Healthy Families Cooperative
As with all of WJCF’s programs the aim is to move from conflict to collaboration. The long-term goal of the Healthy Families Cooperative is to develop an interactive, culturally competent, peaceful conflict resolution teaching tool focused on the needs of children 0-5 years. The tool uses an elicitive training approach to train parents, childcare providers, and staff at social service agencies (i.e. facilitators of children’s interaction). As an objective in helping us achieve our goals, this program will produce the curriculum developed on a DVD/Video format.
Our approach is based on research showing that an essential part of healthy development in preschoolers is learning conflict resolution skills. Furthermore, the most effective approach in transferring conflict resolution skills to young children is by training the facilitators of their interaction (i.e. parents and caregivers).
The overall objective of the project is to promote strength-based, effective, and culturally appropriate methods for teaching conflict resolution skills to children 0-5. An important component of the overall objective is the actual process. Because we are using an elicitive training approach in which the stakeholders provide feedback in the design of the teaching tool, we are seeking to expand the knowledge base from traditional academic settings to grassroots-providers (i.e. home-based child-care providers, preschools, and social-service providers). We thus model community engagement as a key component of the development of the teaching tools where Cooperative members are actively engaged.
Initially funded by First 5 LA, the Los Angeles County-wide Healthy Families Cooperative is comprised of WJCF; Camino Nuevo Charter Academy Early Childhood Program; Inter-Agency Drug Abuse Recovery Program; Little Company of Mary, Community Health; LAUSD Parents & Infants who are Visually Impaired Together (PIVIT)-IPSS; Singing Fountain Preschool; and Tapia Family Childcare D.A.E.P. In addition to these members, curriculum for this program is also being tested at Roosevelt School from the Pasadena Unified School District, and at A New Way of Life Re-Entry Program which serves mothers transitioning out of prison.
During the first year of the program, faculty from Pacific Oaks College and Pacific Oaks Children’s School acted as advisors for the program. Grateful for their wonderful help, HFC is now transitioning into its second year and is seeking additional funding, new members/organizations to host and pilot our curriculum, as well as an outside third party evaluator.
One of our new partners include Helena Kopecky, Ph.D., who is a licensed psychologist with her own practice in Pasadena, in addition to her role as a staff psychologist at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH). Helena is playing an active role on the design of the internal evaluation plan.
Another one of our newest partners is mediation and film production consultant Gregory Stone, a fellow at Pepperdine University School of Law Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. Together we are working towards making the HFC curriculum available on a video/dvd format.
As of the summer of 2007, the HFC program has begun designing and implementing 45 minute parenting workshops which have the objective of transferring conflict resolution skills to children 0-5 years of age by training the facilitators who have the most interaction with them, that being the parents. Each workshop teaches one concept, and engages the audience with a series of role-plays to give parents opportunities to practice the concept.
For additional information on these workshops and/or to learn about the latest information on the program, please click on one of our HFC newsletters or contact the Program Director for Conflict Resolution Education, Marquez Equalibria at marquez@westernjustice.org
News Updates
HFC - News Update August 17, 2007
HFC - News Update June 28, 2007
