With the release of the Aligned Monitoring System 2.0 (AMS 2.0) earlier this fall many grantees have learned about an upcoming Focus Area 1, Focus Area 1, or CLASS review. You may have seen our earlier posts about establishing strong foundations for Focus Area 1 and Focus Area 2 reviews.
The release of the revised Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) in fall 2016 is not so far in the distant future. You might still be getting comfortable with the format of the new standards and aligning your policies and procedures. You may have new staff or staff who weren’t previously involved in monitoring visits who may now participate with the new monitoring approach. Compliance with HSPPS is a central aspect to monitoring and illustrating the design of your program and approach to implementation will all connect back to HSPPS.
With all of these factors in play, how can you be sure if you’re ready for a monitoring review? Foundations for Families can help to assess your program’s readiness. We have helped support grantees to prepare for many types of monitoring visits over the years. Now, we offer a unique service to help you determine how ready your program is for a review in the AMS 2.0 Focus Areas and CLASS.
Foundations for Families provides readiness assessment through onsite discussion, observations and use of tools. We help to orient grantees to the new monitoring approach and tool that will be used during the monitoring review. The AMS 2.0 approach is quite different than the prior monitoring method. We think it is important that everyone on your team feels comfortable and knows what to expect before a monitoring visit takes place.
Our approach also involves the use of a custom tool that we developed based on the AMS 2.0. We come onsite to your program and through interviews and discussion, along with observations, we complete the tool and assess your readiness for the review. If you’re preparing for a CLASS review one of our CLASS experts will conduct CLASS observations and scores in a sample of your classrooms. The result is a dashboard that helps you focus your attention on areas that need support while also showing you all the areas that demonstrate strong indications of being ready for the review. We’ll help you prioritize areas for attention and offer technical assistance to help ensure a successful monitoring review.
We know that monitoring preparation can be stressful generally, and with a new approach there may be challenges that are related to the new process and tools. Please feel free to be in touch to explore how we can assist your program to prepare for an AMS 2.0 review. As always, we would be glad to discuss the array of services available to meet your program’s unique needs.
Thank you.