Partnership Spotlight - North Community
FIRST 5 North Community Partnership has evolved over the last two years. Previously, the Partnership was considered to be a group of agencies sharing resources. Now, many agencies work together to provide coordinated services to the community such as: free Parent Workshops, Family Partner services, and an Ambassador program.
The Parent Workshops, coordinated through Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education, implement new workshop series in order to better meet the needs of the community – most recently through a Healthy Cooking series. In a similar manner, the Family Partner services, through Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC), connects families to events. For example, through CHAC’s relationship with the Mountain View Kiwanis Club and Mervyn’s, they helped 26 children obtain shopping sprees for back to school items at Mervyn’s, followed by a breakfast with the Kiwanis volunteers. Additionally, CHAC provided a part-time home visitor position after identifying that children need Home Visitor services.
More than anything, the Partnership is a collaborative effort to leverage resources in the community and actively work across agencies to accomplish goals that are larger than any one organization. This is evident through the ”Partnership Gatherings.”
The lead agency, Palo Alto Community Child Care (PACCC), realized that conducting Partnership meetings in the traditional way was not drawing in parents. So they joined with Parents Place and the Ambassador program (which provides community members with resources and skills to be leaders in their neighborhood) to form Partnership Gatherings. Instead of planning with the providers, they started with parents and let them define the structure of the group based on their needs.
There are many examples of how the North Partnership has benefitted the community. Here is one of many:
As a young father of five, Joe registered for a 6-week parenting workshop series - The Importance of Fatherhood. He encouraged other friends who were fathers in the community to attend, explaining how important it is for fathers to get support in order to be good parents. Joe is now a Parent Workshop Assistant and assists at every workshop with registration, translation and in helping to create opportunities for families to share skills/tools, knowledge and experiences. He is also an integral part of the Partnership as he leads topics on recreation and health at the Partnership Gatherings. It was Joe’s topic on health that prompted a small group to give feedback to the rest of the Partnership about the need for workshops surrounding healthy eating habits in a non-threatening, exciting forum.
If you would like to submit a family success story to be featured on our website please email your story to:
Shalini Singh, Communications Specialist
shalini@first5kids.org
Click here for more Featured Family Success Stories
Click here for more Featured Family Success Stories
The Parent Workshops, coordinated through Mountain View-Los Altos Adult Education, implement new workshop series in order to better meet the needs of the community – most recently through a Healthy Cooking series. In a similar manner, the Family Partner services, through Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC), connects families to events. For example, through CHAC’s relationship with the Mountain View Kiwanis Club and Mervyn’s, they helped 26 children obtain shopping sprees for back to school items at Mervyn’s, followed by a breakfast with the Kiwanis volunteers. Additionally, CHAC provided a part-time home visitor position after identifying that children need Home Visitor services.
More than anything, the Partnership is a collaborative effort to leverage resources in the community and actively work across agencies to accomplish goals that are larger than any one organization. This is evident through the ”Partnership Gatherings.”
The lead agency, Palo Alto Community Child Care (PACCC), realized that conducting Partnership meetings in the traditional way was not drawing in parents. So they joined with Parents Place and the Ambassador program (which provides community members with resources and skills to be leaders in their neighborhood) to form Partnership Gatherings. Instead of planning with the providers, they started with parents and let them define the structure of the group based on their needs.
There are many examples of how the North Partnership has benefitted the community. Here is one of many:
As a young father of five, Joe registered for a 6-week parenting workshop series - The Importance of Fatherhood. He encouraged other friends who were fathers in the community to attend, explaining how important it is for fathers to get support in order to be good parents. Joe is now a Parent Workshop Assistant and assists at every workshop with registration, translation and in helping to create opportunities for families to share skills/tools, knowledge and experiences. He is also an integral part of the Partnership as he leads topics on recreation and health at the Partnership Gatherings. It was Joe’s topic on health that prompted a small group to give feedback to the rest of the Partnership about the need for workshops surrounding healthy eating habits in a non-threatening, exciting forum.
If you would like to submit a family success story to be featured on our website please email your story to:
Shalini Singh, Communications Specialist
shalini@first5kids.org
Click here for more Featured Family Success Stories
Click here for more Featured Family Success Stories