Head Start Oral Health Initiative
Director Telephone Interview Protocol
INTRODUCTION (2 minutes)
My name is ___________________ and I work for [MATHEMATICA POLICY RESEARCH/HEALTH SYSTEMS RESEARCH], an independent research firm. As you know, we are conducting a study for the Administration on Children and Families about Head Start agencies’ experiences implementing the Head Start Oral Health Initiative. Findings from the study will be helpful to other Head Start agencies implementing similar initiatives. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this telephone interview.
I would like you to feel comfortable giving your opinions and impressions. The information we gather will be used to write a report for the Administration for Children and Families about programs’ experiences implementing the Head Start Oral Health Initiative, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned by grantees. Our report will describe the experiences and viewpoints expressed by staff across grantees, but specific comments will not be attributed to specific individuals or programs. No one will be quoted by name. We will also use the information to create a profile for your site, and we will give you an opportunity to review and comment on a draft version of the profile before we finalize it.
Do you have any questions before we get started?
About You
To begin, I’d like to learn about your role in the Oral Health Initiative.
What is your official job title? What are your primary responsibilities?
How long have you worked for [GRANTEE]?
How long have you held your current position? What other positions have you held within the agency?
GRANTEE CHARACTERISTICS (10 minutes)
Now I’d like to confirm some information about your agency. To begin, your agency’s address and phone number is: CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL
Who is your main contact for the Oral Health Initiative? What is that person’s job title? Email address?
What are the main programs (other than Head Start) that your agency operates/services you provide?
What is the size of your organization? How many families does your agency serve annually? Approximately how many staff do you have?
I’d also like to confirm that your agency operates Head Start, Early Head Start, and/or Migrant/Seasonal Head Start programs. CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL.
How many Head Start, Early Head Start, and/or Migrant/Seasonal Head Start families is your agency funded to serve annually? CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL.
What Head Start service options do you offer to families – center-based services, home-based services, combination, multiple options? How many centers does your program operate? CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL.
How long has your agency provided services in [COMMUNITY]? How long has your agency operated the Head Start, Early Head Start, and/or Migrant/Seasonal Head Start program(s)?
What is the operating schedule (program year) for your Head Start, Early Head Start and/or Migrant/Seasonal Head Start program(s)?
COMMUNITY AND FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS (10 minutes)
Let’s talk about your community and the characteristics of families and children targeted for the Oral Health Initiative.
What is your program’s geographic service area? Is it primarily urban, rural, suburban, or a mix? Are you operating the Oral Health Initiative in the entire service area, or only a portion of it? If so, what part and why? If implementing in multiple locations, does implementation differ across sites, and if so, how?
Can you please describe the Head Start families you are serving through the Oral Health Initiative? What languages do they speak? What are their ethnic and cultural backgrounds?
What is the availability of other services for children and families, such as medical care, transportation, and social services?
What are families’ main barriers to accessing oral health care? What is the availability of oral health care providers in the community? General dentists? Pediatric dentists? Other providers? Do oral health care providers in your community accept Medicaid? Are they willing to serve young children? Are providers available who speak the languages spoken by Head Start families?
In general, what are families’ cultural norms and practices related to oral health care? Oral health care beliefs and practices for young children? PROBE ONLY IF NEEDED: What is the prevalence of practices that threaten oral health, such as putting babies to bed with bottles, using pacifiers past age 3, giving children sweetened drinks, other?
GRANTEE GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND KEY COMPONENTS (5 minutes)
At this point, I’d like to begin talking specifically about the Health Start Oral Health Initiative. To start, let’s talk about how your agency designed the initiative and decided which services to offer.
Why did you decide to apply for an Oral Health Initiative grant?
What are your program’s goals and objectives for the Oral Health Initiative? Have these goals and objectives changed since you began implementation? If so, how have they changed and why?
What are the key components of your Oral Health Initiative?
How many children are you planning to serve, and what ages? Will your program provide services to pregnant women? Other family members? CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL. How did you decide which children and families to target for Oral Health Initiative services?
What is your annual budget for the Oral Health Initiative? CONFIRM FROM PROPOSAL. Approximately what proportion of funds do you spend on staff salaries, direct purchase of dental services, oral hygiene supplies, and other types of expenses?
DESIGN PROCESS (10 minutes)
How did your program identify goals and objectives for the Oral Health Initiative and decide which services to provide?
Who was involved in designing the Oral Health Initiative? Was your health advisory committee, policy council, or another advisory body involved in the planning process? If so, who are the members of this committee and what is its role? Are there any dental representatives on your health advisory committee? Did you work with community oral health coalitions or other community groups in planning your grant? Regional office and/or TA staff, regional oral health consultants?
What other resources did you use for designing the initiative? For example, did you draw on any state plans related to oral health (state oral health plans, plans resulting from a Head Start oral health forum)?
Did you do a community needs assessment or use data from one that was already done? If so, how did you use the needs assessment data?
In designing the Oral Health Initiative, did you build on previously existing oral health activities in your program, or did you design a new approach? If you built on previous activities, please tell me about these activities. If you designed a new approach, how did you design it?
What community and family characteristics were most important in your decisions about the design of your Oral Health Initiative? How did you tailor your approach to fit the particular circumstances of your families and community?
STAFFING STRUCTURE AND TRAINING (10 minutes)
Now I’d like to learn about how your Oral Health Initiative is staffed.
Approximately how much time do you spend on the initiative on a weekly or monthly basis?
How many staff work on the oral health initiative? What are their job titles and main duties related to the initiative? What are their qualifications?
Are all planned positions for the Oral Health Initiative filled? If not, why not, and what plans do you have to fill the positions? If positions are filled, how soon after receiving Oral Health Initiative funding were you able to fill them?
How did you decide how to staff the initiative? Did you hire new staff, reassign existing staff, or both? Why did you take this approach?
How well is the staffing structure for the Oral Health Initiative working out so far? Do you have sufficient staff resources to operate the initiative as planned?
Did staff receive any special training in preparation for their work on the Oral Health Initiative? If so, which staff received training? Please describe the training they received. Did they receive training on how to conduct visual inspection of teeth and mouth to identify children who need follow up care? How to provide oral health education to parents and children? Cultural issues related to oral health? Other topics?
Have staff received any training for the initiative since the initiative started? Do you have future training plans for Oral Health Initiative staff? IF NOT ALREADY MENTIONED IN #33 ABOVE: Any plans to provide training on conducting visual inspection of teeth and mouth to identify children who need follow up care? How to provide oral health education to parents and children? Cultural issues related to oral health? Other topics?
Do you have plans in place to train new staff hired in the future due to turnover in Oral Health Initiative staff? Please describe.
Has your program received any training or technical assistance from the Head Start T/TA system, the regional oral health consultants, or other sources to support your work on the Oral Health Initiative? Have your staff attended any regional cluster trainings on oral health? If so, was the training helpful?
COMMUNITY PARTNERS (10 minutes)
How many and what types of organizations have you partnered with to provide services through the Oral Health Initiative? What was your rationale for recruiting them? Are there other partners that you still need to pursue? If so, please describe them and their potential role in the Oral Health Initiative?
What strategies did you use to identify and reach out to these partners?
Do you have formal partnership agreements with these partners? If so, what is included in the agreements?
What are the partners’ roles in the Oral Health Initiative? What services do they provide to Head Start children and families?
Do you make referrals to community partners for services? If so, do you receive information from them about treatment and needed follow up? How do these referral systems work?
Have you provided any training to community partners or other oral health care providers to improve their ability to address oral health issues for young children? To improve their cultural competence for working with Head Start families? Was this helpful to community partners? Did it increase their receptivity to serving Head Start children and families?
How are the partnerships going so far? What has worked well about the partnerships, and what has been challenging?
SERVICE DELIVERY (25 minutes)
Now I’d like to learn about the services you provide to children and families through the Oral Health Initiative. I’ll start with some questions about oral health risk assessments and exams, and then ask about clinical preventive and treatment services.
Risk Assessment and Clinical Services
Does your program conduct or arrange for routine oral health assessments using clinical or other means (such as clinical assessments, parent questionnaires, assessment of medical history, assessment of demographic risk factors)? Who conducts these assessments (for example, dentists, dental hygienists, nurses, health coordinators, others)?
Does your program use a formal oral health risk assessment tool? If so, which tools do you use and why did you select them?
How does your program use the results of the risk assessments? For example, are oral health care providers able to use the assessment results to make a diagnosis or development a treatment plan based on this assessment?
What types of other clinical preventive services do you provide through the Oral Health Initiative? For example, do you provide cleanings, sealants, fluoride treatments, or other preventive services? Which services are provided by your program and which are provided by partners? Where and by whom are the services provided? How are the costs of these services covered (for example, program grant funds, insurance reimbursement, donated by provider)?
What types of clinical treatment services do you provide through the Oral Health Initiative? Which services are provided by your program and which are provided by partners? Where and by whom are the services provided? How are the costs of these services covered (for example, program grant funds, insurance reimbursement, donated by provider)?
Which clinical services do you provide to children, pregnant women, and other family members? Does this differ for different populations of children and families?
Services to Support Access to Dental Services
Do you have referral systems in place for helping families access needed clinical services? If so, how do these work?
Do you keep track of treatment outcomes and needed follow up services? If so, how do you do this?
Do you provide services to help families access needed clinical services, such as help them make appointments, provide transportation, or provide translation services? If so, who provides these services?
What is your definition of a dental home? Does your program help families establish dental homes for their children? If so, how do you do this?
Oral Health Education
Do you provide education and skills-building activities to parents about oral health promotion? If yes, please tell me about these services and the main educational messages you aim to deliver. Who provides this education? How and where are the educational messages delivered (for example, during parent meetings, home visits, or by distributing written materials)? Are parents instructed on how to do visual inspections of children’s teeth using such techniques as “Lift the Lip”?
Do you provide education and skills-building activities on oral health promotion specifically to pregnant women? If so, who provides this education, and where? Are the educational messages different from those provided to other Head Start parents? If so, how? What happens after the baby is born? How do the educational messages change?
Do you provide oral health education and skill building activities to children? Who provides this education, and where is it provided? How are the educational messages delivered (for example, classroom activities, home visit)?
Do you use a curriculum to provide oral health education to children and families? If so, what curriculum do you use and why did you choose it? Have you made any adjustments to the curriculum? If so, why? What feedback have you received on the curriculum from teachers, other staff, and families?
Do you provide oral hygiene supplies to children and families? If so, what types of supplies do you provide, and to whom? How do you provide them and how often? Do parents receive training on how to use the supplies?
To what extent have you tailored education and other non-clinical services to the needs and cultural norms of your target population for the Oral Health Initiative? Can you please provide some examples?
Have you taken steps to expand your Oral Health Initiative to the broader community? For example, have you participated in community health fairs or other community education events?
EARLY IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCES (10 minutes)
I’d like to wrap up the call by hearing your views on the successes and challenges you’ve experienced implementing the initiative so far.
Is your funding for the initiative sufficient to implement it as planned? Do you have access to additional funding sources for operating the Oral Health Initiative? If so, what are these sources and which costs do they cover?
Have you applied to any other sources for additional funding to operate the Oral Health Initiative? If so, where is you application in the review process? How will you use the funds if you receive an award?
At this early stage, how much progress have you made toward meeting your goals and objectives for the Oral Health Initiative?
Since you began implementing the Oral Health Initiative, have you made changes to your original design? If so, what are the changes and why did you make them?
What have been your most important successes so far? What are you most proud of?
What are the most significant challenges your program has faced so far?
What strategies have you used to address these challenges? How well do you think these strategies are working?
Have you consulted with other Oral Health Initiative grantees about implementation challenges or other issues? If so, how did this happen—email, phone, facilitated by Head Start Oral Health Consultant? What issues did you discuss?
Is there anything more the Office of Head Start, the regional office, or the Head Start T/TA network could do to support your work on the Oral Health Initiative?
Is there anything else you would like to add before we end the discussion?
Thank you again for participating in the interview.
A.
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | MEMORANDUM |
| Author | Diane Paulsell |
| Last Modified By | Kim Doo |
| File Modified | 2006-08-03 |
| File Created | 2006-08-03 |