Case studies
Child care integrationSeveral settlement houses in a major city wanted to merge their Head Start and Day Care programs. These programs served children and families with similar backgrounds, but were managed separately through local, state and federal contracts. Hired as project manager, we created an implementation plan that quickly gained high-level support from the Mayor’s Office, HHS and other oversight agencies.
We analyzed the programs and contracts and identified changes necessary to merge them. We engaged pivotal groups – settlement and City managers and staff, parents, unions and trade associations – to understand their concerns, gain support, and identify critical features for the merged program. We held strategic planning sessions with the contracting agencies to define the program in detail, created a master implementation plan, and held bi-weekly reviews to manage the plan.
The project merged Head Start and Day Care programs thoroughly in several settlement houses and created a model for program integration elsewhere. The unified model provides a common year-round calendar, longer hours of service, unified classrooms, unified and better trained staff, common intake and placement, social services for all families, parent involvement for all families, merged licensing and common contracts and budgets.