Head Start CARES -- Site Recruitment Information Collection Instrument #3: Initial Call Script

Head Start CARES

Site Recruitment Phone Discussion Points

Initial Phone Call:

Hello, may I please speak to Mr./Ms. [Director]?

My name is _______ from MDRC and I’m calling to tell you about Head Start CARES, a large-scale national research project, sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, designed to test the effects of social-emotional program enhancements in Head Start settings.

This is an exciting opportunity for Head Start teachers to be trained in the new approaches and provided with mentors to help them implement the new strategies in the classroom context. This is also an opportunity for this project to learn about effective strategies to promote children’s social-emotional competence in the classroom setting.

I’d like to fax or email you a short project description. Additionally, I would like to schedule a time when we might speak for up to 60 minutes about your program’s participating in the project. I will send the discussion questions in advance.

Second Phone Call:

Hello. As we discussed, I’m following up on the information I sent you about the Head Start CARES Project. Did you receive it?

Key points to make:

1) This is an opportunity to participate in a landmark study of approaches for promoting Head Start children’s social-emotional competence in a classroom setting.

2) A number of centers and classrooms in your program could potentially receive the following services, free of charge:

• Paid teacher training (using a highly regarded curriculum) on promoting positive behavior by children; and

• Follow-up mentoring support in a collaborative partnership with teachers.

3) In order to conduct a rigorous evaluation to identify effective practices, centers using each of the program enhancements and centers serving as a comparison center must be similar. So, once your participation is confirmed, a lottery-like process (essentially a computerized coin toss) will determine which centers will be trained to implement one of the enhanced programs and which centers will be comparison centers that will continue to operate as they do today.

The comparison centers will not lose any services; they just won’t receive the additional training until the evaluation is concluded. Once the evaluation is over, the grantee will be able to select, and have teachers trained in, the enhanced program of choice.

4) The research project has been approved by MDRC’s Institutional Review Board, who protects the rights of participants in the study.

5) I hope that this sounds like something that you’d like to have your program participate in. We have received tremendous positive feedback from other programs that have used these approaches and we are very excited about being able to test them on a wider scale.

[If interested, continue to the SCREENER.]

6) Thank you for your help. We are currently talking to many Head Start programs across the country. I may be touch with you in the next few weeks to schedule a time to visit your program to meet you in person to discuss the program and related research in further detail. Are there any times in the next two months that would be a problem for you?

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