Activity 2-6: Working Together

Purpose:Participants will recognize that everyone contributes to program quality. They will identify how program staff depend on each part of the Head Start organizational system to provide quality service.

Materials:

Handout 14: Social Systems Model of a Head Start Program
Handout 15: The Cazeau Family
Sheets of blue construction paper
Sheets of white construction paper
Scissors, markers, staplers, tape, and paste

Coach Preparation Notes:

Participants will make paper chains, and each link will repre sent a task needed to provide a service. Participants will cut the white paper into strips and write their required job tasks on each strip. They will cut the blue paper into strips and label each strip with the tasks that staff in other service areas must do for them to complete their jobs.

Head Start Service Chain, Session 1

Introduce Activity

1. Begin Session 1 by explaining that each job is a critical link in the overall process of providing service. Each job contributes to the program's mission. People performing other jobs assist you in performing your job. Similarly, others depend on you to perform certain tasks so that they can provide reliable and responsive service. To perform roles effectively, everyone must rely on one another.

Discuss Scenario

2. To demonstrate how staff can help each other, tell participants to imagine that they are responsible for helping the Cazeau family feel welcome in Head Start. Using Handout 15: The Cazeau Family, discuss the tasks they each need to do to accomplish this.

Discuss Job Tasks

3. Ask participants to identify a service that they perform. Use the following questions to help them describe the tasks needed to provide the service:

• What do you do first? Next? After that?

• What help do you need from other job functions or service delivery areas to complete the job?

• What kinds of information, documentation, records, or other items must you provide to another service area or individual for the job to be completed?

List Job Tasks

4.Ask participants to list, in sequence, the tasks they perform when providing specific services.

Make Paper Chain

5.Have participants cut the white paper into 2- x 6-inch strips and label each strip with one task from the list they created. Tell participants to cut the blue paper into 2- x 6-inch strips and label each strip with a task from the list that must be completed by another service area. Have them write the name of the other service area on the strip.
Once participants have written the job tasks on the appropriate strips, tell them to link each strip together in the correct sequence to form a service chain.

Explain Chain

6. Discuss the service chains with participants. Ask the following wrap up questions:

• Would the quality of service that you provide be affected if the job functions that you depend on were eliminated? Why? How?

• What do others need from you to provide effective services?
  

Social Systems Concept, Session 2

Introduce Activity

1.Discuss the purpose of the paper chain exercise. Emphasize the following points:

• An organization is like a chain. All the links or individual job tasks are necessary to hold it together.

• The services that everyone provides and the individual job tasks that staff members perform contribute to a quality program.

Explain Social Systems Concept

2.Distribute Handout 14: Social Systems Model of a Head Start Pro gram. Using the handout, explain the basic concepts of a dynamic social system. Emphasize the following points:

• A dynamic social system is a group of interdependent parts.

• The links on the paper chain can be compared to the parts of an organization. All parts work together as a group or system to accomplish the group mission.

• Effective organizations work in parts.

• The circles on Handout 14: Social Systems Model of a Head Start Program represent the parts of an organizational system. The name of each part is written in bold.

• Referring to the Background Information, give an example from the program to explain each circle on Handout 14. Emphasize that by using this framework, participants can focus on how their individual tasks are involved in achieving the purpose of Head Start. Lead a discussion to help participants relate their contributions to achieving the program's mission (purpose). Ask them the following questions about each specified circle on Handout 14:
  

• --Purpose (program's mission and goals).What is your program's mission? What roles do you play in achieving it?

• --Structure (how work is divided). How do your roles and responsibilities contribute to achieving the mission? How do you develop new skills and competencies?

• --External environment (sponsoring agencies, Head Start regional office, and community organizations). With whom do you communicate in the external environment? How do these contacts contribute to achieving the mission?

• --Leadership (Head Start director, executive director, policy council, board of directors, and management team). What roles do your leaders have in achieving the mission? How do they help you perform your jobs ?

• --Processes (steps followed to do the work). What steps do you follow to do your work? Do you collaborate with others to do your work?

• --Culture (shared values, organizational climate, and environ ment). What are the core values of this program? How do you support everyone's unique developmental, ethnic, and linguistic experiences and heritage?

• --People (all staff members, children, parents, and volunteers). Who are the people in your program? Why must everyone work together to achieve our mission?

Summarize

3. Ask the following questions to emphasize the key concepts in systems theory:

• How does a systems approach affect your work with families and each other?

• What are the most important skills needed by everyone working in the program?

Emphasize the following points:

• Everyone's efforts and contributions are important to the whole picture and in achieving the program's mission.
  
  
• For the entire system to operate effectively and meet ongoing challenges, all parts must work together to produce a quality effort.
  
  
• Examining the roles and responsibilities of each member of the program allows everyone to see the interrelationships among staff, parents, the executive director, the director, and the governing bodies.
  
  
• Understanding how the program operates shows how problems are interconnected. Problems cannot be solved and improvements cannot be implemented if solutions are created in a vacuum. Everyone must work on solutions together.
  

Next Step | Activity 2-5 | Module 2 | Index