Spotlight: Groves uses workshop to learn more about ChildPlus

While overseeing hundreds of Head Start children, Lucy Groves constantly has her hands full as she juggles five out of the 10 centers the Community Council of Idaho (CCI) provides. This is why she attended ChildPlus’ Fundamentals of ChildPlus training session in September of 2019.

The Fundamentals of ChildPlus is the perfect workshop for both existing ChildPlus users and non-users who want to learn and apply the best data management practices for their agencies. This four-day workshop is based out of Atlanta, Georgia, and allows users to meet and network with other users while participating in interactive activities to better understand the software. As a self-proclaimed ChildPlus “newbie,” Groves was excited to participate in this workshop.  

Since 2005, Groves has worked in Head Start and “dabbled” in ChildPlus. “From 2005 to 2014, I worked for Regional Head Start Friends of Children and Families as a teacher,” Groves said. “I used the Education module a little bit when I had to run reports and input my data. Then, I stepped away from Head Start for a few years, and now I’ve jumped back in as an administrator, so now [ChildPlus] is new to me in a lot of ways.”

After “jumping” back into Head Start, Groves landed her current job with CCI as a Regional Services Administrator for their Migrant Seasonal Head Start program. CCI currently serves 797 children. Because CCI oversees such a large number of children, proper data management practices is crucial to ensuring they’re making data-driven decisions to keep improving their agency.

With CCI being such a “big” agency, they offer an array of programs in addition to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start. CCI’s website states, “[We are] an Early Childhood Education Program for Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker children and their families dedicated to promoting the success of their children in school and later in life. We offer a comprehensive service program for children and families that includes: Early Childhood Education, Nutrition, and Health & Wellness.”

Groves has slowly been immersing herself into ChildPlus to improve her data management habits, to in turn improve her agency. “Our role is to oversee what we call the Center Coordinator who’s in charge of the center and helps the managers. We’re kind of the liaison with the managers and staff, so using ChildPlus and the reports helps us support them. I’ve been dabbling a little bit with ChildPlus. Hopefully, I can dabble some more now.”

Groves detailed one goal of many where ChildPlus helped provide a software solution for her agency. “As big as our agency is, better communication is something we’re working on,” Groves said. “We use the texting feature in ChildPlus – that’s a big piece of communication for us.” ChildPlus’ goal is to streamline data management so all Head Start agencies can focus on their own goals, not just their data entry.

To learn more about The Fundamentals of ChildPlus workshop, click here.