Like a big breath of fresh air the new year gives us space to pause, reflect, and reconnect with our WHY. And, this year, First 5 Tehama has a lot to reflect on – positive change, significant growth, and even more opportunity.
“We LOVE to take this time to dig into the external evaluation and narrow our focus on impacting health and resilience,” said First Five Tehama Executive Director Heidi Mendenhall. “This year, four clear stories lay the foundation as we turn the corner on the first year of our newly adopted 5-year strategic plan.”
Story One
The HELP ME GROW SYSTEM positively impacts system-level factors and families. Help Me Grow provides direct online access to developmental screenings and helpful navigators who provide short-term care, coordination, and connection to crucial resources. In addition, the system offers a long-term follow-up to ongoing needs and increased relationships between community-based resources. In short, by bringing all the right players to the table, Help Me Grow links families to what they need when they need it.
Let’s showcase the data spotlighting the families first. After all, this is the WHY driving the passion and strategies behind the program.
- Help Me Grow Navigators served 250 caregivers and 290 children (families).
- Additionally, more than half of the children served were Hispanic/Latino (53%) and/or spoke Spanish as their primary language (51%).
- Most children receiving Help Me Grow services were in Corning (51%) or Red Bluff (34%).
Narrowing the focus even more, the 24 families who received the Help Me Grow intensive level support Home Visiting Parents as Teachers curriculum, we see an even more significant impact.
- In FY 2021-22, 24 home-visiting participants completed both an intake and follow-up assessment.
- At follow-up, caregivers were substantially more likely to report singing songs (71%), telling stories (71%), and reading books (79%) with their children every day, compared to intake.
- At intake, less than one in five participants (17%) had visited the library in the past six months, compared with more than four out of five (83%) participants visiting the library at least once by follow-up. All changes were statistically significant.
If we zoom out from the family to the county-level child lens, we also see a renowned impact. Across the county, more than 400 children ages 0-5 received developmental screenings. This data collection represents a snapshot of private, state, federal, and one forward-thinking school district student.
- Among them, 59% met targets in all domains, and 41% were flagged or monitored in at least one domain.
- The proportion flagged was highest for Problem-Solving (12%), Fine Motor (11%), and Communication (9%).
- Personal/Social (7%) and Gross Motor (4%) had the fewest children flagged or monitored.
Now let’s zoom out a step to the service providers themselves. The knowledge of these fantastic workers is pivotal for the success of the Help Me Grow system. This brainpower is the combination of Help Me Grow Navigators and whole communities of service providers – counselors, mental health providers, employment workers, WIC, etc. We all have our part to play. First 5 Tehama demonstrated impact in these areas by increasing relationship strength between these providers and boosting ACES/trauma knowledge among providers.
LOOKING FORWARD: We are excited to experience a significant increase in the number of 4-year-old children screened in Tehama County as we navigate our long-term strategic plan.
Story Two
First 5 Tehama secured external funding to launch the POSITIVE PARENTING PROGRAM (Triple P), an eight-week evidence-based parenting course that shows significant promise.
“The positive response from families, teachers, and leaders has been amazing,” shared Mendenhall. “In this first year, we certified five trainers, three of which are bilingual. Even more exciting is that this number will be more than doubled by the end of this year.”
Focusing on the impact always starts with families. And there is no denying testimonials like the following. (Names have been changed or omitted to protect our program recipients.)
“Levi was coloring on walls a lot,” shared a current program parent. “We discussed choosing interesting activities in the Positive Parenting Program – keep your child engaged and help avoid misbehavior. We also discussed making rules based on the positive or what you want to see. So we didn’t want to make a rule that said DON’T color on the walls. So, we decided to try to make an interesting activity and a rule that focused on coloring on the paper that we hung on the walls. It keeps Levi engaged and gives him a clear rule focusing on acceptable behavior. When he colors in these approved areas, we praise him for coloring on the paper and being creative.”
It is learning like this that changes families and breaks cycles. And the data speaks for itself.
- Nearly all participants (92%, collected 12/13/22) had improved scores in at least one domain.
- More than 60% of the participants demonstrated more appropriate family roles (e.g., taking ownership of behavior and allowing children to express developmental needs) and finding alternatives to corporal punishment.
- Similarly, more than half (54%) improved skills in valuing power and independence (placing a high value on children’s problem-solving ability).
- About half (46%) showed improvements in their total AAPI score.
LOOKING FORWARD: First 5 Tehama has funded multiple Triple P courses with the help of the community. Multiple partners have come forward to support the cause. Thanks to contributors like the Active 20-30 Club and Tehama 4 Kids, TWO courses are currently open for registration. If you are interested, please click HERE to sign up today. Also, if you are curious about becoming a trainer, thanks to Tehama County Social Services, scholarship opportunities are available. Email abrinkman@first5tehama.com to learn more about these excellent options.
Story Three
Our CRADLE TO CAREER TRAINING AND PARTNERSHIP is off and running. First 5 Tehama launched an inaugural annual training initiative to create relationships across 0-5 (and beyond) system roles, including infant/toddler, PS, K-3 educators, family/social services, and mental/behavioral health. Leaning into the importance of elevating our knowledge and strengthening relationships, First 5 Tehama saw a favorable impact this year.
“We believe that learning together, and from one other, is the most powerful form of relationship building,” said Mendenhall. “So, in all training endeavors, an equally important goal to increasing overall content knowledge is growing relationships across agencies, roles, and programs.”
Our focus continues to target resilience and hope. For example, a trauma-informed training series in the spring of 2022 included a partnership with Quality Counts California. This allowed us to expand access to trauma-informed knowledge beyond the 0-5 early educator workforce to include TK, grades 1-3, and any other provider who influences child development (e.g., social workers, counselors, nurses).
First 5 Tehama also offered a resilience-building training series called El Autocuidado y El Permiso Para Sentir. Sharon Bisalara, a certified Mind and Body trainer, led these instructive gatherings. In response to this offering, one family friend and neighbor said, “I had never been to a learning class before. Now I know I can do it if I want to try it again.”
In collaboration with the Tehama County Department of Education and Gerber Union Elementary, First 5 Tehama received a grant to support bilingual education in Tehama County. The goals of the multilingual literacy training were two-fold. First, the primary objective was to create capacity in Tehama County among preschool through third-grade teachers to provide multilingual education. The second goal was to expand the efforts of the QCCs who work with the 0-5 early educator workforce to include family childcare, TK, grades 1-3, and all other staff who influence bilingual and multilingual development. A total of 64 participants registered for one or both training sessions.
LOOKING FORWARD: We are hosting our 4th training of this Building Bilingual Brain series. If you are interested in earning a 200 stipend and diving in with us, please register for our March 1, 2023, class by clicking HERE.
Story Four
We cannot forget our USUAL SUSPECTS! Collaboration and Partnership are absolutely what makes all other more profound impacts possible. If we start with the zoomed-out view at the leadership level, the story begins with Early Intervention Partnership (EIP) – a cornerstone for the First 5 Tehama’s 0-5 impact.
EIP strives to improve communication, coordination, and integrated service delivery among systems. Information gleaned from EIP is actively shared within the partnering agencies and with other community leaders (e.g., elected official stakeholders) to facilitate the use of this knowledge and implement change.
First 5 Tehama received survey results exploring the impact of the EIP on Tehama County. In addition, member agencies show participants who have indicated that the EIP has provided value to individuals, agencies, and the community. Since the 2020-2021 survey, the percentage of participants indicating that EIP had a MAJOR IMPACT (versus neutral or moderate) has increased by 20%. Additionally, participants report meaningful change driven by the opportunity for staff to connect to partners they may not work with daily.
EIP participants had the most vital connections with essential needs/family support, early childcare/preschool, and child welfare organizations. Participants were less likely to agree that they had direct links with employment/adult education and/or mental/behavioral health sectors. This was not surprising to the First 5 team as workforce/adult education and cognitive/behavioral health were targeted in our newly adopted strategic plan. This need for this type of work is evident.
If we Zoom in a bit closer to the staff who engage with families and enroll them in 0-5 programs, the story shifts to PREGNANCY TO PRESCHOOL PARTNERSHIP which we lovingly refer to as P2P. An ad-hoc committee from EIP, P2P, is currently comprised of six programs and is constantly growing. Together they work to ease the process associated with referring families between programs, share pertinent information across partner organizations, and increase the number of families engaged in 0-5 systems.
First 5 Tehama funds a shared online referral tracking system, P2P Agency. This platform sends referrals between programs quickly and efficiently to decrease the burden on families. If you applied to preschool before this system, you would most likely know the never-ending registration forms to complete. With this new system, if families are not a good fit for one program, they are referred to another program via the tracker with no extra phone calls or paperwork for the parent. In its second full year of usage, the online referral system has continued to make a positive impact. Check out some of this year’s stats below.
- The total number of referrals increased by 21%.
- The total number of referrals resulting in program enrollment increased by 240%.
- 44% of outgoing referrals came from School Readiness/Help Me Grow (40), followed by 30 sent by First 5 Tehama. SELPA sent 13 referrals, CA State Preschool sent four, and NCCDI and Healthy Families Tehama each sent two.
- Half of all P2P referrals were sent to School Readiness/Help Me Grow (46). NCCDI received 22 referrals, State Preschool received 16, and Healthy Families Tehama received seven.
LOOKING FORWARD: First 5 Tehama’s future goals for collaboration and Partnership include continued growth of the EIP and the inclusion of more stakeholders in K-12 education, mental health, and private entities. First, 5 will continue growing cross-country, cross-sector relationships at the leadership and provider staff levels.
Read the Full Report
We invite you to read the full report and learn more about our 0-5 data. It was quite the year. CLICK HERE to pop over to our First 5 Tehama website.
Triple P
New Triple P classes have been listed! We’d love to have you share them with anyone interested in increasing their parenting toolbox and decreasing their parenting stress. To register, scan the QR code or CLICK HERE.
Podcast News
New Episodes of our favorite podcast, NORCAL CHAMPIONS WITH KIDS, have officially landed! There are several fresh author series, including one with Tehama’s Friends Julie Kurtz, Tamara Osbourne, and Dr. Chew. Take a peek, and be sure to check out their books. CLICK HERE to see our latest lineup.
A special thank you to our local sponsors, KIXE and Expect More Tehama. Their generous donations were the catalyst behind these exciting new podcasts.
