Parent & Caregiver Cafés

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.‍

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.‍

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.