The Discovery Initiative

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The Discovery Initiative

• A Documentation of the Early Stages
• Prepared by The OMG Center for Collaborative
  Learning
• June 20, 2003

2
About OMG (1)

• National non-profit research consulting
  organization established in Philadelphia, PA in
  1988
• Guided by principles of action research, systems
  thinking, and collaborative learning

3
About OMG (2)

• Professional practice evaluation, documentation,
  planning, capacity building, program design, and
  organizational development
• Areas community building and community
  development children, youth, and families
  leadership development arts and culture open
  space and the environment

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Memorial Fund Mission

• To improve the effectiveness of education in
  fostering both personal development and leadership

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Memorial Fund Goals

• To engage young children more deeply in their own
  education
• To support Connecticut communities in improving
  education for their elementary and pre-school
  children
• To develop both statewide and local leadership
  dedicated to improving and advocating for
  education

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Discovery Process objectives

• To expand the supply of high quality early care
  and education
• To improve the quality of existing early care and
  education
• To build strong connections between early care
  and elementary education
• To improve students social, emotional, and
  academic performance

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Discovery Process initial stage

• 46 communities with high educational needs
• Grants of up to 25,000
• Collaboratives with focus on young children from
  birth to age eight
• Engagement of parents and grassroots community
  groups
• Address one or more GMF objectives
• Use one or more recommended strategies

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Discovery communities
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Purpose of the documentation

• To look for stories to illustrate the
  collaborative building efforts around an early
  childhood agenda in a small sample of Discovery
  communities

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Sample communities

• Using a maximum variation sampling technique we
  selected 8 Discovery sites representative of
  different stages of development and
  accomplishment related to the grants main
  objectives
• Communities were selected using size and type of
  school district as sampling variables

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Sample communities

• Small/Transition Northeast (Plainfield,
  Killingly and Putnam) Plymouth, Windsor
• Medium/Severe Need East Haven Southington
• Large/Priority Danbury New Britain Bridgeport

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Methodology

• Narrative Inquiry
• A method based on the notion that people use
  stories and story telling to make sense of their
  experience, produce meaning, and share this
  meaning with others

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Collecting the stories

• Timeline development large group exercise to
  identify significant events in the development of
  local early childhood collaborations
• Story telling small group exercise to elicit
  personal experiences with the collaborative
  building process

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Group Debriefings

• Small groups identified themes heard from other
  story tellers
• Large group heard summaries from small group
  debriefings and generated an overall assessment
  of cross-cutting themes for the community

15
Analysis

• Qualitative analysis of transcripts from all
  sessions
• Timeline charts with events

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Limitations of the documentation

• Story telling is a subjective process, there is
  no right or wrong and two individuals may have
  different accounts of the same event
• Themes generated by the participants can only be
  interpreted as representing the views of those
  participants, not as the views of the community
• Timeline events are not exhaustive. Only critical
  events were included

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On the other hand.

• Groups convened for the documentation ranged from
  6 to 10 participants, and a typical collaborative
  involves 20
• Most sites invited their key stakeholders
  representing a range of voices
• Working parents were the most under-represented
  group

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Findings from Cross Site Analysis
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Theme 1 How early is early enough?
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• Participants in the NI felt that early childhood
  interventions are the first and most critical
  step in a continuum of services to children and
  families, regardless of their income, education
  and racial/ethnic affiliation
• Professionals from fields concerned with older
  populations experience a paradigm shift when they
  get involved in early childhood from a focus on
  intervention to a focus on prevention

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• Early childhood requires serving the child and
  the family
• The ultimate quality of life in a community
  depends on the quality of life of the children
  and families who live there (Windsor)
• A holistic approach to solving community problems
  is consistent with a focus on prevention and with
  integrated services funded by blended pools of
  public and private monies (East Haven)

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Theme 2 Collaboration

• The personal aspect

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• Commitment keeps people at the table, and a sense
  of shared accomplishments strengthens the
  collaboration
• Sharing the burden lessens the burden partners
  experienced a sense of excitement about their
  work, deeper personal relations with
  co-collaborators, and decreased sense of isolation

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• Collaborations rely on personal networks Some
  individuals grow projects by adding pieces to
  an original idea and attracting others to support
  it
• Adopting a shared vision requires maintaining an
  open mind about the value of a diversity of ideas
• Collaboration requires making room for newcomers
  at the table

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Theme 2 Collaboration

• School systems and early childhood

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• FRCs play strong role in linking early childhood
  to schools (3 FRCs in the 8 study sites were
  located in elementary schools)
• Programs for school-age parents and locating
  pre-schools in the high school are also effective
  strategies
• The Discovery grant has allowed Danbury and
  Northeast to collaborate with local school
  districts to establish how academic outcomes are
  affected by childrens participation in early
  childhood programs

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• School budget cuts were mentioned in several
  communities as having significant negative
  effects in the development of early childhood
  collaboratives
• Adverse events force communities to be more
  creative in finding solutions to their problems

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Theme 2 Collaboration

• Linkages with other systems

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• In addition to school systems, other partners
  included funders, municipal administrators, and
  SRCs
• Linkages with Public health were the only other
  connection to public systems
• The private sector was not a strong partner in
  most study communities with the exception of
  hospitals, and in one community, local corporate
  businesses

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Theme 2 Collaboration

• Crossing geographic lines

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• The Northeast project brings together three towns
  that have pooled their Discovery funding.
• Their rural location makes this type of
  collaboration necessary
• Cross-town projects and regional initiatives are
  common in this area

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Theme 3 The role of parents in the collaborative
process

• Hosts or guests at the table?

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• The 8 study communities offered a spectrum of
  parent involvement, from thinking about the need
  to involve them to having a collaborative board
  headed by parents
• Despite parents presence at the table,
  professionals seem to be leading the agenda in
  most sites

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Theme 3 The role of parents

• Are these the right parents?

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• Professionals expressed concern that they are not
  reaching the right parents
• Economic and demographic diversification of the
  communities needs to be considered in recruiting
  parents for the collaborative
• Racial and ethnic diversity not represented among
  study participants (parents nor professionals)
• Seeing diversity as an asset and not as a
  challenge has helped collaboratives

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Theme 3The role of parents

• The parent involvement continuum

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• Findings suggest that parents get involved in
  incremental steps
• First motivation for parents is changing
  something that directly affects them and their
  families
• Next, parents are recruited to give input to
  professionals
• In some cases they receive training and become
  staff to early childhood programs

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• Some parents eventually move from a focus on
  programs to a focus on policy and advocacy
  issues.
• They may also broaden their focus beyond the
  local community to address regional, state and/or
  national issues.

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Theme 4 Process-versus-action
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• Two sites discussed the tension generated by
  those who want to quickly move to action (mostly
  parents), and those who linger on planning and
  process-related activities (mostly professionals)
• Action-oriented partners have a difficult time
  staying engaged during long planning phases

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Theme 5 The Memorial Funds support for capacity
building
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• The assistance of the Memorial Fund was
  acknowledged by most sites
• Workshops were seen as informative and as
  excellent and much needed opportunities to
  network
• Liaisons were valued as sources of information
  and advice