The Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five seeks to support states in their efforts to analyze the landscape of their early learning and care (ELC) mixed delivery system and implement changes to the system that maximize availability of high-quality ELC options for high-impact families; streamline administrative infrastructure; improve state-level early learning and care funding efficiencies; and improve the quality of care.
The Preschool Development Grant Renewal (PDG-R) is a three year grant period. The project start date was December 31, 2019 and is scheduled to end on December 31, 2022. The grant awards $13.4 million per year, $40.2 million total.
As part of the PDG-R, regional hubs coordination, Child Care Resource Center (CCRC) serves as a coordinator and facilitator of training, resources, and shared planning to maximize efficiencies and collaboration within each region to support efforts to share information and resources and further identify challenges and opportunities to strengthen transitions in the ELC system to better support children’s development, family engagement, and community connection.
Post Pandemic- Transitoning from the Pandemic
TK and Parent Advocacy
Transitions from Preschool/TK to K-12 System
Child Care Needs Across Lifespan
IDEA
Special Needs and Child Care - Spanish
Special Needs and Child Care - English
Equity and Child Care - Bilingual
Mental Health Services - Feedback Session Testimonial
Build Regional Relationships
Child care resource and referral agencies are crucial infrastructure for families and child care providers in every county in California. As part of the regional hubs coordination, CCRC will work directly with Regional Hub Leadership to build regional partnerships to ensure that resource and referral services are included in planning at the regional and local level for child care services. The goal of regional coordination is to build relationships across the 11 regions and coordinate and support consistent R&R messaging at every level of planning.
Development of Partnerships with Quality Counts California
Quality Counts California works at the regional level to plan their quality support work for child care providers. CCRC will support Regional R&R Hubs in building partnerships around California on the delivery of Early Childhood and Parent Café Services. Through these partnerships, the Regional Hubs will build longer term relationships with QCC partners and have the opportunity to engage R&R services as part of Regional QCC planning.
CCRC will support Regional Hub Leadership and their development of relationships with QCC Regional Leadership, and help identify opportunities to use the Regional Hub Structure to coordinate and deliver services. CCRC will also work directly with statewide QCC Leadership to engage and educate around R&R services.
Development of Tribal Partnerships
CCRC will develop partnerships with state level representatives of the Tribal Alliance California Health and Human Services Agency to leverage Parent and Early Childhood Café work with tribal groups in California.
CCRC will work directly with Regional Hub Leadership to build regional partnerships with their Tribal Representatives to deliver Parent and Early Childhood Café services and identify additional opportunities to use the Regional Hub Structure to coordinate and deliver services.
Parent & Caregiver Cafés
Through PDG-R funding, R&R agencies have been working together to strengthen their relationships with parents and caregivers in their communities. The Café experience gives participants the tools needed to increase family strength and resilience by providing an opportunity for parents and caregivers to come together to engage in meaningful, reflective conversations that promote collaboration, peer to peer engagement and empowerment. Cafés focus on different topics and themes that give parents the space and time to discuss and share their lived experiences.
During the Café experience, participants:
Gain knowledge on the Strengthening Families’ 5 Protective Factors;
Engage in conversations based on various café questions crafted from various curriculums and resources;
Make connections and form relationships with other parents and peers through interactive discussion questions.
The CCRC curriculum team has taken various training curriculum content and created café themes and conversation questions to direct participants in discussions around the intended content. Café facilitators from R&Rs across California are trained on the curriculum and café topics and are given the tools to support their participants with information and resources pertaining to the content.
Cafés have been created for specific groups such as parents, family friends and neighbors, family child care providers and Home Visitors. Café materials are available in English, Spanish and Chinese.
Vitality Café Themes:
Physical
Mental & Emotional
Spiritual
Financial
Environmental
Social
Café Themes:
Social Emotional Development
Understanding Behavior
Everyday Play
Communication & Language Development
Café Themes:
American Psychological Association’s Raising Safe Kids
Building Safe & Strong Families (in development available in 2022)
Parent & Caregiver Café Evaluation
CCRC Research team is conducting an ongoing evaluation of the PDG-R Cafés to document the implementation of the cafés across the state and to capture the full story of the benefits of cafés for parents, families, providers, and communities. In addition to being a grant requirement, data collected will be used to help improve future programs, track scheduling and completing of cafés, track attendance, and help to advocate for future program funding.
Café implementation (café logistics, topics covered)
Impact of cafés on participants (building protective factors and social connections, and connect to resources)
Number and characteristics of café participants
Café facilitators’ experience
Community Outreach & Messaging Support
The Communications team will provide individualized technical assistance, training and support to R&R agencies to improve community outreach and messaging (i.e., social media, website, design, marketing, and outreach). Along with the design, development and production of video testimonials, the team will collaborate with Research staff to develop, implement and evaluate Parent Feedback Sessions.
Translation of PDG-R Materials
Mass Messaging
Marketing Design Tips & Tricks
Videography for Testimonials
Canva Purchase
Canva Training
Social Media Content
Fundamentals of Digital Marketing
Social Media Platforms
Basics of Social Media Marketing
Getting Staff & Leadership on Board with Social Media
CCRC teams collaborate on the implementation (Communications team) and evaluation (Research team) of the Parent Feedback Sessions. A minimum of five sessions are held each year on a variety of topics.
CCRC will coordinate these feedback sessions to collect information from a broad representation of parents and caregivers. These small group sessions afford attendees a safe space to discuss family needs, availability of services, and areas where services are either not available or not meeting family needs.
Bi-directional pathways to engage parents
Ensure representation across geographic regions (including urban, suburban and rural)
Meet parents where they are: convene virtually and in-person
Serve as peer-to-peer network to develop parent leadership and advocacy skills
Engage tribes, linguistically diverse groups, and parents experiencing trauma
Gather feedback on the B-5 system, inform system reform efforts to meet family needs, and provide input to Early Childhood Policy Council Parent Advisory Committee (ECPC PAC)
CCRC teams collaborate on the implementation (Communications team) and evaluation (Research team) of the Parent Feedback Sessions. A minimum of five sessions are held each year on a variety of topics.
CCRC will coordinate these feedback sessions to collect information from a broad representation of parents and caregivers. These small group sessions afford attendees a safe space to discuss family needs, availability of services, and areas where services are either not available or not meeting family needs.
Child Care Decision Making
Impact of COVID-19 on Families
Equity in Child Care Access
Child Care Decision-Making for Children with Special Needs
Understanding of IDEA, Screening, Assessment, etc.
Awareness and Use of Tools to Find Child Care and Resources
Transitions from Pre-K to K-12
Informing Online Professional Development Content
Feedback on Free Tools for Parents (e.g., VROOM) That Reinforce Positive Parenting Practices
CCRC is required to have a minimum of five feedback sessions per year. The Communications team, specifically the Community Engagement Facilitator, will be recruiting for parents/participants who have attend Parent Cafés (presently or in the past) or who are receiving some type of service through an R&R agency (e.g., subsidized child care).
Outreach for feedback sessions is conducted by the Community Engagement Facilitator and may be done in one of the following ways: by personally attending PDG-R Parent Cafés hosted by R&R’s and sharing session details with parents OR by directly requesting a list of interested participants from the hub leads and/or café host. Based on sensitivity of these topics and how specific they may be at times, we may request a group of parents that matches certain criteria.
Please refer to Grant Components-Hub (Parent Outreach for Parent Feedback Sessions) for more details about Parent Feedback Sessions and the Hub Leads role.
Once the Community Engagement Facilitator is connected to participants a meet and greet, via phone, is scheduled. During the call participants are given session details, parent criteria, and their availability/schedule is discussed. Topic and questions are provided to participants before session takes place.
CCRC’s Communications team will design, develop and produce digital testimonials that provide feedback to administrators and policymakers. The videos reflect topics and issues important to improve early learning systems and processes. They also give parents an opportunity to share their voice and lived experiences. Our goal is to ensure parent voices are elevated at the most important times, about the most critical topics.Testimonial topics are selected based on discussions held in the Parent Feedback Sessions and input from key stakeholders, Parent Café Facilitators, caregivers and community members. We welcome you to share your ideas for topics and referrals for parents to share their stories. Video testimonials are currently produced in English and Spanish.
The feedback sessions provide a safe space for parents and caregivers to come together to engage in meaningful, reflective conversations as we discuss sensitive and important topics. These feedback sessions give parents an opportunity to voice their issues, concerns, lived experiences and to inform state agencies such as Quality Counts (state QRIS), superintendents association, etc., to make improvements in our early learning systems.
The Communications and Research teams design and develop the questions and format of the sessions. Families are welcomed and an engaging activity starts off our session. Communications facilitates the session, while Research takes notes to capture the entire session. At the end of each session families are provided with resources and different types of incentives for the family to enjoy. A survey is also sent out for participants to complete.
HUB and R&R expertise in communities is vital to the success of the Parent Feedback Sessions. Knowledge of parent’s lived experiences is at the community level and we rely on this to recruit parents with lived experience who can speak to the topics described above.
The Research team participates in the sessions by developing session questions relevant to the topic, developing survey questions, attending the sessions, analyzing the qualitative data and developing reports. Each of these steps is vetted by people with lived experience in the topic to ensure recommendations are relevant and effective.
The Research team then engages with internal and external stakeholders, advocates and policy makers to elevate the voice of parents.
PDG-R represents a unique partnership between the 10 designated R&R HUB agencies and the State of California. PDG-R is designed to provide a service to the public by:
Increasing the amount of trained professionals at local R&R agencies that can host Parent Café trainings designed to provide parents with information around engaging in responsive relations with their children and understanding developmental milestones.
Designing early childhood cafes model to include home visitors, family, friend and neighbor, and family child care providers.
Expanding Parent Café model to include additional content including Zero to Three: The Growing Brain; and American Psychological Association: ACT Raising Safe Kids.
The HUB Agency agrees to implement the following activities and provision of the services below,which includes, but is not limited to:
Send representatives to Train the Trainer (TOT) Parent Café’s (PC) Learning Institutes with CCRC;
Schedule, conduct, and support Parent Café trainings which will include Zero to Three: Growing Brain and ACT: Raising Safe Kids to designated Resource & Referral agencies within their HUB;
Maintain a calendar for local Resource & Referral training dates, including sites, dates and times;
Utilize tracking mechanism and support participant data collection;
Participate in Community of Practice (COP) sessions at least quarterly with PDG R Lead HUB agencies and CCRC.
Facilitate Community of Practice (COP) sessions at least quarterly to support the implementation of TOT PC training and outreach to local Resource & Referral.
Prepare periodic reports of activities as requested by Lead Agency
Will work with the lead agency to develop regional relationships with Quality Counts Regions, Tribal Groups and CCSEA partners to expand regional R&R partnerships. HUB Agency will also work with the lead agency on strategy to develop a regional infrastructure for coordination and delivery of early childhood services through these partnerships.
Will work with lead agency to support with parent outreach for Parent Feedback Sessions.Please reference next section for further details.
CCRC is required to coordinate and facilitate a minimum of five feedback sessions per year. CCRC will coordinate these feedback sessions to collect information from a broad representation of parents and caregivers. These small group sessions afford attendees a safe space to discuss family needs, availability of services, and areas where services are either not available or not meeting family needs.
Bi-directional pathways to engage parents
Ensure representation across geographic regions (including urban, suburban and rural)
Meet parents where they are: convene virtually and in-person
Serve as peer-to-peer network to develop parent leadership and advocacy skills
Engage tribes, linguistically diverse groups, and parents experiencing trauma
Gather feedback on the B-5 system, inform system reform efforts to meet family needs, and provide input to Early Childhood Policy Council Parent Advisory Committee (ECPC PAC)
CCRC would like a consistent feedback group that represents the state. To be more consistent and have state representation, CCRC would ideally like each HUB to select five caregivers/ parents from their agency, that have attended a café currently or in the past and/ or a parent that receives some type of service from your agency (ex: subsidize child care). CCRC will select participants from the list of caregivers/ parents each agency provides.
We would like each Hub to select five parents that meet characteristics from the list below:
Caregivers (male and female)
Caregivers of children (0-5)
Caregivers of infants and toddlers (0-2)
Caregivers of children with special needs
Caregivers with experience navigating social safety net
Providers (Center-based, Family Child Care Centers, and FFN)
Diversity in races/ethnicity
Diversity in location (rural, urban, suburban, and exurban)
Various family structures (foster/adopted parents, grandparents/aunts/family as primary caregiver, etc.)
Multiple languages spoken
Parents can have one or more of the listed characteristics. However, we ask that all characteristics to be met within the list of five participants.
CCRC will support Hub leads in the following ways:
Serve as the Fiscal Agent disbursing CHHSA contract funds to HUB Agency according to the terms outlined in Lead Agency’s Prime Contract Agreement;
Design and distribute data collection tools for HUB Agencies to collect evaluation data; analyze information provided by all participating HUB Agencies; complete final evaluation report and submit to CHHSA;
Supporting the collaboration between the HUB Leads and the local R&Rs throughout the state to convene Parent Cafés to connect families to each other and to build community, peer sharing experiences and knowledge development.
Provide Augmented funding
Augmented funding will support:
Enhancing partnership with Local R&R agencies in their region
Build out of regional partnerships with Regional QCC and other regional partners in their region working on child care and ECE.
Participate and implement the Community of Practice working on strengthening regional hubs.
PDG-R is designed to increase the amount of Parent Café trainings that local R&R agencies host to provide parents with information around engaging in responsive relations with their children and understanding developmental milestones using the Preschool Development Grant-Renewal(PDG-R) curriculum and model.
Each agency is to be paid $2,400.00 per Parent Café Training. If funds become available, Agencies can request additional funding to conduct more Parent Café Trainings.
The local R&R’s agree to implement the following activities and provision of the services below, which includes, but is not limited to:
Schedule and conduct at least one Parent Café to parents within their service area;
Maintain and submit a calendar for local Resource & Referral training date(s), including site(s), date(s) and time(s) to HUB Lead Agency;
Utilize tracking mechanism for workshop participants, submit facilitator feedback, and distribute evaluation data collection tools;
Prepare periodic reports of activities as requested by Lead Agency;
Participate in Community of Practice (COP) sessions at least quarterly as requested by HUB Lead Agency;
Allow HUB Lead Agency designated staff to observe a Parent Café for reporting and evaluation purposes.
CCRC will Support local R&R Agency’s in the following ways:
Serve as the Fiscal Agent disbursing CHHSA contract funds to Agency according to the terms outlined in Lead Agency’s Prime Contract Agreement;
Design and distribute data collection tools for Agencies to collect evaluation data; analyze information provided by all participating Agencies; complete final evaluation report and submit to CHHSA;
Support the Agency throughout the HUB Lead Agency’s region to convene Parent Cafésto connect families to each other and to build community, peer sharing experiences and knowledge of child development.
Support the development of Regional R&R Hubs to convene PDG Parent Cafés
Design Early Childhood (EC) Cafés model to increase home visitors (HV), family, friend and neighbor (FFN) and family child care providers (FCC) implementation
Expand Parent Café model to include additional content including Zero to Three: The Growing Brain; and American Psychological Association: ACT Raising Safe Kids.
Design and implement Parent Feedback Sessions (Parent Consortia)
Coordinate with Tribal and California County Superintendents of Educational Services Association (CCSESA)
Develop consistent messaging across the state
Collect data from R&R agencies for evaluation and continuous quality improvement purposes
Michael Olenick, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Donna Sneeringer
Chief Strategy Officer
Susan Savage
Director, Research
Susan Montalvo
Director, Communications
Eileen Friscia
Director, Resource & Referral
