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Parent Engagement

Kickstart your Head Start Program’s Diversity Initiatives with Dual Training in Multicultural Principles and DEI&B
Mel Gravely
16-August-2023

Kickstart your Head Start Program’s Diversity Initiatives with Dual Training in Multicultural Principles and DEI&B

At The Gravely Group, we believe that the Multicultural Principles for Early Childhood Leaders and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B) are two sides of the same coin, ying and yang, night and day. They just go together, like Thelma and Louise or peanut butter and pickles (no, seriously, it’s a thing).  Some of the…

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Head Start’s Commitment to School Readiness
Mel Gravely
16-May-2023

Head Start’s Commitment to School Readiness

It’s that time of year again. Like baby birds leaving the nest, approximately 320,000 Head Start preschoolers will fly away to start the next chapter in their young lives. As Head Start teachers and administrators, we can’t help but ask, “Are they ready?” “Did we do everything we could to prepare them?” “Is the school…

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What are the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Requirements for Head Start Programs?
Mel Gravely
17-March-2023

What are the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging Requirements for Head Start Programs?

In a recent blog this past January, we posed the question: What’s the big deal about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) in Head Start programs? While you have likely heard about DEIB before, you might think that it’s only something done by corporations with sprawling HR departments or government agencies in large marble buildings.…

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The Gravely Group 2022 Year in Review
Mel Gravely
05-December-2022

The Gravely Group 2022 Year in Review

If you only read one of The Gravely Group’s blogs each year, our annual Year in Review should be it. Each year, we do a recap of all the articles we put out throughout the year, as well as give a few other highlights from our trainings and travels. After nearly three years of uncertainty,…

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Helping Families to Support Positive Behaviors
Mel Gravely
17-July-2022

Helping Families to Support Positive Behaviors

Every month, we receive an email from the Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center (ECLKC) that includes recent announcements from the Office of Head Start, as well as information on any resources that have been recently posted or updated in the knowledge center. If you don’t receive ECKLC’s emails, we highly recommend signing up. The…

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Back to Basics: Nutrition in Head Start
Mel Gravely
14-March-2022

Back to Basics: Nutrition in Head Start

In Columbus, Ohio, where The Gravely Group is located, the city council voted last week to remove the city-wide mask mandate. Columbus Public School District, Ohio’s largest, did the same, removing any mask requirements for both children and staff. Experts are stating publicly that this might be the beginning of the end of the pandemic,…

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Multicultural Principles for Early Childhood Leaders
Mel Gravely
13-January-2022

Multicultural Principles for Early Childhood Leaders

We here at The Gravely Group recently started piloting a new training on the Multicultural Principles for Early Childhood Leaders. We’ve been using this document for years, incorporating its lessons into many of our trainings, such as on ERSEA and Family Engagement. But we recently decided to review it again in its entirety after our…

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The Gravely Group 2021 Year in Review
Mel Gravely
07-December-2021

The Gravely Group 2021 Year in Review

We’ll be honest. If you had asked us during our last Year in Review blog if we’d still be talking about COVID-19 affecting our day to day lives, we’d have said, “I sure hope not!” In December 2020 when we were writing it, the vaccines had just become available for those at highest risk and…

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The African American Boys Project: Implementing Culturally Responsive, Strength-Based Practices
Mel Gravely
16-September-2021

The African American Boys Project: Implementing Culturally Responsive, Strength-Based Practices

This is the fourth and final blog in our series on the OHS publication Supporting School Readiness and Success of Young African American Boys Project. In our first three blogs, we talked about the origins of the project, defined the culturally responsive lens, and talked about why it focuses on African American boys in the…

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The African American Boys Project: Understanding Young African American Boys
Mel Gravely
03-September-2021

The African American Boys Project: Understanding Young African American Boys

This is the third blog in our four-part series on the training document, Supporting School Readiness and Success in African American Boys Project. In our first blog of the series, “An Introduction to the “Supporting the School Readiness and Success of African American Boys Project’’, we discussed how the Office of Head Start’s National Center…

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