The Office of Head Start (OHS) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) system supports program staff in delivering quality services to children and families. The TTA system offers support at the national, regional, and grant recipient level. While each level has distinct and unique functions, they are designed to complement each other. Structured, intentional, high-quality TTA supports the school readiness of children and their families.
National TTA
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), OHS, and the Office of Child Care (OCC) collaborate to offer TTA across early care and education programs. This joint TTA system supports early childhood education (ECE) programs and educators in delivering quality services to children and their families across the country.
Leading the delivery of TTA at the national level are four National Centers:
- National Center on Program Management and Fiscal Operations (NCPMFO)
- National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching and Learning (NCECDTL)
- National Center on Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (NCPFCE)
- National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety (NCHBHS)
The National Centers work as a team to give Head Start grant recipients consistent information from OHS across all service areas. Each Center has an area of focus and is staffed by experts who have extensive experience with Head Start programs and the development of effective interventions that make a difference in the lives of young children and their families. All centers contribute in the following ways:
- Communicate best practices and offer content-rich, practical resources and information that are effective in a variety of real-world settings to grant recipients, ECE partners, and TTA specialists.
- Offer training at regional and national meetings and institutes.
- Support the development of the regional TTA specialists.
- Communicate with local programs through email, toll-free numbers, and other forms of technology.
Regional TTA network
The 12 OHS Regional Offices work with four categories of regional TTA specialists: early childhood, grant recipient, health, and systems. Most TTA specialists, at the direction of a Regional Office, give on-site TTA to individual grant recipients, to clusters of grant recipients with similar interests, and at state and regional events.
Early childhood specialists include infant/toddler and preschool specialists. Their work falls into four broad categories: school readiness; parent and family engagement; professional development for grant recipient staff; and collaboration at the state level. Every Head Start and Early Head Start grant recipient has access to an early childhood specialist.
Grant recipient specialists are deployed by Regional Offices to work with specific grant recipients. The first priority is to work with grant recipient that have findings identified through federal monitoring reviews. However, the specialists may also be assigned to work with grant recipients based on Program Information Reports (PIRs), audit findings, or other data reviewed by OHS. As determined by the Regional Office, and time and resources permitting, grant recipient specialists may also conduct training sessions or provide TTA for individual grant recipients or groups of grant recipients that do not have an identified concern but wish to improve the quality of their program's systems.
Each region also has at least one health specialist. The health specialist serves as a link between the region and NCHBHS. In that capacity, the health specialist helps disseminate evidence-based materials and resources to Regional Office staff, TTA specialists, and local grant recipients. At the direction of the Regional Office, the health specialist also offers TTA to individual grant recipients or groups of grant recipients.
The systems specialist works closely with other designated OCC TTA staff, as well as with Head Start State Collaboration directors and others. The primary responsibility of this specialist is to participate on a regional team to identify cross-system coordination opportunities between OHS and OCC. As time permits, they may work directly with grant recipients or with groups of grant recipients.
Local Grant Recipient TTA
Local grant recipients receive at least 50% of all Head Start TTA dollars. They use these funds in accordance with their training plans to address needs that are specific to their local program. Examples include expanding teachers' qualifications, working with families after a community disaster, improving management systems and learning environments and helping parents support their child's literacy skills at home.
As grant recipients plan, they are encouraged to review services that are available at no cost from the National Centers, regional TTA specialists, and other experts in their state and local communities. That way, a grant recipient's TTA dollars go further to leverage and supplement existing TTA services.