Telling Your Story of Change: Taking Steps to Healthy Success

1. Telling Your Story of Change: Taking Steps to Healthy Success Guidelines for using a storyboard to share your program’s unique experience of healthy change 1,2,3

2. Your stories can help us all learn! • Share your story of change: successes as well as challenges. • There is no one way to tell your story: your story is unique! • Be creative and express your story in whatever way feels right to you and your program staff. • Each program will start with a blank tri-fold storyboard. • Come back to our next collaborative ready to use your storyboard to share your story of change.

3. What should be included?…and some questions to help you think about each topic • Describe your team. • Who are they? • Do they have special talents? • How did they organize to accomplish their goals? • Tell us about your program. • What kind of a program do you have? • What were you hoping to get out of the collaborative? • How has your practice and environment changed? • Discuss your action plan goals and experiences. • How did you choose which areas to work on? • Was it challenging to get agreement among your staff? • How did you keep momentum going?

4. What else should be included? • Share your successes! • If you have photos you could use them to help “tell your story of change.” • Children’s work or drawings can make your storyboard come alive! • Share your challenges. • How did you try to overcome them? • Any lessons learned? • Tell us about the response. • How did people react to the changes: children, your staff, families and the leadership team • Anything unexpected?

5. Anything else we should include? • Next Steps: • What does your team believe should happen next? • What are you doing to make this happen? • Have you gathered your staff to update your action plan? • Whatever you and your team think is important! • Be sure to include each of the bolded topics on your storyboard. • But feel free to add anything else you think is important!

6. How in the world can I do this? • Share ideas, try them out, reflect, and share ideas again. Continue the cycle. Work as a team. Then tell us how you did it! • Gather some data. Here are some ideas: • Anecdotes from teachers, families, children, support staff • Your assessments, observations and reflections • Photographs of your program before, during and after changes • Documents (menus or lesson plans) that show changes • Children’s art work or dictated stories that describe the healthy changes in your program • Any format works! It’s your choice: computer programs like PowerPoint or Word or hand-made with markers. • Have fun with thisproject…and come back ready to share!

7. Where in the world can I get help? • Use the most powerful resources in your program:your leadership team and program staff. One idea is to work on the storyboard as a group during part of each staff meeting. • Reach out to the other leadership teams in the collaborative, especially those that you are getting to know through the breakout discussion group sessions. Other directors may be able to help you find answers to questions or challenges. • Call or email your Technical Assistance Facilitator: Contact information is in your binder. • Spreading the News: Sharing the Stories of Early Childhood Education,a book by Margie Carter and Deb Curtis, is a wonderful resource. Use it to empower your teachers to tell their stories and help families appreciate their work with children.

8. References and Resources • Carter, M. & Curtis, D. Spreading the News: Sharing the Stories of Early Childhood Education. St. Paul, Minnesota: Redleaf Press; 1996. • Helm J., Beneke, S., & Steinheimer, K. Windows on Learning: Documenting Young Children’s Work. New York: Teacher’s College Press; 1998. • Wurm, J. Working in the Reggio Way: A Beginner’s Guide for American Teachers. St. Paul, Minnesota: Redleaf Press; 2005.