Regional and Local Financing Strategies:
Eleven Considerations for Building and Sustaining Inclusive Programs
Presentation by
Mark Sustic, Vermont Section 619 Coordinator
Developed for the OSEP Preschool LRE Community of Practice Conference Call on
Regional and Local Financing Strategies to Create Inclusive Options
for Young Children with Disabilities
Sponsored by
The National Early Childhood TA Center and the Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center
- Build a foundation and then build things that support, and can be supported
by that foundation. Without a core of high quality early learning opportunities,
health care, family supports, and other programs and services, much of the
resources from programs that target specific populations of young children
(e.g. those with disabilities) will be spent on cobbling together what is
needed for the foundation, rather than supporting the children in high quality,
pre-existing environments.
- Take responsibility for ALL children, not just those with
categorical identities like disabilities, and not just infants, toddlers and
preschoolers. We need a foundation of supports for all children to work with
and build upon. We need to know that what we are doing with infants, toddlers
and preschoolers is having a positive, measurable influence on children being
successful in elementary, middle and high school.
- Collaborate. While it seems obvious it is often glossed over. Collaboration
is a key principle with respect to financing systems. You need to have a view
that any federal, state or local financial resources that are available belong
to the community and not to the agencies, programs, projects, administrators,
managers and so forth. It is also important to have the view that all resources,
including money, but not exclusively money, are tools that can be used to
achieve what a community has decided are its desired outcomes.
- Be clear about a common center of gravity. There are lots of centers of
gravity. For example, there are the influences of professions, programs, funding
sources, laws, rules and regulations, philosophies, agencies, political parties
and many more. Unless everyone has agreed that a focus on children and families
is their primary center of gravity, no amount of strategizing, compromising or
negotiating is going to get us very far.
- Don't start by focusing on the money. In the area of Vermont that has been
the basis of my experience, focusing on the money did not even allow the
conversation to get started, much less allow us to get to the point where we
made progress. Achieve agreement on outcomes and core values and the resources
will follow. Everyone needs to be clear and committed to the destination and the
values that define how you will work together.
- Don't expect a lot from reorganization. This is a difficult point for me to
make when in our state there is currently a massive reorganization of key parts
of state government that address the needs of young children and their families.
But in my experience, I've come to believe that reorganization for its own sake
may not accomplish much. You can take advantage of reorganization to re-position
people and resources to be more in line with desired outcomes and core values,
but reorganization is not the reason for the change. Instead an articulation of
and commitment to desired outcomes and core values is the reason for change. A
greater danger may be that reorganization can take time, attention and resources
away from staying connected to outcomes and core values.
- Be prepared for constant change. Our financial foundation is always changing
in ways that folks at the regional and local level have little or no control.
Change is a constant, and it is consistently going to create a level of disorder
and disruption. To gain some level of stability in an environment of constant
change requires that we constantly pay close attention to the evolving context
and to do so with a high degree of intentionality. The faster that new
circumstances are acknowledged, assessed and integrated into our planning and
management, the greater the freedom and the steadier the course for families,
children and the people who work with them and on their behalf.
- Accept that there are multiple, unclear pathways. In Vermont there is a
saying that goes something like this: The flatlander stops to ask a local for
directions. The local says, "You can't get there from here." Often the path is
not a direct route and just as often, there is more than one path. There are
times when you have to back up to go forward. It is important to keep the
destination clearly in mind, and not get overly concerned about the lack of a
direct route.
- Think globally, act locally. Another cliché perhaps, but the deeper I have
gotten into this work, I have seen that the real action for change and
effectiveness is at the local level. We limit the possibilities and constrain
the resources when we try to direct too much from a federal, state and even
regional level.
- Recognize the artist's work. This work is at least as much about being
an artist as it is about being good at applying research, technique and
craft. Those who do this work are constantly seeking forms that accommodate
huge bureaucratic, contextual and unclear messes and complications. Creating
form from chaos has always been the task of the artist, and there is no
better example than what this work is often about.
- Accept that you will be managing with complexity. Managing a regional or
local program focusing on young children and their families is like being in an
earthquake on a unicycle, juggling chain saws. The only way to survive and to
move forward is to make sure you have got things taken care of that you do have
some control over. This allows you to focus your attention on dealing with
those things you are having trouble with.