This year, we expanded access to Early Family Foundations in our existing communities, improved how we worked with families to promote children’s language and social-emotional development, and continued growing our learning partnership with Wu Yee Children’s Services.

Growth of Early Family Foundations

We expanded Early Family Foundations at our East Palo Alto and East Bay sites to increase the length of our whole-family focused programming from one year to two years and began supporting families with children as young as 12 months.

Starting our partnership with families even earlier allows us to better support children and parents at a critical stage in their child’s development.

In East Palo Alto, our Bridge to Preschool program supports building positive relationships between parents and their children. Children explore the classroom environment within the comfort and familiarity of their caregiver, leading to autonomy and confidence, while parents build their capacity to extend learning beyond the classroom. This included parents reporting growth in their understanding of how to promote their child’s social-emotional skills. Three out of four parents reported an increase in positive parenting skills, leading to stronger connections between parents and children. By participating in a preschool-like experience alongside their child, a majority of parents noticed positive changes in themselves and their child.