Educare Central Maine to Scale Program Using Acceleration Grant
January 09, 2019
Educare Central Maine in their dedication to continuous quality improvement, submitted a proposal about their parent ambassador program to attend an Innovation Workshop at Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child, and were selected out of a number of proposals. During this intensive workshop, staff from the school learned about impact framework, philosophy and theory of change and, most importantly, how to take that information and apply it to their program’s content.
After attending the workshop, Educare Central Maine was even more focused on continuing their ongoing work to strengthen and scale their parent ambassador program. They developed a theory for change around their work and a plan to develop materials for their program in addition to working as a team on an ongoing basis to develop a replication guide.
As the recipients of a new, 3 year Acceleration Grant this year, the school has decided to focus on taking their parent ambassador program at Educare Central Maine and scaling it to create a state-wide program.
Staff from the school traveled to Washington State to see quality in action and how that state-wide program works. With their previous round of Acceleration Grants, Educare Central Maine applied to create a program for their school with consultation from Washington State. However, Washington State does not have a replication guide or evaluation guide for their programs. But that isn’t stopping the dedicated staff at Educare Central Maine from developing their own very successful parent ambassador program within their school. Educare Central Maine and Washington State Association of Head Start will work together over the next three years to develop a replication guide.
The school plans to split their new Acceleration Grant into 3 tracks to help accomplish their goals for their parent ambassador program and to scale the tremendous work they’ve accomplished so far:
- Turn their local school program into a state-wide program
- Work with 4 other Educare schools (Educare Seattle, Educare West DuPage, Educare Miami and Educare Denver) to develop similar programs
- Develop a parent ambassador alumni program to create a way for parents to stay involved
The school attended a convening of in October at Educare Seattle for a 2 day training that offered parents an opportunity to participate as well. They anticipate having another convening this spring.
