BFEM Webinar 4: Building Foundations Virtual Resource Fair and Networking
Brandi Black-Thacker: Good afternoon everybody. This is Brandi Black-Thacker and we hope that you are having a wonderful day. I hope after this you're having even a more wonderful day because we have all kinds of wonderful resources, ideas, forms, videos to share with you this afternoon in our continuing conversation on Building Foundations for Economic Mobility. Not only are we going to do some full screen viewing but we're going to be doing some video, you're going to get to look at forms.
And the coolest part is you're going to get to chat a little chunk of information. So, in real time, we can capture your questions, your curiosities, the enhancements, you know, maybe you're already using something out there and you want to offer some of your insights. We're going to be doing that all along the way. So, just commune with us because we're going to be trying some new things today and you've been so wonderful in welcoming and encouraging of this whole week. We thought you'd be the best group to try some our new tricks on and with.
And a couple of things, we're going to be showing--we're going to be playing some music during your chat portion a little later. So, for those of you that are dialed in on your computer, you're going to be able to hear that. And we'll have some chat prompts for you to sort of kick off some of our thinking after we do each of the chunks together today as we go along. All right.
Well, with all that, if you missed it that at the beginning and you don't know my country accent by now, my name is Brandi Black-Thacker and I'm the Director of Training, Technical Assistance, and Collaboration at the National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement. And I can't tell you guys, we've been so energized about each of the sessions that we've had with you guys this week that we just can't stop talking about how inspired that we are to continue this dialogue over the course of the next year. But also, everything that we learn from our experts inside, our leaders from the federal agencies that we've had the honor to be with this week -- so thank you guys for coming today, coming back and for hanging out with us for the next about, you know, hour or so.
I want to kick off our time together as we look-- I told you guys to remember these names and faces from earlier in the week from Webinar 2, Jennifer Medina from the CFED. We also have Patty Wilson with us, and Miss Lynne whose picture is going to be up here in the left hand corner of your screen, who are going to share with us a couple of tools, resources, and forms. With that, Jennifer, I'll turn it over to you. And just a warning/reminder, we're going to go full screen.
So, don't panic, my friends, chat is going to go away. I'm going to probably say it again because I don't want you-- you've loved it so much, it's coming right back. The chat function is going to go away just for a little bit while we look at these tools and forms full screen but it will be right back. So, if you have wonderings or questions, capture those on a piece of paper and we'll get back together, chat will be reinstated and we'll touch base with you there. OK. Now it's Jennifer with us. Take it away.
Jennifer Medina: All right. Thank you so much, Brandi. And good afternoon everyone, I'm really excited to be back with you all. The first resource which I think should be appearing in full screen shortly that I want to share with all of you is the Building Financial Capability, a Planning Guide for Integrated Services. This is a comprehensive planning guide. It was produced by CFED which is the nonprofit organization I work for. But we produced it for the administration for children and families with the goal of walking organizations step by step through the process of planning how they're going to provide or connect families to financial capability services or services that help build the financial security of our families. And the guide is available online as an interactive PDF. Currently, the easiest way to find it is really just Goggling Building Financial Capability and it will be the first link to appear.
The guide is intended for program managers and directors involved in strategic planning for their Head Start programs. It does not include financial information advice-- or advice to provide directly to families. The guide is intended to walk managers and directors through four key decisions that are part of the planning process.
So, in Section 1-- the guide is organized in four sections. In Section 1, there are three tools to help answer the question what financial capability services will we provide to client? So, this is-- should we continue to do financial education workshops? Should we be providing parents with access to credit counseling? Or maybe what they really need is a matched savings program. So this section helps you decide which services are you going to provide.
The second section includes four tools to help decide who will deliver the identified plans or capability services to your families. And then in the third section, you decide, how will those services be integrated into your program. Are you going to put together a do it yourself plan? Are you going to put together a referral plan? Or maybe you're going to put together partnership plan. And then finally, the crosscutting tool explores the question, how can we convince key stakeholders to support this work. And those stakeholders might be funders, they might be other staff, they might be parents. So, it can be used for any audience.
So, one tool in the planning guides that I want to highlight for all of you is Tool 9: The Referral Plan. And in my work with Head Start programs, I've seen referrals as one of the ways that programs connect families to relevant financial services. So, this tool helps you and the organization to which you'll be referring your parents, basically get on the same page about screening, preparing, connecting, and supporting parents.
So, in this tool, you would document all the things your staff needs to know to correctly screen someone before you refer them to another organization. Because the last thing we want to do is send our parents to a service for which they're not eligible or that they're not a good fit for. In the second part of the tool, you document everything you need to tell parents to prepare them to take advantage of the other organization service.
So, this might include writing down all the documents they need to take, what that meeting is going to look like, what forms they needed to take with them. And then in the connect section, that's where you write who is the contact person at the other organization and how are you going to get in to contact with that person.
And then, finally, in the support section, you would write how you plan to support the parent. For example, how are you going to ask about how things are going with that service even after you referred them? So, to give you a tangible example, I have a completed referral plan. I'm going to turn it over to Patty Wilson and Lynne McConnell. Patty is the Deputy Director of Early Care and Education at NeighborImpact in Oregon and Lynne McConnell is the Deputy Director of Housing and Assets at NeighborImpact. And they're going to walk you through a completed Tool 9 referral plan. So, Patty or Lynne, do you want to take it from here?
Patty Wilson: Yes. This is Patty. So, basically how we started with this tool is we did get our two sets of staff, the Head Start staff and the HomeSource staff together in the same room. And then we really talked how parents enter and engage in our programs. So, we looked at different connection points such as our enrollment visit, home visits, the conference, and while they're doing their FPA, their Family Partnership Agreement, and we looked at the most appropriate time to do that referral.
And also during this time, this is when we really started talking about who would be a good fit for the program and to move forward with the referrals to the source programs and families that probably aren't in the place where they should be referred. And then, we kind of brainstormed and, you know, made a list of questions that parents may want to know. And so that's where you see the--prepare and we found that telling parents that there's not-- you don't have to go to 10 sessions of individual counseling, that there's no limit, you can stay as long as you want or short as you want, have been really helpful.
And then you can see kind of down the prepare, you know, we'd let them know about how long it take the first meetings and, you know, if they have-- if they could bring their children, and then we really gave them developed materials so they have a take home with that list, everything that they can participate in. And then, the way we're doing it is we're working through our advocates. And our advocates are working with parents and having them sign an authorization to release information through our HomeSource partner.
And then, from there, each department can exchange information back and forth. Now we are--we developed--we have these meetings after school started this year. So, for the next school year, we are doing this on our authorized--you know, we a have a form that [inaudible] for many of our community partners that they sign at enrollment, so HomeSource will be a part of that and that all you have been streamline us more for next year. And then as far as the support, we are at every home visit. And after the meetings with HomeSource occur with our parents, the advocates are following up with the parents each time. So, I'll see if Lynne has anything to add? She says we're good. So, so far it's working really well. And the two teams, it's really formed a really good partnership between our department.
Jennifer: Excellent. Thank you so much for walking us through that, Patty. And we will pausing, I believe now, to see if folks has any questions about that. So, I'm going to turn it back over to you, Brandi. And you're going to have two groups on the call.
Brandi: Thanks so much Jennifer, Patty, and Lynne. I just love the tool as--one of my favorite parts about your tool. So, welcome back to chat everybody. I know you missed it. It's so fun to be in there and sharing with each other in real time. So, go ahead get your thoughts going while we're integrating ourselves back into the format of the--to which we're familiar. But one of the things, just a quick observation Patty and Lynne, that I really liked in your first column of that, I believe it was screening, that said like what would be a good fit, you know, and what might not-- you know, what might be a not so good fit.
So, if families who are feeling in crisis, they're having a real hard struggle, you were able to think through, you know, the folks that it might be best suited to sort of offer an opportunity yet like this one and really thinking about what that looks like. So, Jennifer, sent you to a link and to the guide right into chat. And let's see if you guys have questions. What kinds of things are you thinking about? What did the tool or the form inspire for you and what would you like to know more about?
Jennifer: This is Jennifer. I'm also curious to hear if you're already doing some type of screening or preparing or supporting of parents through that referral process. So, maybe you don't use a specific tool but you have your own ways of doing this, so I'd love to hear those.
Brandi: That's great, Jennifer. I do think from Philip here, a question about, Patty and Lynne. How long have you been using the tool? So Lynne, Lynne Johnson here in chat and says that you guys started this school year. Lynne and Patty, did you guys find that there were places where you had experienced like, oh gosh, you know, for when we revisit this next year where we continue to use this form as a working document, have you found already that there are places that you're going to want to enhance or tinker or did you do that in real time? What kinds of things have you discovered along the way?
Lynne McConnell: Hi Brandi, this is Lynne McConnell. Yes, this tool has been really, really helpful, the toolkit I should say generally, and helping us narrow down questions that we didn't even know that we had but certainly help our client customer process and flow so that we're supporting them better than we would have, have we not worked through the tool. So, yes, there is some lessons kind of as we go through it and reinforcement but the tool really helps walk you through all of the possibilities and makes you think through a lot of things that we just wouldn't have thought of had we not had access to it.
Brandi: Glad to know, Lynne. Thank you for that. Well, what else are you guys thinking about? And Jennifer, maybe for you, I know that you guys have had the chance to talk to groups all across the country about how they might utilize a tool like this and even others and I know you're going to highlight a couple more here for us in a minute. Have you heard from other groups any other advice, tips, tricks or stumbling blocks that they might offer so that if folks on this line chose to give it a try that they'd have the benefit of that info?
Jennifer: All right. It's a great question.
And I do want to say that, overall, toolkit or planning guide, really was built out of our work with organizations across the country and sort of putting together these individual tools to help them decide to assess how their parents were managing their finances now and assessing what did they want to learn about and deciding which services would be the best fit. And so, the tools and planning guide was put together kind of to pull those tools together into one place.
And so, I think what we're seeing is Head Start programs thinking about how are they already doing assessments or surveys or having conversations with families and parents about their financial strengths and opportunities and also some of their needs and challenges and what are the opportunities to incorporate some additional questions. Once you've established that trust, when can you start adding additional questions to better understand their financial interest and needs so that you can connect them to the right services?
Brandi: Jennifer, I love what you said and I think it really ties nicely into what Monica just offered in the chat which is, you know, this--and we've mentioned earlier this week, these are tough topics sometimes and people, not only those of us who do the work besides families but as families ourselves can feel [inaudible] without really diving into the depth, you know, information that might be necessary in these conversations.
So Jennifer, I just love the reminder of we have to be really grounded in a trusting relationship with— and besides our families to go into some of the, you know, dialogue and start in a small-- it's OK. You know, it's what we do, right? In Head Start-- in Early Head Start, this is sort of woven in the fiber or our approach. We know how to take small steps to make the progress in those relationships beside the families. So, it's a really great reminder that it's totally [inaudible]. OK, guys. Well, we're going to actually go on to Jennifer's turn because, you know, she is no one trick pony. She has all kinds of great things. Of course, we're offering up and we're going to look at another set of great information from Jennifer starting with another piece of the planning guide. So, how about that, Jennifer?
Jennifer: Sure. So, I also wanted to let everyone know that on the ECLKC website, you can find two briefs that we've published as a part of the office of Head Start Family Well-Being Resource Series. And those briefs are--one focuses on strategies for increasing parent participation and financial education activities, and that the other is called Family Service Workers and Financial Empowerment: Steps and Resources. And it focuses on steps and resources to build staff capacity to engage in conversations with families about financial topics.
In addition to these two briefs coming later this spring, we'll have three additional briefs, one that is a broad overview of the importance of increasing family well-being, to increase financial security. We'll be issuing a brief on assessing Head Start families' financial capabilities. So that gets to what I was commenting on earlier, some tips for how to do an overall assessment of families' strengths and opportunities and needs and challenges are.
So, you can tailor the services to meet those needs. And then finally, we are going to be coming out with a brief called Financial Coaching in Head Start Programs: Leading Families on a Path to Financial Security. And the financial coaching model is really based on having the family set the goals and being-- entering into a partnership and being a support person but really not, not giving advice or telling parents what to do but being that coach along the way as they work towards their financial goal. I also want to make sure everyone is aware of the Assets and Opportunity Network, which is a national learning and advocacy community focused on financial security issues. Excuse me.
So, the network includes 92 lead state, local and need of organizations who you can reach out to, to learn about who in your community might be able to help you provide financial capability services to your parents. And to stay aware of learning an advocacy opportunities that are offered through the network, you can all sign up for free to be general members by visiting the assestandopportunity.org/network page. And then finally, I want to let you all know that we will be launching a financial capability learning community for Head Start programs later this year. So, please watch for more information about that learning community which should be coming out in the spring.
Brandi: Jennifer, this is the exciting. I mean, I can definitely say with-- I don't want to say authority but with a little bit of, you know, experience that the research and practice papers you mentioned that were specifically targeted for and beside our family service worker community have been so successful across the country, partially because--of course I've been--had the honor to go out with you and share session to folks who have been using them. That also we've heard, you know, a lot of feedback that those have really tangible concrete ideas and so to see some other things that are coming down the pipe of the same [inaudible] also excited to see those finished products. So what about you guys? Let's hear from you.
Jennifer, she loved the new and exciting ideas with those briefs, some things that are coming soon. What thoughts do you have? What things are you using? We're going to pause just a second and let you do a little typing and then we'll check back in. Suzy, I can't help but think about your comment here about your financial foundations class. It looks like your county offers it and you've been a little surprised about how hard it is to talk about our relationships with money. It's interesting and with Jennifer's organization, the CFED, that I had this experience. I attended a meeting and they opened it.
I'm wondering about this for ease with our families and as we build those relationships on this topic.
They asked us to think about the earliest memory we had around money. Very simple, just think, think back right now your earliest memory that you had about money, whether it's something that you remember with the family member, something that you remember yourself as a little one. And it was so profound at the depth and diversity of comments. There were folks who grew up in more urban environments that remembered walking around the city and taking cash to pay for utility bills and how that really impacted what they do today as an adult.
And Jennifer, you know all the research about how--what we do as adults, impact the trajectory of our kids and what that looks like. So, we're thinking about this, not only for grown type folk-- in what we do together to sort of make sure, you know, everything that we want to be in order is that it totally impacts what happens with the little ones.
My example was, wow, I remember that my [inaudible] which is grandma in country speak, used to save money in the craziest places. You would go to her house and think you were getting potato chips from a can and really it was her piggy bank. She would have coins in corners and, you know, dollar bills stuffed in for a rainy day. And that was her savings account and that was her way to access it, and, let's be honest, keep it from people if she didn't want them to get any.
So, anyway, offer that here as just a really easy way to connect with folks if you want to open up the topic. It's very telling. Let's see what you're saying in chat. [Inaudible] say I love what you're saying here, the financial literacy, finances in general, this whole topic thing around money is something that continues to come up as a need for and by our families. So, I'm so happy that you're finding that these resources could be helpful for you.
Beverly, I remember saving coins in a piggy bank. Dawn, pick a card holder. Oh wow. You guys will have to try at your next parent meeting and see what happens. When you start collecting the stories, it's just so wonderful and we gather so much information here. Jennifer, any questions that you see that you wanted to pick up on before we transition to a new topic and some more exciting resources?
Jennifer: Sure. I just want to piggyback on what you were saying earlier, Brandi, and just--and some of the comments about how hard it is to talk about finances of parents. And I think part of why it's difficult is sometimes people think there is like a right and wrong financial decision, and that's all a lot of pressure. But I know that I've been doing some training where you think about-- thinking about what's the value that an individual is upholding by making a financial decision.
I know, for example, my sister always is lending money to the people and I'm always worried about her own expenses, but she is living out that value of generosity and caring for people. And the value I am trying to uphold is that's a personal responsibility. So, it doesn't mean that either—are right or wrong, but just engaging in these conversations with parents in a way that there's not-- there is information that they might need access to, to make more informed decisions and that additional education or information might influence how they make decisions. But ultimately, this is about what are your values and how do we link your financial decisions to be an expression of those values. And if you're doing things that aren't upholding those values, needs to change that. So, I don't know if [inaudible] point out but that's an answer that help.
Brandi: Yeah. Jennifer, I think that's really important. I mean, we all approach this dialog in a different way based on our own journey and our own approach to things whether it'll be problem solving or generosity. I love how you said that. They're looking out for each other and making sure that, you know, we are basically well.
And if you see some of the comments [inaudible] look at this. And Angela, I love what you said. We should set aside time to go over these topics and meeting with those staff and families. I mean, I have to tell you guys, sometimes as we had been preparing for this interaction over the course of the week, I've been wondering like, my goodness I don't feel so, you know, physically and financially savvy my own self, what in the world? You know, it can be a scary place. I think we can all benefit in creating the space to show the vulnerable part of who each of us are and how we come to the dialog.
It's just part of what we talk about all the time anyway in a way to build relationships with each other and beside our families. So, well, I'm going to move us along because we do have a few really exciting things to show you guys. And Kamryn, what I'd like for you to do- I just want to prep everybody, we're going to a video here in just a second. But first I would like Kamryn, who you guys heard speak yesterday, give a little introduction of herself and perhaps one of her colleagues, Miss Haley, who's going to join her today from OCDC. And we're going to show a video from the program. So Kamryn, I think maybe let's—you kind of set the context for the video and then after you're finished I'll give them specific instructions about what's going to happen and then we'll jump right in.
Kamryn: OK. Thank you. So, yesterday, I had the pleasure to introduce our on the job training program. And during that training, I briefly shared our family's partnership plan that we use for our motivation interviewing. And so, Haley is going to be joining me up in a little bit to talk about that. But before we get into that, we have a video that we're going to share, it's our parent testimonial video of one of our programs that we use to recruit our families for our programs as well as to show our partners in our programs that we partner with for support for them to help understand why we do with on our job training. So, here we go.
Brandi: Thank you, Kamryn. OK, to my friends. Let me tell you guys what's about to happen because the screen is going to change again. So, if you're typing in a thought, go ahead and finish it now, and then we'll come back--you can come back to it. Now, this is part of what I prompted at the beginning. We're doing some new and experimental type fun things today and this video is part of that. If you are dialed in on the phone, you're going to be closed captioning on the video but not hear a sound. So, don't feel like you're being shortchanged. And I'll say that again. If you dialed in on the phone, what you're going to do when we put the video up is you're going to see closed captioning so you're able to read the words as they come across the screen. If you're dialed in through your computer speakers, you will be able to hear the audio.
Now, here's the risk versus the reward. All of you come to us with different streaming feeds. So, it could be possible that your screen will freeze in the middle in the video, do not worry, I just want to, you know, make sure to calm any anxiety that I have now. This video is going to be available for you and on eClick as will the PowerPoint, archives, conversations, the chat, everything that we've shared with you this week. We're going to put on our Building Foundation for Economic Mobility portion of the PFCE ECLKC-- wow, don't we have some alphabet soup--on the website. So, it's just two minutes. So we're going to take just a quick second.
Susan is going to put us back in full screen. If you're dialed in on the phone, you will see closed captioning across the bottom. If you're dialed in with your speakers, you will hear the audio. If you have briefing, don't worry, you'll have access to it later, in two minutes. Ready, set, go, Miss Susan.
[video begins] [In Spanish] [video ends]
Brandi: Kamryn, of this video and just [inaudible] folks earlier in this week, I walk away with, I am that parent, I can do it, they can do it too, and just the incredible story that Maria shared with us and the impact that your program in particular and that internship program that you shared with us yesterday, had on her trajectory. And from her words, the trajectory of her children, it's so exciting; I got chills. And I'll see that Pat, already-- wow, that's amazing, loved it. It's a very inspiring and the idea of the internship program.
So, the other thing that we're going to do as well-- And Miss Susan, I wonder-- I see that-- OK, so some of you have some [inaudible] issues. What we want to do guys, because you had such an exciting reaction to this yesterday, is sort of let-- And Kamryn, as long as you're ready, as long as you and Miss Haley are ready, we wanted to go ahead and put up the family partnership agreement form that you guys got [inaudible] about yesterday. We have lots-- for it. So Kamryn, let me check in. Are you guys ready to go?
Kamryn: Yeah, yeah.
Haley: This is Haley and I'm definitely ready to go.
Brandi: All right, great. So welcome Haley, everybody. She's going to tell us a little bit about this form that you just could not stop raving about yesterday. Its intent and purpose may be a little bit of context, and we'll get from there. I see you have some fans already in chat, Haley. So, let me let you take it away.
Haley: Hey. So, thank you all for having me. And I'm glad that you guys are excited about this form. We're pretty excited about it over here as well. So, just to give you a little background, we based our form based on the ideas of motivational interviewing. And the way that motivational interviewing really allows the person to become the decider and the driving force for whatever direction that we're going to go.
So, I've heard lots of folks talk about how families really get to decide the path that they're going to go on especially for financial wellness. So, I guess, to take a step back, we use this form to really guide any direction that they want to go, and if it's financial wellness then that's wonderful. So the way that we design this form is to be very open-ended. So, you'll notice that it isn't a yes or a no question format. It really allows the family to visual--all the areas that we would like talk about. So, not only can we present this form in a format in which we are the family advocate, are--asking the questions with the family and getting feedback from them to start in other areas.
They can also just give the form to the family and let the family decide what kind of direction they want to go with the form. And all-- again, it's going to direct any kind of conversations that we are supplemented with the tools of motivational interviewing to be able to have those follow-up questions of what motivates them in that area and what have they done in the past that had worked well, and what have been the barriers in the path that have really kept them from being able to make those next steps.
So--And then, another thing that you'll see on the form is that we make sure to understand whether or not they are receiving services from another program, so that we duplicate the kind of efforts that we're putting into supporting the families and not reinventing the wheel. So, one more thing that I'll talk about on the front of the form is that we have utilized the family engagement outcomes to be prompt, for conversations that we want to have with families, then not only is that strategic to make sure that we are really targeting those family engagement outcomes but we can also tie that to our own professional feedback and making sure that we are seeing-- seeing that we're meeting those things and supporting those things with the family.
So, now, we can talk a little bit about the back of the form. In the back of the form is a wonderful thing especially for family advocates who maybe are new to job and maybe haven't been trained by motivational interviewing. And motivational interviewing really is new language to acquire. So we took that into consideration on the back of the form. And you'll see that there are lot of prompts for the family advocates to be able to use. But you'll see that there's really only a couple places in which there is a yes or no question. But no matter what with that yes or no answer, I meant to say, we follow up with an open-ended question.
So, again, we're letting the family really direct the areas that they want to go. And I think that the part that we stress the most with family advocates because that's mostly who's doing the work with their families, is prompting with tell me more about that. So we--any time we talk to family advocate, like they're really get stuck in the conversation, what they have with the family, just following up with tell me more about that, usually allow the family to go a little deeper and then we're able to really kind of distill the information that they're giving to us to be able to maybe bring that back to a goal that they didn't explicitly say that they would like to work on but we're starting to pick up on those cues and through motivational interviewing really helping direct that. So, at this point, I can take pause and see if there are any questions?
Brandi: Haley, thank you so much for that overview. There are so many things you said that are nuggets [inaudible]. I heard, you know, family engagement outcomes are always one of my favorite, you know, pieces and the motivational interviewing piece is certainly something we have partnered with our colleagues at the National Center on Health and Wellness around and have done some joint sessions.
So, you're just-- are speaking our language over here. So, let's see. It looks like-- Let's see what happening in chat other than the excitement here. You guys have questions, thoughts, curiosities, additions; things that you are doing you want to share?
I'll pause for quick second here and see what we can learn from you. Well, let me ask you this, Haley. I know that this question has been prevalent for us across the course of the week. Is this form both front and back something that you guys have available in Spanish?
Haley: Yeah, that's a wonderful question. So, we do have the form available in Spanish. And I should have mentioned that if folks would like to share their email addresses, we can take that information down and then be able to distribute it as well. But again, one more time, yes, we have had this form translated into Spanish.
Brandi: That's excellent, Haley. And I'll tell you guys, if that's OK with you all [inaudible] see the emails coming already. And we can post it for you with your permission, that way you guys don't have to worry about skittering in your email addresses, and that Haley, you guys don't have to use your valuable time to try to disseminate.
Haley: No. OK--
Brandi: We're happy to just put up with every--with all the other good things so you can have the-- both the English and Spanish versions for your use. And that-- I can't believe you guys, I mean, I was a Head Start director at one point and there was always such a value of this kind of conversation and the sharing of forms that, you know, policy, ideas just like this one. And I can't tell, you know, all the groups from this week, what a gift it's been not only to share in this dialogue but to be the recipient of, you know, forms and these tools that you guys have offered us today.
Let's see, I see all email addresses still coming. You're welcome put it in there, guys. We will keep them but what we'll do is put both forms the English and Spanish version up on eClick on our Building Foundation for Economic Mobility site in just a couple of weeks, along with these recordings, the PowerPoint, any of the handouts. All right, well, I know that we'll have to close out, start closing out here.
We're going to share some links in general chat so you'll have access not only to the place on the ECLKC that we keep referencing, and that's the National Center on Parent, Family, Community Engagement, Building Foundations for Economic Mobility portion of this site. So, we're going to continue to share in general chat. We'll make it big again, so we can see it that well.
But before we go, I want to thank wholeheartedly each of the presenters on the phone today, Jennifer, Kamryn, Lynne, everybody that's contributed to not only the success of today but this entire week. I [inaudible] this all the time, I did it early this week, our leader, our muse, our inspiration, Ms. Kiersten Beigel, who's at the office of Head Start.
Our boss at the National Center, Miss [inaudible], everybody on this team that I have to honor to work beside everyday including Jacky and Susan Stuart, who has been our lifesaver, our persistent princess, our fixer of problems, all this week and just all around wonderful woman who is thankfully taken this journey with us.
All of the federal leaders you heard from, Jimmy Chaffman; you heard from Lisa Patel yesterday, the caliber of folks like Christine and Desmond Brown, everybody that you've heard from this week, we can't say to you what an honor it has been to learn from them, listen to them. And guess what? Most importantly you, you've been so gracious to share your ideas, your confirmations, your encouragement. We've really felt so well supported this week and so excited to come back and get to see you every day. And that's just a testament to the Head Start community and the love we have for each other and certainly the most importantly the children and the families that we serve.
CloseThis Virtual Resource Fair is the culmination of the week-long Economic Mobility event. Participants networked, shared resources, and best practices about partnering with families to build foundations for economic mobility.