Article via this link and attached here
Adobe Acrobat Document
• These concepts help us as we think of ourselves as well as how we think about the perspectives of families (e.g. simple routines, small pleasures)
• Our Baby TALK mission should guide us at all times. The approach, critical concepts and strategies are all important as we continue to intentionally provide services for families.
• Note: All of the supports the Learning Institute has developed follow the Baby TALK protocols, as this helps us to ground in the approach we know to be effective.
Reflections from the group:
• Bridget -#214 checking in with families because beginning true elearning this week. Needing to be thoughtful about overall demands on families as they learn a new system for their older children. “Going where families are” and “Coming Alongside”
• Lori-Bond County- We are thinking about moving from weekly to biweekly encounters with families. It is overwhelming with our own families at home. What is best practice?
This is a resource that Karen came across that helps us to pause and remember what is important
• Ellen-We honor your professional expertise in knowing your staff and the families you serve.
Each program will decide what is best for your community, program, staff and families
• Robin Dermody–feels supported by BT
• Cindy Weaver-important to hear reassurance from BT
• Jennifer Lubrant-hearing same thing from reflective supervisor groups as reassurance from BT
Reflections from the group
• The group had some questions about the forms.
• Veronica Marquez to Karen Dennis(Privately) : Hi Karen, Question, We observed that personal encounters events entered before this situation happened seem to be updated with the new virtual connection forms. Is this something that may affect the information entered?
• Ellen shared a view of Neworg (demo agency) and reviewed forms and new selections.
• We have added to existing forms rather than creating copies/new forms
• New questions on existing forms do not impact past Personal Encounters. The answers will be blank for these forms.
o HVGP – added questions to existing planning form
o Personal Encounter - Including Virtual Connection PCI – added questions to the existing PE form and updated the name of the form
o Personal Encounter – Virtual Connection: New form we have not had before 3/16/2020
• Mary – If we are only listening and discussing a PCI with a family, what do we mark on the PE documentation form? What about all the parent/guardian interaction “scores”
Ellen – Likely you start out entering more reflections - about the use of the strategies (supporting parental mastery) and what you learned from parent about child ‘s development, etc.
• Moving forward with in person home visits, we will likely keep the questions as-is. Each drop down has “in person” options
• Keeping the option for virtual, as well as selections for PCI could be useful for a number of reasons
o If, during flu season a family is passing around the flu for a month, would it be better to have a virtual PE vs. none at all?
o If, during an ‘in person’ HV, the child is sleeping, perhaps we’d want to mark it was discussion based vs. live interaction on that visit.
Geralyn Johnson : flu season, after moms deliver and may not want visitors,
Geralyn Johnson : i have a home visitor that is on crutches and can't drive right now this would be great for her
Bridget Bosch : I love the idea of that option for the sleeping child!
Briana Wright : Yes, the option for the sleeping child is great option.
• Julie Ritzema District 42- keeping a routine with district and hard to be accountable-It feels like we are duplicating the process for district-they are not sure what we are doing during the day?-
document the time they are at home and keeping up with the parents.-great responses from our program parents-rewarding –this is a learning curve.
• Arlene Vombrack - district is on hold and focusing on remote learning not on b-3 program. She is frustrated with district-district is requiring her to send them everything in addition to the consent.
• Arlene Vombrack: We are kind of stuck, as the lawyer and upper admin. need to approve all documents from last week before we proceed. They have not done it yet. They are focused on the remote learning from k through high school .
Responses/Reflections
• jennifer Lubrant : Arlene..that is heart breaking. We are so fortunate that our district and union are encouraging contact and our school board allows us to do what we feel is best. How frustrating!
• Alicia Duenas : We have to be on call from 9-3. Parent educators are contacting families and helping if need be, to drop off homework packets for our families and the older kids if needed. Our district has been great. Very flexible.
• Julie Ritzema: We are feeling stressed about multiple points of accountibility - district, model, etc.
• Kathleen Schlueter : We do not have to document time-we clock in and out 8-3, I meet daily with my staff using google meet
• Laurie Schneck to Karen Dennis(Privately) : Our district is not requiring any documentation.
• Mimi Zander to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We are expected to fill in the log available via BT.
• Mimi Zander to Karen Dennis(Privately) : Our district is requiring similar documentation from paras and other employees as well.
• Geralyn Johnson to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We were already sending the district predictable schedules. So we will continue with our typical routine.
• Vilbert Dominguez : In our District BSD2 Home Visitors fill out a Family Contact Note very similar to the one that BT created and they are using this to check what we are doing
• Kathleen Schlueter : I developed a plan that was approved by Superintendent. I covered every aspect of our program that we normally do and how we will move forward to continue to provide services from home. My staff is using this as a guideline and admin knows what we are doing. It is going well
• Marci Gutierrez : Kathleen Schlueter, could you share your plan?
• Vilbert Dominguez : In our District BSD2 Home Visitors fill out a Family Contact Note very similar to the one that BT created and they are using this to check what we are doing
• Megan Andrews : Pekin District 108 has to check in at 8:00am and check out at 1:00pm. Our building principal has placed trust in me to currently manage our program the best we can with BabyTALK's guidance.
• BT hopes everyone can be intentional in planning with families-do what makes sense especially with protocols
• Kathleen Schlueter : We do not have to document time-we clock in and out 8-3, I meet daily with my staff using google meet
Katey-West Chicago-Difficult to get resources in families’ hands as far as getting it out there. We have diapers and formula sitting here. They have stock pile just getting it out. No ISBE $ used for diapers Responses/Reflections
• Tiffany IWSE-drive through for parents to pick up every Monday for supplies and HV drop off on door step.
• Jennifer Lubrant : our school is all about the "comfort level" of staff regarding drop offs and pick ups
• Laurie Schneck : Our district is not allowing us to drop off. We have mailed packets and are also distributing diapers and wipes at food pick-up sites. Our district has ben very helpful in this regard.
• Kathleen Schlueter : I emailed ISBE abut purchasing, amendments, state reports - she said she sent my questions to a Covid 19 team and they would respond to me - they have not responded. I am also waiting for direction from ISBE. Very frustrating.
• Jenffer Lubrant : we have been approved in our budget to purchase diapers and wipes, I included about 200 dollars in each size... so I have purchased them. I had been meaning to order them anyway and I finally did yesterday.
• Laurie Schneck : Yes. We are the same diapers and wipes are in our original grant as part of our Helping Hands program written into the grant.
• Katey Baldassano : We order on Amazon and send directly to them.
• Arlene Vombrack : Hello…I like the idea of ordering from amazon for diapers, etc, So are you ordering and having it sent directly to the family or do you send it to you and then the materials need to be dispersed?
• Karen described Books by the Bushel -promotion for programs to send in excel sheet to mail specifically to family
• Laurie Schneck : Bond County LOVES Books by the Bushel! We use them all the time! We give our families books at every visit and alsways buy from them. Highly recommend.
• Arlene Vombrack : Alina Celeste, music presenter, is having free online music classes. She has come to our program and did really well. She does these with a partner who specializes in birth to one music and also is bi-lingual. I can send the info. to Ellen and if you can disperse it Ellen maybe someone might enjoy it. And being busy with music might cut the rate of growing abuse.
• Julie Ritzema to Karen Dennis(Privately) : Will your funding agent allow shipping costs so that you could ship those items? – Yes
Kathy Montesano : Hi everyone!!!!!!!! District 122 was on spring break last week. Our four home visitors started this week with our virtual calls home this week to all our families. We are filling out the new virtual connection encounter forms on Neworg but these first calls home are all focused on seeing how the families are doing during this shelter in place and if they need anything from us.
Responses/Reflections
• Ellen Walsh to Kathy Montesano(Privately) : this is absolutely expected and appropriate!
• Ellen Walsh to Kathy Montesano(Privately) : our first iteration of all of this was called "check-in"
Bridget Bosch : How many of you have access to your offices where you have your home visiting materials to put together bags/packets for your families?
Responses/Refections
• Geralyn Johnson : Not me @ Bridget. I was thinking of asking if we could buy learning kits and send them directly to parents.
• Laurie Schneck : We do not have access to buildings. If there is something we need we have to ask permission from Admin and they will get it to us. We were all instructed to take our things with us when we left a few weeks back.
• Alisha Duenas : We have access to our building. I am putting care packages together to have Parent Educators pick up next week and deliver next Friday.
• Laurie Schneck : If I or my secretary do need to go into the office to create book packets or for any other reason we have to let Admin know and then we have to check-in with district nurse to have temperature taken and sign that we are symptom-free. Basically...no building access without direct permission from Admin.
• Arlene Vombrack : We have not been allowed in any buildings .Tomorrow people can sign up and get their things for about 15 minute slots.
• Briana Wright : We will be allowed into the building, but we are not permitted to drop-off diapers or have parents pick-up. We might be mailing books and materials.
Erin Plumb : curious if anyone has attempted to do an intake/enroll a new family or maybe creatively address families needs who are on a waiting list?
Responses/Reflections
• Lori Winkler : We continue to reach out (virtual connection) to families on our waitlist.
• Katey Baldassano : We are checking in regularly with families on our wait list and families who were in the referral pipeline.
• Katey Baldassano : We are not enrolling new families right now.
• Katey Baldassano : We are not full, but it seems too overwhelming
• Laurie Schneck : We are not actively recruiting during this time. However, if we receive a direct referral of someone who is in dire need, we would enroll them virtually whenever possible.
• Kathleen Schlueter : We are not enrolling but including them on our contacts
• Alilcia Duenas to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We are not enrolling new families and have decided to keep any aging out kids in our program. I am calling all families on our waiting list..including those that I haven't screened over the next 2 days to just check in.
• Veronica Marquez to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We did a prenatal enrollment by conference call.
we mail the consent and they replied with their consent.
• Megan- 2 intakes over the phone screening eligibility and parent interview done. No ASQ
Laurie Schneck : I have staff asking about NewOrg being slow and taking over an hour to load. They say their internet streaming has been ok so is wondering if anyone else is experiencing NewOrg
sluggishness?
Lori Winkler : Staff is always asking if New Org could move faster in general.
Responses/Reflections
• Nichole talked about our previous work with NewOrg to work on response times.
• We will continue this effort and ask that the network provide as much detail as possible (times, what they are doing, screen prints, etc.) so that NewOrg may troubleshoot and try to replicate these problems.
Joy Sugihara : Has anyone attempted virtual group encounters at this point?
Responses/Reflections
• Jodi Thunder: did reading aloud to send to families and boogie dance on Youtube to honor groups
• Katie Stevens: 7 parents joining virtual group check-in via ZOOM after kids went to bed to talk and reflect with each other. Next week’s topic includes a guest social worker to talk together about managing stress. Also using group me app for group texting- they share and families share with each other
• Geralyn Johnson : I am considering doing Zoom Playgroups twice a month. With our routine songs and 1 home made learning game.
• What is the group app that you use, Katie?
• Katie Stevens : the app is called group me
• Kathleen Schlueter : We are not doing group encounters - our district will not let us use Zoom - we have to do google meet
• Geralyn Johnson : We are using ClassDojo
• Julie Ritzema to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We are asking parents to let us know what technology they have and what would they be comfortable with
• Laurie Schneck : I'm slightly concerned that if we offer Zoom only those families with internet capabilities and video/audio can participate. So, that would leave many of our most vulnerable families out. I'm unsure how to offer this without it seeming like we're leaving out some?
• Geralyn Johnson : you can call in for zoom
• Lori Winkler : Katie, are families using their phones or computer?
• Katie Stevens : both phones and computers for the zoom
• Briana Wright : We are using our FACEBOOK private group for our virtual spirit week. Also, our district has not allowed us to utilize zoom. We'll do a virtual group via FACEBOOK Watch Party
• Arlene Vombrack : We are not allowed to use Zoom, as we were told there is a lot of hacking of personal info. We cannot use DOJO. We can use Remind and Clever for calls, but for our IEP meetings and probably for our home visit calls we will use Google Hang out.
• Denise Joiner : If you enable the waiting room on ZOOM you have a less chance of people hacking your meeting.
• Megan Andrews : I think ZOOM sent an email that they all meetings will have a mandatory waiting room now.
• Laurie Schneck : Yes. Zoom has changed their settings. Waiting rooms are now mandatory.
• Additional email follow up after the meeting from Jennifer Lubrant:
From: Jennifer Lubrant <[email protected]>
Subject: Fw: Zoom Meetings
Just wanted to pass this info along regarding zoom meetings for those programs that are trying to operate through this format. Thought it may be useful for wording if someone needs to prove that they are using "secure" meetings. Thanks again for the meeting this morning. Take care!
I have had a few Zoom meetings with my students this week. My students and I have both really
enjoyed using it! I know that there have been some concerns about the safety of using this program and I have done some research on how to make sure my meetings are secure. I have not had any parent concerns yet, but I thought it might be good for me to explain the safety features I am using, in case there are some parents hesitant to allow their students to use this platform. (I am averaging about 8 of my 18 students per meeting and I would love to have more!)
So far I am
•Generating an ID for my meeting (instead of using my Person Meeting ID).
•I also post the invitations (links) only on our private Class Tag App, private Facebook group and through the students’ emails. (Unfortunately, at this age, I really need to post it in places that the parents will see the invitations. The students do not consistently check their emails.)
•I have not required a password though, because I would have to post it in the same place as I post the link to the meeting. I felt it would be just as secure as the link, and often my students might not be able to have that password readily available, (or be able to enter it correctly without assistance). * I would like your thoughts on adding a password or not though.
•I also set up a waiting room and must accept any student in the waiting room before they enter our meeting. (I plan to stress to my parents/students that they must have a familiar screen name before I will admit them.)
•The students are also muted on entry and I think I have it set up so that I am the only one allowed to screen share.
Some additional thoughts to add, you should always use a system generated meeting id and there is no need for a password for your meeting, so long as you are securing the meeting id, using the waiting room feature and have the participants muted on entry.
If you feel your zoom meeting may be hijacked or bombed simply end the meeting for all participants and regroup.
Mark Carpani
Director of Technology
Gillespie Community Unit School District #7
We talked about the PD survey we sent out the previously.
• Some do not recall seeing this
• We will resend this link and invite everyone to fill out.
Note from Alicia Duenas : Becky Bailey...Conscious Discipline is offering free 90 day membership. She has some great information on trauma is and offering her Trauma webinars for free.
Current PICCOLO/HOVRS A+ webinar -only date so far scheduled by the authors (4/6)
Are professionals able to access Ounce offerings?
• Megan Andrews : If anyone is aware of any professional development for reflective supervision please message me :)
• Katey Baldassano : Are the Headstart modules for reflective practice linked in there (googledoc on portal)? That is a good one for reflective supervision.
• Karen Dennis : Katey, it isn't listed yet
• Juile Ritzema to Karen Dennis(Privately) : Email would be helpful! The Ounce of Prevention is also offering great professional development
• Lori Winkler : We use Achieve on Demand. It’s great! They have very relevant trainings.
• Bridget Bosch : It is embedded in the TA section of the Ounce website
• Geralyn Johnson : We Love Achieve on Demand.
• Bridget Bosch: It is great to be able to start, stop and restart again when dealing with needing flexible schedules now for work.
• Katie Stevens : yes we get all our trainings through them for free
• Geralyn Johnson : i like that you can assign staff to trainings that they need based on their own performance
• Veronica Marquez to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We get many trainings from the Ounce and even to assign them to staff
• Mimi Zander to Karen Dennis(Privately) : If BT has any influence on offerings via Achieve On Demand, please request more offerings via recorded webinars vs having to be available at the time the webinar is offered. In particular, the Home Visitor Safety.
• Alicia Duenas : There is an Achieve on Demand..Home Visitor SAfety
• Mimi Zander to Karen Dennis(Privately) : We had to register for the HV Safety available in June.
• Lori Winkler : You can assign trainings as a Supervisor and use for professional development goals.
Staff can track their trainings and print them out.
Follow-up question on our communication methods.
• Previously this week, we sent an email to supervisors with 7 items listed, including the link to the shared googledoc for tracking new opportunities.
• Is this overwhelming?
• Would you prefer this go to supervisors and staff?
• Would you prefer a different communication method? FB group?
• We invite you to add to this list
• We looked at the googledoc together online to see where to find it on portal and the current contents
Responses/Reflections
• Laurie Schneck : Googledoc is helpful but letting us know when updates have been added would be helpful as well!
• Briana Wright : the email was helpful
• Marci Gutierrez : Letting us know of updates is helpful.
• Joy Sugihara : The email of professional development so we can forward to our staff teams is helpful!
• Veronica Marquez : I think it is very helpful receiving these prof opportunities by email.
• Jennifer Lubrant : streamlining to one person would be best for our team.
• Tasha Thompson : I like how it set up now
• Laurie Schneck : Filtering through Supervisors is very helpful! Allows me to distribute info at a pace that makes sense for our program without overwhelming them.
• Janice Crow to Karen Dennis(Privately) : send out an email there's new ones even if its an update to a form
• Bridget Bosch to Karen Dennis(Privately) : I think it would be helpful for updates to either be shared through email or on the NewOrg landing page like other notices are dsplayed
• Jodie Thunder to Karen Dennis(Privately) : I appreciate the emails. Sometimes it is difficult to remember to check all the different sites but we check email everyday multiple times a day.
• PD Survey to be resent
• Sent out email on Friday 4/3 to all supervisors ISBE-PI supervisors with ISBE response regarding buying diapers
• Geralyn Johnson to Karen Dennis(Privately) : hi is it possible for us to get a hard copy of the agenda?
o Karen Dennis to Geralyn Johnson(Privately) : the powerpoint will be included with the notes and posted on the Portal :)
o Ellen: Yes, we will send out agenda in advance for future meetings. We have not had capacity up until now to get to this sooner than the day before.
• Arlene Vombrack : We are down a home visitor…if the district allows me to hire during this, and I think they will, can this person start without the formal training? Where do we go with this dilemma?
Ellen: We are thinking about this and working on options. Our next step is to get the group of supervisors with new staff all together to better understand the best path forward. There are many considerations, which include at a minimum:
o Districts/programs determine the rules for when staff can begin working with families, although if not certified in Baby TALK, we need to have “stop-gap” options in place. e.g. BT hosts an overview and staff is supported by peers/and or supervisor in the time before the training.
o Staff availability to receive any intensive PD while working remotely.
o BT ability to maintain quality and fidelity of training via virtual methods. At this point it is most likely that certification will have to happen at next in person training we can schedule in the future. What do we offer between now and then for individuals and new HV as a group?
o Should supervisors be involved in the training options for new staff to better support them?
o What do reflective practice supports look like for new HV?
o How will new relationship-building during this time of crisis be handled? What is it like for the new HV? For the families? What are the potential concerns?
Tiffany Culpepper to Karen Dennis(Privately) : ISBE has a quarterly report due at the end of the month how does our virtual visits count towards this report?
Ellen: We are suggesting that Personal Encounters (not contacts) be considered virtual visits. These are planned, implemented, and documented with new PE forms using new protocols on our Virtual Services page of the portal. See guidance doc for the 2 levels of PE while we are only doing these virtually.
