Head Start (HS) has always been at the forefront of providing parents and legal guardians various activities to enhance their parenting skills. New Head Start Performance Standards effective in 2016 state that programs must offer parents the opportunity to participate in a research-based parenting curriculum.
Ahead of the curve, LACOE began implementation five years ago, allowing agencies to choose from Abriendo Puertas, Incredible Years, and Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL).
CSEFEL is a user-friendly parenting curriculum that promotes social and emotional development as well as school readiness for children from birth to five. Over the past five years, LACOE has trained over 200 delegate agency staff and parents with the CSEFEL curriculum. The program is bilingual (English/Spanish) and consists of four training modules that are offered over five sessions. CSEFEL has proven to be effective due to the abbreviated length of the curriculum and the tools and skills that families may readily apply with their children in promoting positive behavior. According to CSEFEL, its guiding principles are:
- Supporting young children’s social and emotional development to prevent challenging behaviors
- Individualizing interventions to meet children’s and families’ unique interests, strengths, and needs
- Promoting skill building with enough intensity to effect change
- Implementing strategies in the context of naturally occurring routines and environments
- Ensuring fidelity of use through a systematic change process
- Modifying strategies to meet the cultural and linguistic diversity of families and children
