Webinar: The Early Childhood Self-Assessment Tool for Shelters: Success in Practice

May 28, 2015

 

The Early Childhood Self-Assessment Tool for Family Shelters, developed by the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is intended to help shelter staff ensure their facilities are safe and appropriate for the development of young children. Family shelters provide essential services to the entire family - including infants, toddlers, and preschoolers during a difficult time in their lives. As you work to connect families to permanent housing, you can ensure that your shelter environment assists the physical, socio-emotional, nutritional, and intellectual development of children ages 0-5 to support these children through their experience of homelessness. Creating a safe, developmentally appropriate environment will assure that the infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in your shelter have the best possible start to a bright future as they exit homelessness into permanent housing.

To support the use of the tool, USICH hosted a webinar—The Early Childhood Assessment Tool for Shelters: Success in Practice—on Thursday, May 21, 2015. In addition to leaders from HHS and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, community presenters from housing and early childhood highlighted their experiences with joint implementation of the assessment tool and the benefits it has yielded for their shelters in support of the overall goal of ending homelessness among families.

Presenters: 
Jasmine Hayes, Policy Director, USICH
Norman Suchar, Director, Special Needs Assistance Programs, HUD
Ebony Rankin, Special Needs Assistance Specialist, HUD
Marsha Basloe, Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development, ACF, HHS
Shannon Rudisill, Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood, ACF, HHS
Grace Whitney, CT Head Start Collaboration Office Director
Susan Compton Agamy, Executive Director, Spooner House
Jamie Peterson, Director of Child & Family Development, TEAM Early Education