Mission
YNHS implements quality early childhood education, culture, language, and continuous support to empower diverse Native children and families.
Head Start Goals and Objectives 2017-2022
Goal 1: Expand the usage of the Yakama Language in the Yakama Nation Head Start community.
Objectives
- Develop five Yakama Language Tools, i.e. posters, work pages, cards, etc., for implementation during preservice.
- Start each staff meeting and family nights with identified emphasis words and phrases
- Identify four categories/groups of words, such as numbers, colors, families, etc., that are culturally relevant and conduct training during preservice.
- Fund a Cultural/Language Specialist Position and define a position description that is responsive to community needs and hire individual during summer break.
- Create a take home method to facilitate language education at home with the family and implement by winter quarter 2017.
Expected Outcome: Yakama Nation Head Start hopes to increase the average number of words used by individuals in the program and community.
Goal 2: Increase support and education about positive social and emotional (mental health) development and the long lasting effects.
Objective
- Develop staff training to identify and educate about secondary trauma that can exist in staff. Conduct training during fall quarter in-service.
- Reach out to community resources and partners to extend the reach of Head Start’s work.
- Conduct a social and emotional staff assessment prior to the end of the 2016-2017 school year.
- Evaluate curriculum fidelity in mental health curriculum, Second Steps.
- Conduct training for staff on Adverse Childhood Experiences during staff preservice.
- Develop informational media to distribute to families throughout the year starting in Fall Quarter 2017
- Conduct at least two information sessions about the positive social and emotional development for children at Family night, events, or meetings
Expected Outcome: Yakama Nation Head Start hopes to build skills in children that will allow then to be successful in the classroom and community throughout life.
Goal 3: Help families to increase financial literacy knowledge and identify resources in the community
Objective
- Identify resources in the community that can provide trainings for families to be conducted during family night/meetings.
- Identify, research, and/or create media (both print and electronic) to provide information about financial literacy for families.
Expected Outcome: Yakama Nation Head Start hopes to create strong and independent families that will be able to support their children through their educational endeavors.
Part 2: School Readiness Goals
School readiness goals articulate the program’s expectations of children’s status and progress across essential domains of child development and early learning that will improve children’s readiness for kindergarten. Our goals are broad statements that articulate the highest developmental achievement children should attain as a result of Head Start services. Agencies outline the steps of progression toward these goals through a developmental sequence of age- and stage-appropriate behaviors, skills, and knowledge that children need to acquire to accomplish each broad goal.
YNHS measures children’s progress at two levels:
- Individual Child – The purpose for tracking child level progress is to develop individualized curricular plans and initialize conversations between YNHS staff and parents in an ongoing manner. YNHS prints child profiles from Teaching Strategies Gold to help summarize child level data to share with parents and inform staff.
- Program-Wide – The purpose of tracking children’s progress at the program-wide level is to assist in the program’s self-assessment and continuous improvement plans to ensure quality. YNHS aggregates data three times a year at the end of each quarter. This information is shared with those invested into the program.
Yakama Nation Head Start uses the information learned from the analysis and reporting of aggregated data to do the following:
- YNHS uses the information to understand our program’s status.It allows us to be thoughtful and thorough in our program planning. Furthermore, we use the existing evidence to inform management, staff and parents about program, family, and child outcomes.
- YNHS also uses the information to begin possible changesto procedures, tools, and practices. YNHS documents ideas, discuss with others, create hypothesis, determine next steps (including no action, small adaptations, or big changes), and continues to gather information and evidence over an extended period.
Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development School Readiness Goals
Primary Goal: All children will use their five senses, large muscles (gross motor skills), and small muscles (fine motor skills) to explore their home and school environment in a safe, nutritious and healthy way.
School Activities
- Family Style Meals-children help set up, serve and clean up
- Healthy Nutrition Classroom Activities
- Outdoor Structured Group Activities
- First Note Music Lesson: Cultural Guest, Instruments, Song, vocabulary
- Creative Curriculum Teaching Guides include: Interest Areas, Question of the Day, Large Group, Read Aloud, Small Group, Mighty Minutes
Family Engagement Activities
- Ensure child gets enough sleep
- Teach child to take care of self by brushing teeth, washing hands, using restroom and getting dressed
- Allow many opportunities to run, jump, dance and throw/catch balls
- Participate in annual Health Fair to ensure health records are up to date
- Creative Curriculum Family Partnerships Section
Yakama Culture and Language
- Pow wow and flute music available in music and movement center
- Provide drums available for each classroom
Social & Emotional Development School Readiness Goals
Primary Goal: All children will learn to express, recognize and manage positive interactions with adults and peers in their school and home environment.
School Activities
- Daily classroom schedule posted & consistent routines
- Second Steps Weekly Themes (1-28) and Talking About Touching (1-15)
- Creative Curriculum Teaching Guides include: Interest Areas, Question of the Day, Large Group, Read Aloud, Small Group, Mighty Minutes
Family Engagement Activities
- Help child make appropriate and respectful choices
- Provide opportunities for child to interact with family, friends and community members
- Second Step Family Letter and Home Link Weekly Activity
- Creative Curriculum Family Partnerships Section
Yakama Culture and Language
- Introduce self in language (name)
- Become familiar with family member titles (mom, dad, sister, brother, grandparent)
- Learn emotions in language (happy, sad, angry)
Approaches to Learning School Readiness Goals
Primary Goal: All children will demonstrate awareness of a variety of topics, experiences, and tasks at school and home.
School Activities
- Children help create classroom rules
- Appropriate care and use of classroom materials
- Structured Small Groups (Interest Areas)
- Classroom labels with pictures & words
- Incorporate Job Helpers
- Creative Curriculum Teaching Guides include: Interest Areas, Question of the Day, Large Group, Read Aloud, Small Group, Mighty Minutes
Family Engagement Activities
- Set up home daily routines to help child know what is coming next
- Set up time each day to follow child’s lead in play
- Second Step Family Letter and Home Link Weekly Activity
- Creative Curriculum Family Partnerships Section
Yakama Culture and Language
- Develop labels, flash cards, or word charts in language to post around the classroom
Cognition School Readiness Goals
Primary Goal: All children will use problem solving skills, symbolic thinking, and exploration to learn about varying topics including, organizational structures (i.e. Families, Classroom, etc.), knowledge of self, number knowledge, and spatial awareness at school and home.
School Activities
- Discovery center have basic tools and one of the following – life science, physical science or earth science
- Creative Curriculum Teaching Guides include: Interest Areas, Question of the Day, Large Group, Read Aloud, Small Group, Mighty Minutes
- Building Blocks: Whole Group, Work Time, Reflect and Assess
Family Engagement Activities
- Play counting and matching games with your child
- Explore outdoors to look for shapes, colors, nature materials
- Allow your child to take care of plants or animals by feeding and watering
- Building Blocks Family Letters
- Teaching Strategies Parent Guide Math Right From the Start (YNHS Math Night)
- Creative Curriculum Family Partnerships Section
Yakama Culture and Language
- Count 1-10 in language
- Create Root Digging book that shows the process from beginning to end
Language and Literacy School Readiness Goals
Primary Goal: All children will use Language, Literacy, and Writing Skills to positively communicate and interact with their surroundings at school and home.
School Activities
- Books in all areas of the classroom
- Use basic sign language for communication
- Recite nursery rhymes and songs
- Recognizing alphabet and letters in name
- Show and tell with classroom
- Creative Curriculum Teaching Guides include: Interest Areas, Question of the Day, Large Group, Read Aloud, Small Group, Mighty Minutes
Family Engagement Activities
- Read favorite books with your child and ask questions
- Visit the library together to explore books
- Help your child identify letters in magazines or newspapers
- Encourage child to child and child to adult conversations
- Use of sign language and basic signs
- Creative Curriculum Family Partnerships Section
Yakama Culture and Language
- Insert labels into common children’s book
- Create a take home method to facilitate language education at home
Tribal Goals and Objectives 2020
- The Head Start Management Team (consisting of coordinators and supervisors) will develop tools and processes to streamline services provided to families and community through increased efficiency in service delivery model for the SY 2019-2020 as measured by a parent survey.
- Each service area component coordinator (nutrition, health, safety, education, family, transportation, mental health, and disabilities) of Head Start will use the tribe’s model to develop goals and objectives. Goals will be finalized and shared with staff in March 2020 In-Service.
- Head Start administrative and component staff will review program forms (January 2020) to eliminate any redundancies or overlap to help streamline the application process and service delivery (Completion June 2020).
- The Head Start staff will work to increase the use and awareness of Ichishkíin (Yakama Language) within the school and community.
- Head Start will host a monthly language meeting for staff to continue their use and knowledge of Ichishkíin.
- Director, Education Coordinator, Tiináwit Sapsikw’łá, and Ichishkíin Sapsikw’łá will work to create an assessment tool that can measure the growth of children in pre-k to kinder in Ichishkíin.
- The Head Start staff will work to increase education and knowledge of Tiináwit (Yakama Culture/Way) for children and families.
- Tiináwit Sapsikw’łá, teaching staff, and other staff will work with staff to create 14 ḵ’ɨx̱li í (tule mats) for meal times in the classroom by February 2020.
- Head Start (Director, Tiináwit Sapsikw’łá, and teaching staff) will host a ḵ’ɨx̱lí (tule mat) making class for families and community in December 2020.
- Office Assistant and Bookkeeper will work on ordering children and teacher additional digging sticks by February 2020.
- Head Start Collaborative Action Team (a team from various component areas) will work to coordinate activities and trainings that address mental health and work place burnout.
- Head Start Collaborative Action Team will host quarterly positive Mental Health activities and events (October 2019, December 2019, and March 2020)
- The Head Start Collaborative Action Team will work with Bookkeeper to bring in a facilitator for mental health training and activates for March 2020 in-service.
- The Head Start Collaborative Action Team will conduct staff survey to identify high stress elements of jobs in November 2019.
Yakama Nation Head Start 