So. Many. Zoom. Meetings!
I’m guessing you are just like we are here at Acorn Evaluation: adjusting to a new world of “normal” in which just about everyone is working at home. I have five children, and I can just leave it at that, as my Zoom and WebEx meetings always involve some type of interruption we used to call “unprofessional” and now just makes everyone laugh. Yesterday during my online meeting my 5 year old shouted across the house: “I don’t want a quesadilla for lunch again!!” (we live in San Diego CA and quesadilla is one of my “go-to” easy meals!)
So yes, right now we are all “solving for” this: how to optimize our team’s work expectations and deliverables when most of our key people are working from home. Head Start Directors across the nation are asking us for our feedback on just how to do this. I’ll be presenting on that very topic in partnership with Head Start California next month, and maybe by then, I’ll have added something other than quesadilla to my arsenal as well.
Here is what is VERY possible for you and your program: completing a Data Capacity Assessment: a comprehensive report of a Head Start/Early Head Start program’s current organizational capability in the area of management, data infrastructure, and data-driven continuous quality improvement implementation.
What is a Data Capacity Assessment (DCA) and how does it work?
- The DCA is two months long and can start as early as May 2020.
- It involves three primary sources of data: individual interviews of your senior leadership team, surveys of your program staff, and exports and analyses of your program’s ChildPlus data.
- These are easy to accomplish for your employees working from home, and the results have been excellent this spring as staff have somewhat of a unique opportunity to reflect on their programs away from the office.
- The project mostly takes place “behind the scenes” and does not involve a lot of time of your team members.
- The result is a robust series of deliverables including a brief executive summary with strengths, opportunities and recommendations presented across a series of themes, a power point presentation to use with a Board or PC, survey and interview results and their raw files, data exploration memos visualizing the validity, reliability, and consistency of your program data as reflected in your ChildPlus database, and a comprehensive resource library of tools and templates to launch continuous quality improvement projects in your program.
Currently, the demand for this service is high, and Acorn Evaluation is accepting new applicants on a first-come first-served basis. You can read more about the DCA here.
Directors are often interested in speaking directly with a fellow Head Start/Early Head Start Director about their experience with the Acorn Evaluation Data Capacity Assessment (ie “is it worth it?” “how have you used yours?”) Reach out to me here and I’ll respond quickly with a call or email with more information and a referral to a few of our very satisfied partners, who have received their DCAs and who are now successfully implementing CQI (continuous quality improvement) projects with their content leads and leadership teams.
Hope to hear from you. In the meanwhile, I’ll be googling “lunch options for fathers who have mastered the quesadilla but who want more”.
