Community Child Care Council Provides Parent Cafe Host Trainings to Five Counties

February 15, 2016 – The Community Child Care Council of Sonoma County (4Cs), hosted its first annual Parent Café host training to non-profit organizations from Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Del Norte counties. The two day training provided eight nonprofits the skills and materials needed to provide their own Parent Café.

Since 2015, 4Cs has been providing ongoing Parent Cafés the third Wednesday of the month at James Monroe Elementary School. “With the ongoing support of First 5 Sonoma County, we were ready to start training other providers across our county to share this important information with families.” said Lorie Siebler, Resource and Referral Director for 4Cs. “We look forward to collaborating and supporting other agencies to provide Parent Cafes across our communities, including a Dad’s Parent Café, coming in the Fall of 2017.”

Parent Café is a support program for communities to engage parents, build protective factors, and promote deep individual self-reflection and peer to peer learning. Parent Café engages parents in meaningful conversations about what matters most; their family and how to strengthen that family. It does this by building on the five research based protective factors: Parental Resilience; Social Connections; Concrete Support in Times of Need; Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development; and Social and Emotional Competence of Children. Evidence shows that these protective factors make all families strong and better equipped to deal with times of stress and trauma.

“Relationship building amongst parents is the heart of Parent Café” said Sandra Lemus, Parent Engagement Coordinator for 4Cs. “We have learned so much putting on Parent Café and were excited to share our experiences and train other organizations to offer this rewarding program.”

For more information about Parent Café in your community, contact Sandra Lemus 707-522-1413 x133 or slemus@sonoma4cs.org