More than half a million children are born every year in California. Each child has an unlimited amount of potential – to grow-up healthy, to do well in school and to succeed. FIRST 5 believes in tapping into that potential during a child’s earliest years and working to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to thrive.

FIRST 5 Santa Clara County invests more than $30 million of Proposition 10 tobacco tax money each year to create a future where all children in Santa Clara County are healthy, have proper educational opportunities and are raised in safe and nurturing environments. We work on making this happen by focusing our efforts in four areas:

Building a Supportive Family
Helping to Raise Healthy Children
Preparing Children to Learn
Connecting with the Community

Building a Supportive Family

Family Partner Program

FIRST 5 Family Partners are bilingual and bicultural professionals trained to work with families to address child and family goals and secure necessary services. These services include: early care and education programs, free or low-cost health insurance, parent workshops, basic necessities, home visitation and mental health services.

Home Visitation Services

FIRST 5 home visitation services involve a trained professional in parent-child relationships who visits the child’s home to provide support through education about child development and parenting skills. Our home visitation services are offered to children who show developmental and/or behavioral concerns indicated by a developmental screening or by their parents or preschool teachers.

Parent Workshops

FIRST 5 offers workshops for parents and caregivers on how to manage the challenges associated with raising children of various ages and stages of development. Workshop topics include: understanding the joys and challenges of the first 5 years, supporting families with special needs children, how to handle your toddler’s tantrums, Kindergarten Readiness and healthy feeding.

Therapeutic Services

Intervention and treatment services designed to support children and their families who display social, emotional and behavioral concerns.

Helping to Raise Healthy Children

KidConnections

FIRST 5 KidConnections is a coordinated system of screening, consultation, and assessment that helps to detect developmental delays in children birth through age 5, and provides children and their families appropriate guidance and referrals. Each child receives a screening for developmental delays. A Mental Health and/or Educational Specialist then consults with the family to discuss the results, suggests school and/or home developmental and behavioral supports, and makes referrals for further assessment and services as needed.

Children’s Health Initiative (CHI)

CHI strives to achieve 100% health insurance coverage for children living in Santa Clara County. CHI has significantly expanded enrollment in federal, state, and local health insurance programs such as Medi-Cal, Healthy Kids and Healthy Families.

Oral Health Services

Prevention, intervention and treatment services for children which include dental exams, x-rays, oral health assessments and education, sealants, fillings, root canals, and extractions.

Preparing Children to Learn

Power of Preschool (PoP)

PoP offers high-quality and free preschool programs for 3 and 4-year-old children exposed to multiple risk factors and living in under-served communities. This program provides high quality early care and education environments and curriculum strategies designed to support all learning styles.

Comprehensive Approaches to Raising Educational Standards (CARES)

CARES is a statewide professional development institute for early care and education providers with a purpose of expanding and retaining a high quality and diverse workforce, with the the ultimate goal of increasing the quality of educational experiences for young children.

Arts Enrichment

Arts Enrichment provides community engagement and education activities in the arts, sciences and humanities for children and their caregivers. Resident artists work in 25 preschool and community sites.

Reach Out and Read

Under this program, doctors and nurses give age-appropriate books to parents when they bring their infants and small children in for baby check-ups. Books given out at clinics are provided by the local libraries.

Children’s Discovery Museum (CDM)

Rooted in children’s fundamental need to learn through concrete interactions, CDM serves as a vital family service and educational resource for the community.

Connecting with the Community

Community Engagement and Awareness (CEA)

CEA Partners provide community outreach designed to support and enhance the healthy development of children prenatal through age 5 in those communities.

FIRST 5 ServiceCorps

Members participate in multicultural community events/activities providing information on the importance of the first 5 years. FIRST 5 community events included: the opening of an all-access park, immunization drives and enrolling children in a health insurance program.

FIRST 5 Community of Learning

FIRST 5 partners participate in trainings and workshops on various topics, including: Cornell University Family Development Credential Program, Ages & Stages Questionnaires, Domestic Violence, Diagnosing Infant Mental Health Concerns, Cultural Competency and the development impact of trauma on a child.

United Way 2-1-1

Certified information and referral specialists assist callers by helping them assess their needs and identify appropriate community-based resources.

Kit for New Parents

First 5 California’s Kit for New Parents is filled with information on nutrition, safety, quality child care, health, discipline and early learning. It provides new and expecting parents the tools they need to feel confident as they welcome a child into their lives.

Website

The FIRST 5 website was redesigned and serves as an interactive resource for parents, caregivers, media and policy makers.

Building Awareness

FIRST 5 creates thematic educational materials (i.e. books, toothbrushes, magnets) that are distributed in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

Radio Programs

Multicultural radio programs are hosted in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Bosnian-Serbo-Croatian, and African languages (Tigrinya and Amharic) on various educational topics for young children and their families.