Kansas Head Start Association

In 2023, Kansas Head Start Association continued the organizational mission of raising the advocacy voice of Head Start parents, programs, and partners through professional development, collaboration, and innovative leadership. The organization continued to: support Kansas Head Start programs with monthly and quarterly networking opportunities; provide grassroots advocacy training through our parent leaders with support from a statewide organization; offered multiple virtual parent health literacy training sessions to teach providers how to communicate with parents with limited literacy skills; offered a variety of virtual professional development opportunities including a series on safety, secondary trauma, motivational interviewing, teacher retention, qcit assessment training; assisted with planning and/or providing workshops at the Kansas home visitor virtual conference, parent leadership conference, and Kansas state department of education conference; continued engagement with statewide early childhood education system planning efforts, including a third year as a member of the Kansas early childhood recommendations panel; engaged with the national Head Start Association to address ongoing Head Start workforce challenges and advocate for increased funding to support programs; partnered with the Kansas Head Start collaboration office to continue statewide work on kindergarten transitions in communities.