carry out the change process toward quality.
  1. Closing and Next Steps
  2. In reflection, please let us know where you stand in relation to the following questions?
  3. I have a good understanding of the basic elements of quality rating across systems? (Somewhat Agree)
  4. I want to know more about what is happening with quality improvement efforts in this community? (Strongly Agree)
  5. If Hamilton sends me more readings before next meeting. I will read them. (Agree)
  6. I feel good about this team’s ability to create a quality improvement plan. (Agree)
  7. These meetings have been worth my time so far? (Strongly Agree)

Next Meeting: Friday, May 6th, 12-1:30 PM, will focus on New Orleans – what efforts exist and discussion of local context.Additional readings will be distributed for review in advance of this meeting.

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