Nevada Head Start Collaboration Office
The Nevada Head Start State Collaboration Office (HS SCO) is federally funded through the Administration for Children and Families - Head Start Bureau. The Nevada HS SCO is housed in the Director's Office of the Department of Health and Human Services. Although the HS SCO is funded federally, it is considered a state entity and, as such, reports to the State of Nevada in terms of accountability and authority. The mission statement of the Nevada HS SCO is as follows:
"Through statewide partnerships, the Nevada Head Start State Collaboration Office enhances relationships, builds systems, and promotes quality services to meet the needs of young children and their families."
In other words, the Collaboration Office facilitates a coordinated approach to planning and service delivery by building linkages, encouraging widespread collaboration, and by helping to build seamless early childhood systems for all low-income children.
The HS SCO works in eight initiative areas to:
- Improve access to health care services
- Improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of child care services
- Improve collaboration with welfare systems
- Expand and improve education opportunities in early childhood programs
- Initiate interaction with community service programs
- Improve opportunities for children with disabilities
- Improve access to family literacy services
- Improve coordination of services for homeless children and families
A partnership committee composed of representatives from various state and local agencies, including Head Start, assists the HS SCO director and a five-person leadership team in determining priorities and ad hoc work groups. The partnership representation reflects expertise across the various initiative areas and committee members participate in annual strategic planning sessions that develop the SCO annual work plans.
Specifically, the Collaboration Office partnerships are intended to:
- Assist in building early childhood systems in order to improve access to comprehensive services and support for all low-income children
- Encourage widespread collaboration between Head Start and other appropriate programs, services and initiatives
- Facilitate the involvement of Head Start in the formation of State policies, plans, processes and decisions affecting the Head Start target population and other low-income families
The HS SCO grant is not intended, and in fact is prohibited, from:
- Providing direct-services to Head Start families
- Providing Training & Technical Assistance to Head Start program staff
- Supplanting the work of the Regional Office
HS SCO Activities - Specifics
Much of the work the SCO does is on-going, though some of the work requires specific system development between program grantees and potential partners.
Examples of on-going work include:
- Participation on various committees and boards, such as the State Council of Libraries and Literacy, the State Homeless Policy Academy, the Nevada Registry Advisory Committee, the Nevada Association for the Education of Young Children State Board, etc.
- Quarterly/bi-annual site visits to Head Start grantees throughout the state.
- Facilitate cross-training sessions between Head Start program staff and State Welfare staff in order to enhance referrals to Head Start and enable Welfare staff to gain a comprehensive understanding of Head Start services.
- Participate on the State's Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) development process.
- Work with the State Department of Education in order to further collaboration between Head Start programs and state-funded pre-kindergarten programs.
Examples of specific projects include:
- Conduct an oral health survey, using information collected to design a plan for the provision of dental services to Head Start children throughout the state.
- Develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Nevada Head Start Association and the Early Intervention Services Bureau for the provision of services to children with disabilities.
- Design and implement an annual self-evaluation process for the HS SCO.
- Compile data from the Family Matrix Evaluation models to evaluate family literacy needs on an agency-by-agency basis.
- Develop an MOU with the Welfare/Child Care Assistance Division for the provision of childcare funding to HS programs for full day, full year care.
- Work with the state institutions of higher education to increase the number of AA and BA degrees that Head Start staff earn, including higher education specific to working with English Language Learners.
Contact Information
Margot Chappel - Program Director
Reno, Nevada 89502
Email: mchappel@dhhs.nv.gov
Phone: 775-684-4195
Fax: 775-684-4010
The website address is:
http://www.dhhs.nv.gov/HeadStart.htm