Transition Activity #1 – Preparing to “Step Out”



FACE Team Transition Activities

Transition Activity Instructions (overview)

|Each of the following pages has instructions for an activity. Break them up over the course of 2 or 3 team meetings. The entire |

|FACE team should be present. Hopefully the principal can take part, too. |

|Goals: |

|To increase understanding of what it feels like to make a transition. |

|To encourage teams to do effective planning around transitioning. |

|To emphasize the importance of each team member’s contributions. |

|To familiarize team members with the packet, Effective Transition in FACE. |

|To understand the importance of, and practice using the Individual Family Transition Plan and the Transitioning Steps and Follow-up|

|forms. |

|To evaluate and celebrate your program’s current Family-Focused Transition Activities, and to consider additional activities to |

|help families transition smoothly. |

|Focus: When children and adults transition from one setting to another, they encounter change which requires them to adapt their |

|thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to meet the new learning environment. Team transition planning involves all staff and parents in |

|developing strategies, practices and tools to provide support and information to families as they adapt to new learning |

|environments Program practices include developing agendas around completing Individual Family Transition Plans and developing a |

|transition process that includes input from families. Most importantly it involves staff understanding the feelings and emotions |

|families experience as they move from one learning environment to another. |

|Included in this packet: |

|3 Team activities |

|Effective Transitions in FACE: |

|master copy + CD of forms (keep in FACE Coordinator’s Manual behind “Other” tab) |

|copies for each team member |

|Handout master: Where are my keys?! |

|Blank jigsaw puzzle |

|Materials Needed: |

|Copy of Where are my keys?! for everyone |

|Copy of the Individual Family Transition Plan for everyone |

|Copy of the Transitioning Steps and Follow-up form for everyone |

Transition Activity #1 – Preparing to “Step Out”

Goal:

• To increase awareness of the thoughts, emotions, and necessary planning steps that go into making a successful transition.

First, do the following exercise to help team members consider a frequent, and sometimes difficult, transition in their own lives—getting ready to transition from home to work.

❖ Give each member a copy of Where are my keys?!

❖ “Imagine it is Sunday. We are each expected to be at work at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Let’s ask ourselves these questions and consider what we might put in the left-hand column of Where are my keys?!

• Is it important to go to work on Monday? Why?

• When do I start thinking about it?

• What do I feel when I start thinking about it?

• What do I have to do to prepare to get to work on time?

• What specific tasks do I do in the morning, as I get ready to leave home?

• What problems have I had getting ready; physically and/or psychologically?

• What have I done to address those problems? Did it help?

• What else could I try?

• What success have I had? How have I made the transition to work easier?

Next, ask each team member to think about a family who has transitioned from home-based to center-based FACE; or a family who is considering it.

❖ “Imagine what that family’s responses would be to similar questions. When I read a question, jot down what that family might answer.”

• Is it important to commit myself and my child to center-based FACE? To attend regularly? Why?

• When should I start thinking about it?

• What do I feel when I start thinking about it?

• What are some specific ways I can prepare myself and my child to transition?

• What specific tasks do I need to do to get ready to leave home each morning?

• Have there been problems getting ready for this change; physically and/or psychologically?

• What have I done to address those problems? Did it help?

• What else could I try?

• Is there someone who I can ask for help?

❖ “Now, let’s share some of the responses we imagined, and consider how we can help families answer the questions in a most productive way.”

Families often need our understanding and help as they transition to FACE center-based. Be there to help them structure a way to “find their keys”; to make smooth and Effective Transitions in FACE.

“Where are my keys?!”

|Transitioning: home to work |Transitioning: home-based to center-based |

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Transition Activity 2 – Putting the Pieces Together

Goals:

• Help the team understand that each member has a role in the process of transitioning families.

• Get practice using the Individual Family Transition Plan effectively.

Designing a puzzle and then putting the pieces together:

Each FACE program might be thought of as a puzzle with many pieces which have to be fit together accurately in order to create the whole. Ask the team to decide how to decorate the 28-piece blank jigsaw puzzle. Think of a design that suggests something about your program, your team, or about transitions.

• Use markers to complete your design.

• Break the puzzle apart and mix up the pieces in the envelope it came in.

• Let team members pull out an equal number of pieces.

• Optional: identify one person to be the “puzzle facilitator”.

• Put the puzzle together.

Coordinator, ask:

• “What did we notice about the activity? About communication? About our teamwork?

• “How was this experience similar to coming together to support a family that is thinking about transitioning from home-based to center-based FACE?”

Putting together the transition pieces for a family, using

the Individual Family Transition Plan and the Transitioning Steps and Follow-up:

Now, apply your teamwork skills and your individual knowledge to put together the transition pieces for a sample family.

• Imagine that it is your weekly team meeting, and you have come to the ‘Transitions’ part of your agenda.

• Ask one of the parent educators to think of a family they see who is interested in transitioning to center-based FACE.

• Ask that parent educator to be the “transition facilitator” for this discussion about that family’s Individual Family Transition Plan.

• Give everyone a blank copy of the Individual Family Transition Plan.

• Ask the parent educator to share what she knows about the family, as you talk through the pieces of the Individual Family Transition Plan. Encourage team members to write notes on the Plan, ask questions and make comments.

• Give everyone a blank copy of the Transitioning Steps and Follow-up form.

• As a team discuss and suggest next steps in this family’s transitioning process. Use the Transitioning Steps and Follow-up form to document the team’s decisions, including person(s) responsible and deadlines.

Making ‘transitioning’ part of each team meeting

Finally, decide how your team will address transitioning at each team meeting.

Transition Activity 3 – Sampling from the Menu of

Family-Focused Transition Activities

Goals:

• To evaluate and celebrate those transition activities you are already using.

• To identify one or more that each component would like to add to the activities you are currently using.

• Ask each team member to bring their Effective Transitions in FACE packet to the team meeting.

• Ask each to read through the appropriate section of the Family-Focused Transition Activities.

• Suggest that as they read, they do the following:

• make a mark beside those activities they already use to help families transition

• make a different mark beside those activities they would really like to add

• write any other activity they are interested in, in the “Other” spaces

• Ask each person to share one or two activities they feel currently happen successfully in your FACE program.

• Ask each person to choose one activity they think is important to begin, in order to help families transition more smoothly.

• Ask each person to take responsibility for making sure that the additional activity they suggested happens.

• Ask for timelines for completing each activity.

• Ask about progress during the ‘Transition’ portion of your team meeting.

• Congratulate yourselves on your progress and your attention to smoothly and successfully transitioning families.

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