About SpecialQuest Birth–Five

SpecialQuest is continuing with a new grant award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Head Start. SpecialQuest Birth–Five: Head Start/Hilton Foundation Training Program to Support Inclusive Early Childhood Services is operated through the Napa County Office of Education, Special Projects Division (California), in collaboration with the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The new grant will build on the past ten years of work by the Hilton/Early Head Start Training Program.

SpecialQuest Birth–Five will focus on inclusion for children with disabilities ages birth through five (pre-kindergarten) and their families, particularly those in Head Start* along with Child Care, Early Intervention/Part C, Early Childhood Special Education/619, family support, and other related programs. SpecialQuest Birth–Five will:

• Support and expand the SpecialQuest community, including
  • Over 500 SpecialQuest graduate teams across the nation
  • Ten new SpecialQuest State Leadership Teams, implementing cross-systems early childhood professional development for inclusion
• Disseminate the SpecialQuest approach, materials, and resources, through
  • The SpecialQuest Multimedia Training Library (English and Spanish)
  • The Web-Based SpecialQuest Multimedia Training Library
  • The activities of the SpecialQuest Community of Practice

Program Components

SpecialQuest Birth–Five Vision: States and local communities, including Early Head Start and Head Start programs and their community partners, collaborate to provide high quality inclusive services for young children with disabilities and their families. This work is supported by embedding the SpecialQuest approach, materials, and resources into professional development and service systems.

The new grant, SpecialQuest Birth–Five, will build upon the relationship-based SpecialQuest approach which is designed to touch the “head, heart, and hands” of families and professionals working together to create inclusive communities for young children with disabilities. The new grant will also utilize the Continuous Improvement Process to guide practices and activities. (For more about the SpecialQuest approach, refer to the Facilitator’s Guide in the SpecialQuest Multimedia Training Library.)

*Head Start includes Early Head Start, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, and American Indian/Alaska Native Head Start.

History and Evaluation

From 1997-2007, Early Head Start/Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs and their community partners participated as teams in long-term, intensive, interactive learning experiences, using a skill-building curriculum. Learning Coaches supported each team to develop and implement action plans to incorporate strategies learned at annual face-to-face SpecialQuest events. Other components of the Hilton/Early Head Start Training Program included dissemination of training materials, support for SpecialQuest graduate programs through SpecialQuest Ambassadors, and integration of a Continuous Improvement Process to guide program development and implementation, and to provide summative evaluation information.

Consortium of National Projects Working with States

SpecialQuest Birth–Five is one of the eighteen national projects that is part of the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Consortium. This group collaborates on a regular basis to coordinate their early childhood technical assistance efforts in working with states to avoid duplication, share knowledge and improve delivery and impact of technical assistance.

More information about the Consortium participants and the work they are doing can be found at www.ectaconsortium.org. SpecialQuest Birth–Five works closely with other projects that are also serving the states we are working with so we collaborate efforts.

Other technical assistance centers and resource groups are listed in the Resource Bank. You may add to this list by contributing to the Resource Bank.

Contact the SpecialQuest Birth–Five Staff

Thank you for taking the time to learn about SpecialQuest!