Child Development & Early Learning

Child Development & Early Learning​

FIRST 5 Santa Clara County strives to increase families’ access to quality early learning and childcare. Our early educator workforce development initiatives aim to strengthen both center-based and home-based learning and care settings through innovative strategies that serve to recruit and retain a qualified, compassionate, and skilled workforce that promotes healthy child development and prepares children to succeed in school and in life.

Initiatives

QUALITY MATTERS Initiative

Together with our partners at the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE), FIRST 5 Santa Clara County focuses on increasing the quality of early learning and care settings through investments in early education professionals who work in both center-based and home-based environments. We recognize that working families cannot attain economic security without finding safe, compassionate, and trauma-informed childcare settings for their young children. Our initiative provides stipends to educators for professional training and college coursework that deepens their knowledge of child development, healthy practices, and curriculum enhancements that stimulate brain development and learning for young children.

Apprenticeship Initiative

FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, funded by more than $10 million in grants from the County of Santa Clara and other public and private investors, designed and piloted an innovative Early Learning Apprenticeship Program to address the catastrophic teacher shortage in the early education field. Co-developed as an “earn and learn” cohort model with community partners including workforce development boards, early education employers (both center-based and home-based), community colleges, local libraries, and guided by ECEPTS (Early Childhood Education Pathways to Success), Santa Clara has since graduated two cohorts, bringing more than 80+ new educators into the Early Care and Education profession. This popular program, where cohort members earn their Associate Teacher permit and complete 1,000 hours in an early learning setting, will be sustained by our partners at the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE). FIRST 5 Santa Clara County has now expanded its Apprenticeship pilot to focus on earning a Teacher permit.

Shared Services Alliance

Together with a design team of Family Child Care Home providers, FIRST 5 Santa Clara County is co-designing a Shared Services Alliance to provide in-home childcare owners with needed business supports that strengthen their services to young children and working families. In addition, FIRST 5 and the provider design team developed a leadership conference for Family Child Care Home providers that has sold out for the past two years. This conference is designed by and for these essential workers across our county and includes workshops on a range of topics from childcare licensing and business supports, to self-care strategies and advocacy on behalf of the childcare field. Currently, the team is working on creating substitute teacher pools for in-home childcare providers.

Transitional Kindergarten Equity Initiative

With the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten in the state of California, FIRST 5 Santa Clara County is partnering with San José State University to offer a cohort model for diverse early educators interested in pursuing their PK-3 Specialist Credential to teach in a Transitional Kindergarten-3rd grade classroom. This opportunity prepares early educators to earn a higher income, receive comprehensive school district benefits, and have access to collective bargaining.