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Chapter Seven
PROMOTING PARENT ACTIVITIES 

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"She has been recently separated from her husband. She has a twelve-year-old who is having problems in school. She has a very sick two-year-old. She is a Head Start mother. She is involved with her own problems yet she wants to be involved in Head Start."

Head Start parents bring to the program a degree of strength, stamina and resilience seldom required of their more affluent peers. They often must cope with pressures far greater than those of dealing with an active preschooler. Limited income, sporadic employment, poor housing and personal problems add to everyday stress. Consequently, Head Start seeks to fortify parents and build on their strengths by offering resources and support to draw upon. Parents are invited to design activities and experiences that will nourish and refresh them. The parent involvement coordinator helps parents assess their needs and plan programs to meet them.

ASSESSING NEEDS

Assessing needs begins with understanding. Understanding the vast range of human needs. Understanding parents - their problems as well as their expectations. The parent involvement coordinator must be perceptive, hearing not only what parents are saying, but also what they mean. Further, the coordinator must realize that what parents view as their needs may differ from the coordinator or staff's perception of what these are: This may be difficult for there is often a tendency to project one's feelings onto others. To effectively involve parents in the program, the coordinator must be certain that the basic needs of parents have been satisfied and must help them solve any individual problem which might preclude their participation. After this is accomplished, the coordinator should encourage parents to openly explore what type of program would best suit them. With this knowledge, the coordinator will be more adept at helping parents design a program that will not only meet their interest and needs, but also keep them actively involved.

Understanding Hierarchy of Human Needs
All people have basic needs which are necessary for survival. But other needs must be satisfied too in order for people to feel good about themselves. A prominent psychologist, A.N. Maslow, has devised a graded system or hierarchy of human needs to help people understand which needs have to be met first. According to Maslow, people's most basic needs are physiological. Next, in order of importance, are safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs, and finally self-fulfillment needs.

Self-Fulfillment Needs Seld-Esteem Needs Social Needs Safety Needs Physiological Needs

Although, to some extent, people constantly try to satisfy all of their needs, they devote most of their energy to the level of yet unsatisfied needs in the hierarchy. As needs at one level are satisfied, the individual is freed to turn his attention and energy to meeting those at the next level.

Physiological needs include those that a human body must meet in order to stay alive and to function adequately - food, clothing, and shelter. People take these necessities for granted unless they are not satisfied.

After physiological needs are satisfied, safety issues take precedence. People need guarantees that they will be protected from potential danger, treated fairly, and that they will not be deprived of something that is reasonably theirs. Laws, job contracts, and union agreements express these guarantees.

With the fulfillment of safety needs, a person's social requirements become important to him - cultivating friendships, pursuing recreational activities, and becoming identified as a member of a group. Churches, clubs, organizations and institutions are means of personal satisfaction.

When all other needs are adequately satisfied, a person focuses on fulfilling his potential. By making good use of his abilities and skills, a person has a sense of accomplishment which  enhances his self-image and increases his self-confidence.

This simplified version of Maslow's heirarchy is but one explanation of what motivates people to behave as they do. There are many cases in everyday life when people pay more attention to higher level needs than to basic ones, or work to satisfy many levels of needs simultaneously.

PARENTS' NEEDS AND WAYS TO MEET THEM

Parent's Needs	How Head Start Helps	Community Resources*
1. Physiological needs:  food  clothing  shelter  health	1. Identifies resources for parents, makes referrals and follow-up.	1. Public assistance; aid to dependent children; public housing; food programs; health clinics; alcohol and drug abuse programs, weight control programs, Planned Parenthood.
2. Safety Needs:  job security  evnironmental safety  civil rights	2. Identifies resources, makes referrals, and educates kparents about rights and satisfaction of grievances.	2. Civil laws, including anti-discrimination, housing, consumer, and health legislation; legal aid; employment training; social security benefits; union and job contracts.
3. Social needs:  affection friendship  family ties  group membership	3. Provides opportunities for socializing and recreation, developing parenting skills, planning and participating in center activities.	3.Churches; neighborhood community organizations; mental health programs, including individual, family, and group counseling; Parenting Without Partners; senior citizen centers.
4. Esteem needs:  self confidence  independance competency knowledge  recofnition  appreciation  respect	4. Provide opportunities for participating in policy groups and training for decision-making and participation in civic activities; recognize contributions, skills, and services of parents; refer to community resources for skills and career development, adult education.	4. Adult education programs, church and community organizationss, ploitical and civic groups, volunteer services.
5. Self-fulfillment needs:  development of personal abilities, skills, creativity.	5. In addition to above, provide opportunity for unique individual parent contributions and refer to community resources for individual development.	5. In addition to above, art and cultural activities, groups promoting human growth and potential.
* See appendix for additional resources and materials.

Needs of Parents In General
"Parents Are People Too," goes the song title from Free To Be, and so they, as people, have all the needs described above. But as parents with children dependent on them, they may experience their needs more intensely and devote more energy to fulfilling them. Parents initially will be preoccupied with obtaining food, clothing, and shelter for their children as well as themselves. When these basics are met, they will be concerned with their family's security. However, if their own needs are not satisfied, parents will have little desire or energy to satisfy the higher-level needs of themselves or their children.

Parents tend to put their children first, even if this means depriving themselves of necessities. But if parents' own needs, both basic and higher, are not satisfied, it will be difficult for them to respond to the higher level needs of their children. Parents must be happy with themselves in order to be effective parents. Unhappy, tired, lonely parents have little to offer their children. Consequently, any program aiming to help parents help their children must first help parents help themselves. For this reason, the Head Start program provides opportunities for parents to satisfy their own needs at many levels.

Being a parent carries its own set of worries and considerations, and parents might need special reassurances. All parents have children that sometimes cry, scream, fight, or refuse to eat. It is reassuring for parents to know that other parents share their problems - that all children at some time react in similar ways. All parents periodically question whether or not they are raising their children "correctly." Parents need reassurance that they are doing a good job. Parents, too, need time to themselves, alone and socially, for rest and relaxation. Most parents infrequently take this time and, when they do, they often feel guilty. Parents need to know that this time alone is important for themselves and enhances their relationships with their children.

The parent coordinator and other social services staff can help parents identify and assess or rank their needs in order of importance. Identifying and assessing needs is a gradual process, subject to continual revision. Parents' needs may change as they become more aware of program services and their roles as prime educators of their children. In the following chart, parents' needs, as described by Maslow, are listed with suggestions of ways in which Head Start can help; some community resources for meeting needs are identified.

Parents With Special Needs
Because of their living situations, roles, ages, or problems, some parents may have special needs. These parents should know that the coordinator is aware of how this may affect their daily living and coping and that the coordinator is willing to discuss what they can do together to relieve some of the pressures. In addition to ongoing and informal support, the name and phone number of a person at an appropriate agency, an informal discussion with other parents faced with similar problems, and some groundwork on job leads are ways a coordinator can offer help to a parent.

Groups of parents with similar needs find valuable resources in each other, and a coordinator who can provide a place to meet, babysitting and transportation services has done much toward helping parents to help themselves. Each center may have:

• Working parents who need to talk through their ambivalence about being out of the home, to share ideas and resources on day care, to role-play job interviews, to practice resume-writing, to be assured that quality of time with children counts more than quantity.
• Migrant parents who need to arrange for medical and dental examinations for every member of their family, to find recreation for their older children, to have access to a parent lounge where they can relax over a cup of coffee at the end of the day.
• Single parents who need to find someone they respect who will listen to their feelings about raising a child alone, to work out cooperative babysitting and transportation arrangements, to have social outlets and contacts, to receive accurate information about child support, custody, and credit.
• Parents of children with special needs who need to discuss their own feelings about their child's obstacles and frustrations, to have concrete information about local health, educational, and counseling resources, to have ready access to professionals who can answer questions about childrens' special needs and how to cope with them.
• Parents with health problems who need to find self-help groups concerned with alcoholism, drug abuse or obesity, to file applications for medical insurance and health care programs, to enroll, -in clinics that can provide ongoing care.
• Non-English speaking parents who need to know where courses in English are being offered, to know that their own culture and customs are respected and prized, to meet other members of their ethnic community and participate in activities and traditions meaningful to them.
• Teen-aged parents who need to have ongoing support from adults and peers through discussion groups, to find reliable day care services, to receive accurate information about contraception and the responsibilities of parenting.
• Pregnant mothers who need to have access to regular health care, to be familiar with community services dealing with nutrition, childbirth, breastfeeding and birth control, and to discuss problem pregnancies.
• Foster parents who need to know they are not alone in handling the special needs of the children charged to them, to receive coordinated assistance from community agencies, to have outlets for recreation and relaxation with other adults in the program.
• Adoptive parents who need to have opportunities to discuss how and when to tell their children they are adopted, to find ways to help siblings accept an adopted child, to have support groups of other adoptive parents, to find financial assistance, if necessary.
• Grandparents who may need to receive help with transportation, to be encouraged to seek out activities for themselves, to find employment at the center, to vent feelings and discuss problems about raising grandchildren.

Techniques For Assessing Needs
Individual needs assessment can be a natural, informal, ongoing process throughout the year as the coordinator and staff members respond to parents' questions and discuss problems. Alert staff members become aware of the many subtle ways parents express their needs, and seize the moment to reinforce a positive step a parent has taken, or to suggest that they build the next parent workshop around a behavior problem a parent is worried about.

More formal needs assessment begins with the recruitment process, when parents first learn about the Head Start program and begin exploring how it might help their own families. The social services staff plays a major role in helping parents define their individual-needs and those of their families during these initial interviews and throughout the year. The parent coodinator, working closely with the social services director, is primarily responsible for assisting parents to assess needs that can be met through the parent involvement program. Staff members interview parents at home or in the center to determine their needs-and priorities. Questionnaires are useful guides to the interviewer. They outline what the coordinator needs to know about the parents' interests and expectations. This enables parents and staff to develop an individualized program to suit the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the family Parent involvement coordinators have found it useful to tabulate the results and share them with parents.

Parents assess group needs at informal social gatherings, regular meetings, or committee and council meetings. They do so in order to clarify what they want for themselves, their children, or the program; set priorities so they can proceed in an organized fashion; act in the most direct way to accomplish their goals.

The parent involvement coordinator or group leader can assist by triggering a discussion and summarizing results. Following are some "trigger devices" for beginning a needs assessment session:

• On a chart, list needs that parents have expressed in previous years.
• Distribute a brief needs assessment questionnaire and dicusss it together at the same meeting.
• Brainstorm a list of needs parents might have - accept and record all ideas; discuss ideas only when the list is completed.

During the discussion period, parents evaluate the needs expressed, and rank them in order of importance to the group. A list of needs emerges. Revisions and reassessments of items in the list should be made throughout the year.

DEVELOPING A PARENT EDUCATION PLAN

The annual parent education plan, a part of the parent involvement plan, is a schedule of activities, workshops, lectures, and discussions which the parents have arranged to answer questions, to improve their skills, and to be with each other for leisure and recreation.

Responsibility for developing the parent education plan rests with the parents, and all parents are invited to participate in the planning session. The parent involvement coordinator lays the groundwork, weeks before the meeting, with a phone call to every parent, each time referring to an interest or problem they revealed through the questionnaire or conversation they had together. The coordinator explains that parents will be meeting to decide how to follow through on interests and concerns they all have, and therefore every parent's input is needed. The coordinator should ask whether the parent will be needing transportation or babysitting services. The following week, one week before the meeting date, invitations or reminders should be sent to the home. Meanwhile, posters and notices should be posted throughout the center as daily reminders to parents of the forthcoming planning session. Invitations and notices should inform parents of the time, place, and purpose of the meeting. If babysitting, transportation, and refreshments are, to be provided that information should be included in the notice. At the meeting participants may be involved in some warming-up activities; perhaps refreshments could be available from the beginning and placed on tables so parents can eat and plan at the same time.

Content Of Plan
The content of the parent plan responds directly to the expressed needs of parents. Parent education and training which is required to be offered in each component to meet the Head Start performance standards should be incorporated as much as possible into the concerns expressed by parents but should not be forced into the program to the exclusion of information parents request. Content can be broken down into three areas: 1) parent education, to add to parents' and skills: 2) training activities, to increase their understanding of their roles and knowledge a functions in Head Start; and 3) activities to give parents an opportunity to pursue their own interests.

Following are some suggested topics for parent education.

• Child growth and development: Your child: infant to age five; the school age child; sex education; using community youth services; behavior management; discipline and setting limits; nutrition needs of young children; sibling rivalry
• The parent as educator: trips to take; games to make and play; toys to buy and make; using home materials; how to help in school; importance of TV songs, nursery rhymes and stories; the value of play; early stimulation for infants
• Consumer education: stretching the food dollar; consumer resources; installment buying, loans, checking and savings accounts, credit cards; do-it-yourself home repairs; income tax preparation
• How to get a job: reading want ads, writing a resume, and going for an interview; good grooming; literacy and basic education; civil service test preparation; high school equivalency diploma; physical fitness; English as a second language
• Family life: family planning; sex education; dealing with divorce and death handling stress; family counseling services

Listed below are areas in which parents might need training.

• Policy groups: policy-making procedures; parliamentary procedure; duties of officers; Head Start terminology; guidelines and policies; agenda; budgetary planning; developing program proposals
• Component planning committees: terminology; group decision-making; curriculum planning
• Classroom participation: observation techniques; role of volunteers, skills in working with children
• Staff recruitment: guidelines for hiring; interviewing techniques

Suggested below are activities which might interest parents:

• Create a new playground using old tires, inner tubes, ropes, boats, hoses collected by parents.
• Workshop on developing positive ethnic identity.
• Setting up lending library for toys, books, records and dress-up kits (shopping bags with various old clothes and props).
• Sessions on hair-cutting and styling.
• Sewing classes for clothes, home furnishings,  curtains for the school, perhaps culminating in a fashion show. Try sewing machine dealers for instructors and renting or borrowing machines. Get fabric remnants from shops. Parents can swap patterns or set up a pattern file.
• Home management and repair - invite dry cleaners to talk about spot removal, see if a local hardware store offers classes in home repair, have parents demonstrate use of tools for  carpentry, plumbing or electrical repair.
• Monitoring supermarket pricing, encouraging stores to stock certain items or boycott others.
• Car repair - have parent or local service station demonstrate basic maintenance.
• Spanish lessons for non-Spanish speaking parents.
• Gardening - group plot at center, plant sales, maybe of seedlings planted by parents.
• Cooking classes, food tasting party, study of can labels, publish cookbook, make dinner with new, nutritious foods.
• Hobby demonstration and display.
• Fire safety - ask local firemen to talk about fire prevention.
• Crafts classes, taught by parent; or someone from a local craft shop.
• "Everything You've Always Wanted To Know ...." Fairs with specialists sitting behind each  booth and relevant materials available: pediatricians, cancer detection personnel blood pressure technicians, food stamp representatives scholarship officers front local colleges and universities, universities, psychologists, etc.
• Parent singing group led by parent who plays instrument. Group can perform at center  meetings and in community.
• Exercise classes led by parent or person from community center.
• Family pot-luck suppers.
• Couples dinner-dance in school or community center.
• Bowling, basketball, or swimming teams.
• Demonstration of how to can and freeze fresh foods.
• Quilting bees, knitting and crocheting, classes.
• Square dance or hay ride.
• Flower-arranging workshop using fresh or dried flowers.

Once parents have determined their priorities, they can draw on a wide range of resources for ideas, expertise and materials. The Head Start staff includes persons competent in the areas of child development, early childhood education, physical and mental health, nutrition, and social services. Within the center itself, many kinds of materials and equipment are available. In addition, staff members have a wealth of knowledge of resources outside the center - associations, agencies, institutions, companies and individuals who can offer information and assistance in many areas. (A partial list of resources is included in the appendix). Parents themselves have many skills and talents that can be drawn upon in developing programs.

Methods And Materials
Most adults think of themselves as responsible, independent, and self-directed people, able to make their own decisions and run their own lives. They resent being "taught" and treated like children. They can benefit, however, from opportunities to learn what they want to know in a way that is comfortable for them. Because adults learn best when a variety of teaching methods are employed, the parent education plan should be a balance of large and small group activities, center and home-based meeting, formal and non-formal formats, and working and playing situations. Arenas for learning can be meetings, small group discussions, readings; projects, guided observations, workshops, lectures, field-trips, demonstrations, fairs, and picnics.

Opportunities to use many kinds of materials also stimulate parents' interests. Some materials are books, pamphlets, records, slides, films, filmstrips, art materials, craft and sewing supplies. Anything which invites parents to "jump in and get their feet wet" will make it easier for parents to get involved.

Scheduling Activities
Parent activities should be scheduled to allow for continuity in learning and variety in types of activities. Business meetings and social activities should take place regularly throughout the year.

Specific topics in parent education or skill development can be scheduled for several consecutive sessions over a short period of time. Policy groups and subcommittees may develop their own schedules. A schedule of regular meetings and activities should be made for the whole year, with allowances for later scheduling of specific activities. All activities should be scheduled to provide parents at least two weeks advance notice.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR PARENT ACTIVITIES

Funds for parent activities must be allocated through the regular Head Start grant or contract. Policy committees must anticipate such needs when developing program proposals and include parent activity funds to cover the cost of parent-sponsored activities.

While Head Start may have funds available for parent activities, in most instances it will be necessary to supplement those funds. Activities such as bake sales, car washes, garage sales, yard sales, and white elephant sales are ways to raise money. Additionally, these activities are positive ways of unifying parents as they work together for their common goals. Parent involvement may begin with a fund-raising activity and grow from there to participation in other levels of the program.

Parents have responsibilities for managing the parent activity fund in accordance with agency and Head Start policies. The monies in this fund may be put toward a project that will bring in additional funds:

• to buy items that will enhance the quality of the program, if there are no other funds budgeted for this purpose;
• to develop materials to increase parent interest and involvement in the program;
• for emergency loans;
• for parent education activities, professional instructors, or fees for classes;
• to gather, disseminate and publish materials on other state, federal, or local programs;
• as a cash contribution to the total Head Start program;
• the funds may not be used for advertising, for payment to staff, or for salaries to any individuals.

Grantee and policy groups shall determine the amount for parent activity funds each year.  Funds must be maintained, used, and administered by parent policy groups; funds are accountable for an annual audit; these funds are in addition to amounts specified in the Head Start budget for parent travel training, participation in special organizations and policy meetings and for babysitting.

The responsibility for establishing program activities and budget lies at two levels. The parent policy council is responsible for establishing program plans, priorities and activities on a delegate agency or county-wide basis. The center committee is responsible for establishing plans, priorities, activities and budget at the local level.

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