The FIRST 5 Community of Learning is a cross-disciplinary training institute whose goal is to transform the workforce of professionals and community members who are or will be working with children prenatal through age 5 and their families. It will create a diverse and highly qualified workforce that shares a common understanding of and advocates for the healthy development of children prenatal through age five. As a result, children prenatal through five in Santa Clara County will receive high quality integrated services that significantly improve their development and outcomes.

A key element to launching the System of Care is to provide program- specific cross-disciplinary learning opportunities to representatives from each partner agency, and across all community partnerships. This will be accomplished through the Community of Learning which is comprised of two phases.

Phase I:

Phase I of the Community of Learning is co-sponsored by FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, the E3 Institute, the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency and the Department of Mental Health.

The focus of Phase I is the system development activities necessary to successfully launch and maintain the System of Care. Learning opportunities will include numerous workshops, lectures, conferences and courses as well as opportunities for peer mentoring and consultation. Training opportunities will occur on an ongoing basis, allowing relevant professionals the opportunity to continually increase and replenish their knowledge across several disciplines. All trainings will emphasize best practices models and research-based approaches.

The Community of Learning will initially provide training opportunities for representatives of agencies selected through the FIRST 5 procurement processes. More specifically, initial training audiences will be made up of individuals identified and selected through the RFQ’s and other procurement processes including:

1. Lead Agencies
2. Family Partners
3. Home Visitors
4. Mental Health/Behavioral Specialists
5. Parent Workshop Providers
6. Oral Health Practitioners
7. Early Care and Education Providers
8. Screening and Assessment Team members

While individual audiences will be trained in areas specific to their service and competency, all audiences will receive training on essential, cross-cutting issues. These will include but not be limited to the following:

1. Brain development and the importance of the first five years of life
2. Critical stages of development for infants, toddlers and preschoolers
3. Kindergarten-readiness for children and their parents
4. Collaboration, leadership and partnership development, networking and governance
5. Confidentiality, information sharing and HIPAA regulations
6. Development of a service delivery system
7. Development of sustainability plans and the generation of alternative sources of revenue (i.e. MediCal)
8. Family engagement
9. Reflective supervision

The Community of Learning will help participants gain skills in five over-arching competency areas. Competency areas are defined as the general approaches that Community Learning Institute participants will be trained and educated about.

1. Early Childhood Development
2. Parent/Family/Community Engagement
3. Early Screening and Assessment
4. Effective Interventions and Family Support Practices
5. Processes and Procedures for and Integrated Service Delivery System

Phase II:

Phase II involves a broader and long-term goal of developing and preparing a highly qualified workforce, across multiple systems, with the knowledge of the importance of the first five years of a child’s life, and the skills, expertise and attributes necessary for working with children prenatal through age 5 and their families in all areas of our County.

To accomplish this goal, comprehensive planning is needed with our co-sponsors and other partners such as community colleges and universities. It is essential that there are certificate, credential, graduate and postgraduate programs in areas such as mental health, social work, early education, health and public health in which the specialists are trained to work with our youngest children, and have the cultural and linguistic ability to meet the needs of our diverse population.