Local Educator Attends 2009 UCLA/Johnson & Johnson

Head Start Management Fellows Program

Press Release From Sherry Finney
Principal ECLC

 

Hillary Young, Sulphur Springs Independent School District Head Start Director at ECLC, was recently selected as one of forty participants to attend the 2009 UCLA/Johnson & Johnson Head Start Management Fellows Program held July 5-17, 2009, at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, CA.  Since 1991, the UCLA/Johnson & Johnson Head Start Management Fellows Program has provided management training to Head Start managers and directors.  Johnson & Johnson, Inc. generously underwrites the majority of the program.  Mrs. Sherry Finney, ECLC Principal, also attended as a co-participant in the program.

 

Approximately eighty applications were submitted for the 2009 class.  A committee of professors and assistants reviewed the applications and made the final selections of forty Head Start managers/directors for participation in the program.  Selection was based upon the following specific criteria:

• A minimum of two years of tenure as a senior manager in a Head Start program or, if less than two years of tenure, someone who currently holds a leadership role in a regional or state Head Start association;
• Documentation of a leadership role in a local, state, or regional community organization for a minimum of two years;
• A commitment from a co-participant who is your supervisor to participate for the final three and one-half days of the program (one co-participant per individual applicant or a two-person team); 
• Demonstrated competence in working within community organizations and a pledge to work with other Head Start programs in the future through training workshops and/or mentoring opportunities.

The purpose of the training was to provide Head Start managers and directors with an intensive growth and learning experience in the process of management.  Participants spent over ninety hours in lectures, workshops, and study groups preparing to produce a Management Improvement Plan ready for implementation into his/her Head Start program in 2009-2010. 

 

Only seven participants were asked to present his/her Management Improvement Plan to eighty participants and co-participants, UCLA professors, and Johnson & Johnson, Inc. representatives.  Mrs. Young was selected as one of the seven to present her plan as a culminating program activity.  She substantiated and defended her plan to these groups who also critiqued her content and performance.  Mrs. Young was awarded a certification of completion from UCLA Anderson School of Management at the conclusion of the program.

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