early learning mission sf Archives - Mission Promise Neighborhood

19

Centro Solmar de cuidado y educación infantil de Felton Institute abre sus puertas en edificio Casa Adelante – 2828 16th St.

January 19, 2022 Affordable Housing, Early Learning early learning mission sf , felton institute , solmar learning center mission sf

[Click for English, which follows Spanish.]

Más oportunidades para los niños de la Mission fueron desveladas el martes 18 de enero con la apertura del Solmar Learning Center (SLC) de Felton Institute, un centro de aprendizaje y cuidado que servirá a niños desde su nacimiento hasta la edad de cinco años.

SLC firmó un contrato de arrendamiento de 30 años en el edificio Casa Adelante 2828 16th Street (antes 1990 Folsom), un inmueble 100% de vivienda económica construido por MEDA en asocio con Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) en el sitio donde por décadas operó una panadería.

Además del SLC de Felton Institute, el edificio será sede de Galería de la Raza y HOMEY (Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth), organizaciones comunitarias con larga trayectoria en la Mission.

“Damos la bienvenida a Felton Institute a 2828 16th St.”, dijo Karoleen Feng, Directora de Bienes Raíces Comunitarios de MEDA. “Este es un día emocionante para las familias que ahora llaman hogar a este lugar. Estos residentes se verán fortalecidos por los servicios ubicados en la planta baja. Y estas organizaciones comunitarias de tradición en la Mission también tienen sus hogares permanentes. A esto lo llamamos conservación de sitios culturales”.

El nuevo centro de aprendizaje de Felton cuenta con salones de clase, estación de cunas, áreas comunes en interior y exterior, comedores, salas de esparcimiento para maestros y oficinas.

“Para Felton, esta es una oportunidad de brindar un espacio que sea apropiado para el desarrollo en términos del medio ambiente, es un espacio que es seguro, enriquecedor y es una oportunidad para que los niños y las familias se beneficien de esta sensación de comunidad”, dijo Yohana Quiroz, Directora de Operaciones de las Divisiones de Niños, Jóvenes y Familia y Jóvenes en Edad de Transición de Felton Institute. “Los padres literalmente podrán bajar las escaleras y dejar a sus hijos en nuestro programa sabiendo que los niños estarán seguros para que ellos puedan ir a trabajar”.

Con un aproximado de 3,000 familias esperando por cuidado infantil subsidiado en San Francisco, la apertura de centros de aprendizaje como Solmar ayudan a reducir esos números y a establecer un modelo equitativo para este tipo de servicios tanto a nivel local como estatal y nacional.

Solmar es el quinto centro de aprendizaje que Felton ha abierto en San Francisco y el segundo en el distrito de la Mission, en donde el instituto se ha concentrado en proveer servicios culturalmente relevantes para la comunidad latina. Felton es parte de Comunidad Promesa de la Mission, una iniciativa comunitaria de educación y antipobreza para la cual MEDA sirve como agencia principal.

“Felton ha sido un gran socio desde el comienzo de MPN”, dijo Liz Cortez, directora asociada de MPN.” Colectivamente, los socios de MPN han elaborado estrategias para aumentar el acceso equitativo a servicios de educación y cuidado temprano de alta calidad, especialmente para bebés y niños pequeños, que es la disparidad más alta de nuestras comunidades. El nuevo centro de Felton responde a esta necesidad”.

Quiroz hace eco de esas palabras al afirmar que “los servicios de cuidado infantil mantienen a las familias trabajando y la economía prosperando. Queremos crear una comunidad próspera y estas alianzas realmente permiten que eso suceda”.

Ribbon-Cutting for Felton Institute’s Solmar Learning Center at Casa Adelante – 2828 16th St.

There’s a brighter future for the Mission’s youngest residents with the Jan. 18 ribbon-cutting for Felton Institute‘s Solmar Learning Center (SLC), an early care and learning center ready to serve children from birth through age five.

SLC penned a 30-year lease at Casa Adelante – 2828 16th St. (formerly 1990 Folsom) a brand-new property that seamlessly integrates into the neighborhood. Casa Adelante – 2828 16th St. comprises 143 units of 100% affordable housing and was co-developed by MEDA and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) on the site of a long-shuttered bakery/distribution plant in what for decades was a more industrial part of the Mission.

Joining SLC on-site will be arts organization Galería de la Raza and youth-empowering nonprofit HOMEY, both community organizations with a long history in the Mission.

“We welcome Felton Institute to 2828 16th St.,” says Karoleen Feng, MEDA’s Director of Community Real Estate. “This is an exciting day for the families who now call this home. These residents will be strengthened by the services located right downstairs. And these longtime Mission community-based organizations have permanent homes, too. We call this cultural placekeeping.”

SLC’s comprehensive learning center showcases classrooms, a crib station, indoor and outdoor common areas, cafeterias, teacher break rooms and offices.

“For Felton, this is an opportunity to provide space that is developmentally appropriate in terms of the environment – it’s a space that is safe, nurturing and is an opportunity for the children and families to benefit from this community feel,” says Yohana Quiroz, Felton’s Chief Operating Officer of Children, Youth and Family and Transitional Age Youth Divisions. “Parents are literally going to be able to walk down the stairs and drop their children to our program knowing that the children will be safe so adults can go to work.”

There are an estimated 3,000 families waiting for subsidized child care in San Francisco. The opening of learning and care centers, such as SLC, reduces those numbers, creating an equitable model for this type of service at the local, state and national levels.

SLC is the fifth learning center Felton has opened in San Francisco and the second in the Mission, the latter with the Latino community being provided culturally relevant services. Felton is a longtime partner of the Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN), a community anti-poverty education initiative for which MEDA serves as backbone agency.

“Felton has been a great partner since the beginning of MPN. Collectively, MPN partners have strategized around increasing equitable access to high-quality early care and education services, especially for infants and toddlers – our community’s highest disparity. Felton’s new center addresses this need,” says Liz Cortez, Associate Director of MPN.

“Early care services keep families working and the economy thriving,” echoes Quiroz. “We want to build a strong community – and these partnerships allow for that to happen.”

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November

Good Samaritan: transformación para educar niños y servir a la comunidad durante la pandemia

November 4, 2021 Early Learning, Partners early learning mission sf , good samaritan mission sf , mission promise neighborhood

[Click for English, which follows Spanish.]

Al regresar a sus puestos de trabajo en el verano de 2020, un grupo de maestras de educación de temprana edad en la Mission se vio ante un desafío que no habían vivido antes: decirle a los niños que no podían jugar juntos.

“Por el distanciamiento social fue un desafío, era bien complicado”, recuerda Irma Chereno, una de las educadoras de Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, un aliado educativo de Comunidad Promesa de la Mission que por más de 100 años apoya a las familias inmigrantes con la educación y cuidado de sus hijos más pequeños.

En los últimos 18 meses, las maestras de Good Samaritan han vivido un proceso transformativo en varios aspectos de sus vidas para poder cumplir con su misión dentro de una comunidad impactada desproporcionadamente por la pandemia del COVID-19. Las condiciones de vida de las familias y el protagonismo de los inmigrantes en la fuerza laboral resaltan aún más el trabajo de este tipo de organizaciones.

“Fue algo bastante complejo para maestras, para las familias, para los niños, sumado al riesgo que estábamos tomando al reintegrarnos acá cuando el COVID estaba en su peor etapa”, dice Chereno, quien fue una de las primeras maestras en retomar el trabajo presencial en Good Samaritan después de cerca de dos meses de cierres obligatorios en San Francisco y educación virtual.

La pandemia representó cambios en la forma de trabajar para Good Samaritan, pero nunca modificó su misión de “ayudar a las familias vulnerables, incluidas las familias inmigrantes, a acceder a los servicios necesarios, desarrollar la autosuficiencia y participar plenamente como miembros de la comunidad de San Francisco”. La demanda por sus servicios se hizo mayor a medida que las necesidades de las familias se apilaban. Durante el encierro se hizo obligatorio recurrir a la tecnología para mantener el contacto con los miembros de la comunidad.

“La tarea principal fue la comunicación ya que muchas familias no tenían acceso a internet, o no tenían computadoras”, explica Angélica Torres Castillo, educadora líder de niños entre 3 y 4 años en Good Samaritan. “Las maestras empezamos a reunirnos con programas como WhatsApp, ya que muchas familias estaban familiarizadas con eso, y también usando el Zoom”.

Pero comprender el mundo virtual fue apenas una parte de los cambios. La operación presencial en la sede de Good Samaritan en Potrero Avenue tuvo que ser modificada para poder servir a la comunidad para poder garantizar la seguridad de niños, familias, maestros y otros trabajadores esenciales que hacen parte de la organización. Hasta el día de hoy hay protocolos estrictos de limpieza, distanciamiento social y uso de mascarillas.

“Cuando las circunstancias parecían más extremas, nuestros maestros respondieron a nuestro llamado para satisfacer las necesidades de los niños más pequeños de nuestra comunidad,” dice Melissa Castillo, directora del Centro de Desarrollo Infantil de Good Samaritan. “Si bien reconocemos que la pandemia ha ampliado la brecha educativa y desafía el futuro de nuestros niños, nuestros maestros continúan brindando estabilidad y cuidado, y brindan entornos de aprendizaje enriquecedores en nuestro programa.”

Otra realidad, nuevos enfoques
Cumplir con su misión de servicio a la comunidad implicó sacrificios y esfuerzos en casa de los educadores, que, como el resto de la población, luchaban para proteger a sus familias.

“En casa puse desinfectantes en la puerta, al llegar me quitaba los zapatos y los desinfectaba; desinfectaba manijas porque tenía que cuidar a la familia”, recuerda Chereno, quien vive con dos adultos de 90 años.

Tanto rigor tenía un precio emocional. La protección llegaba a representar distancia de los seres queridos por más que se compartiera el mismo espacio.

“Me vi en el punto de no abrazar a mis padres”, dice Torres. “Fue un cambio fuerte, especialmente en lo emocional, pero teníamos que tener un sistema riguroso porque no sabíamos mucho sobre el virus”.

La nueva realidad impulsó a robustecer los servicios de Good Samaritan tanto para sus educadores como para miembros de la comunidad. En el último año se implementó un desarrollo profesional más sólido para los maestros, mientras que a las familias se les pudo proveer con alimentación y asistencia económica. En el campo de salud mental se trabajó con especialistas para dar un mejor respaldo a las familias.

“A medida que Good Samaritan comience a reinventar su modelo de prestación de servicios en la post-pandemia, las relaciones auténticas que los maestros han construido con los niños y los padres serán un modelo de cómo las comunidades se unen para apoyarse mutuamente y abogar por el cambio”, dice Ada Freund, gerente de aprendizaje de temprana edad de Comunidad Promesa de la Mission.

Un pueblo entero
A más de un año de pandemia, las maestras de Good Samaritan se movilizan inspiradas por las familias a las que sirven en tiempos en que se redoblan los esfuerzos. Su trabajo tiene otra dimensión como consecuencia de una mayor interacción con los miembros de la comunidad.

“Casi que nos convertimos en trabajadoras sociales”, dice Torres, quien pide mayor atención, inversión y reconocimiento a la labor de maestras de educación temprana. “También somos maestros, nos preparamos para esto, estamos enseñando”.

La multiplicación de los esfuerzos sirvió para renovar y reforzar los lazos de Good Samaritan con otras organizaciones. La estrecha colaboración ha sido fundamental para resolver el presente y decidir la hoja de ruta del futuro.

“Entendemos que realmente se necesita a todo un pueblo, y trabajamos en estrecha colaboración con socios de la comunidad para brindarles a los niños todas las oportunidades para que alcancen su máximo potencial”, dice Castillo. “Nuestro socio en alfabetización, Tandem, nos proporciona libros y acceso a materiales de alfabetización culturalmente diversos. Otros socios de Comunidad Promesa de la Mission nos ayudaron con cajas de alimentos, suministros de protección sanitaria y artículos de emergencia para las familias durante el pico de la crisis pandémica. Lo más importante es que todos aprendimos que somos más fuertes cuando todos trabajamos juntos”.

Good Samaritan: Pivoting to Best Educate Children and Serve the Community During a Pandemic

Upon returning to their Mission District job site in summer 2020, a group of early education teachers were faced with an unusual challenge: telling children they could no longer play together.

“Social distancing created a challenge. It was very complicated,” recalls Irma Chereno, one of the Early Child Educators (ECE) at Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, an organization that for over a century has supported immigrant families with the education of their young ones. Good Samaritan has also been a decade-long partner of the Mission Promise Neighborhood, a community anti-poverty education initiative for which MEDA is the lead agency.

In the last 18 months, Good Samaritan teachers have pivoted to support a community disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic due to overcrowded living conditions of families coupled with the majority of Latino immigrants being frontline essential workers.

“The situation was quite complex for teachers, for families and for children, and this was all the riskier because we were reintegrating our programs when COVID-19 was at its peak,” says Chereno, who was one of the first teachers to resume face-to-face work at Good Samaritan after about two months of shelter-in-place and virtual education.

While the pandemic changed the way Good Samaritan operates, it never changed its mission “to help vulnerable families, including immigrant families, access needed services, develop self-sufficiency and participate fully as members of the San Francisco community.” The demand for their services grew as the urgent needs of families piled up. During confinement, technology became instrumental to maintaining contact with community members.

“The main task was communication since many families did not have access to the internet, or did not have computers,” explains Angélica Torres Castillo, a Master Teacher of 3- and 4-years-olds. “We began to meet through programs such as WhatsApp, since many families in our community use it, and also using Zoom.”

But understanding the virtual world was only part of the changes. The operations at Good Samaritan’s site on Potrero Avenue had to be modified to serve the community while ensuring the safety of children, families, teachers and other essential workers who are all integral parts of the organization. To this day, there are strict protocols for cleaning, social distancing and mask wearing.

“When circumstances looked most dire, our selfless teachers answered our call to meet the needs of our community’s youngest children,” says Melissa Castillo, Child Development Center Director at Good Samaritan. “While we recognize the pandemic has widened the educational gap and challenges the future for our children, we are proud that our teachers continue to provide stability and care, and always provide a nurturing learning environment.”

Another reality, new approaches
While trying to accomplish their mission with the children, ECE teachers navigated through a series of sacrifices and efforts at their own homes as they tried to protect their loved ones, just like the rest of their neighbors were doing.

“At home, I put disinfectants on the door. I would take off my shoes and disinfect them. I sanitized handles because I had to take care of the family,” recalls Chereno, who lives with a pair of 90-year-olds.

Such discipline took an emotional toll: Protection meant distancing from loved ones in the space they usually shared.

“At one point, I saw myself not hugging my parents,” says Torres. “It was a strong change, emotionally challenging, but we had to have a rigorous system because we didn’t know much about the virus at that time.”

The new reality prompted the strengthening of Good Samaritan’s services for its educators and community members. In the last year, stronger professional development was implemented for teachers, while families were provided with food and financial assistance. In terms of mental health, Good Samaritan worked with specialists to give better support to families.

“As Good Samaritan begins to reimagine their post-pandemic service delivery strategy, the authentic partnerships teachers have built with children and parents will be a model of how communities come together to support each other and advocate for change,” says Ada Freund, Mission Promise Neighborhood Early Learning Manager.

The future
A year and a half into the pandemic, Good Samaritan teachers continue to pivot, inspired by the families they serve in this time of a doubled effort by staff. Their work now offers a more intricate interaction with members of the community.

“We basically became social workers,” says Torres, who urges for more attention, investment and recognition of the work ECE teachers do. “We are also teachers, we have studied to be educators, we are teaching.”

This time of multiplying efforts and redefining roles for Good Samaritan has also been one to renew and strengthen ties with other community-based organizations. Close collaboration has been essential to resolving current challenges — and for drawing a roadmap for the future equitable recovery needed in the Mission.

“At Good Samaritan, we further understand that it really, really does take a village, and we work closely with community partners and supporters to provide children with every opportunity for them to achieve their full potential,” says Castillo. “For example, MPN literacy partner, Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, provides us with books and access to culturally diverse and language-appropriate literacy materials. Other MPN partners helped us with food boxes, PPE supplies and emergency essential goods for families during the height of the pandemic crisis. The most important lesson is that we are stronger when we all work together.”

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November

¡Sí, Se Puede! Mission Promise Neighborhood Working Collectively to Advance Racial Equity by Improving School Readiness for Latinx Children

November 13, 2020 Early Learning early learning mission sf , mission promise neighborhood , school readiness mission sf

Photo: Alejandro Bautista

Co-authored by:
Associate Director, Mission Promise Neighborhood Liz Cortez
Early Learning Program Manager, Mission Promise Neighborhood Ada Freund

(Read report.)

Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) is honored to be presenting at the Clear Impact “2020 Measurable Equity Conference,” which will be focused on advancing racial justice. In alignment with that topic, MPN will be presenting lessons learned around successful school-readiness efforts for Latinx and immigrant children residing in San Francisco’s Mission District.

MPN pairs a Collective Impact framework and Results-Based Accountability (RBA) tools to identify disparities around school readiness for Latinx children, bringing together neighborhood partners and families to identify and implement strategies that best meet the unique needs of our community.

The Promise Neighborhood model focuses on school readiness because studies show that being ready for school at kindergarten is a predictor of third-grade proficiency, plus high school and college success. In the 2018 to 2019 school year, Latinx children In the Mission District were less likely to be school ready at kindergarten. The numbers showcased the disparity: The school-readiness average for schools in the Mission District was 48% overall, with White students at 65%, Black students at 50% and Latinx students at 42%, the lowest percentage for all students. The reason is that MPN children and families face many systemic inequities, including barriers to economic mobility. One-hundred percent of young children in MPN, ages prenatal to five, qualify for local, state or federal early care and education subsidies; sixty-eight percent of these children are living at the Federal Poverty Level, qualifying them for Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

To combat this inequity, MPN Collective Impact model provides children and families with wraparound supports via a two-generation, whole-child approach. Our early care and education programs are high quality, culturally responsive and include an integrated family engagement/support component. Partner organizations have developed strong relationships and refer families across the network. MPN also emphasizes building parent leadership because moms and dads are their child’s first and most important teachers — and their best advocates.

In addition to support services, MPN convenes early learning partners to develop a shared agenda around school readiness, with targeted and aligned strategies that have become the foundation for the development of a strong network of partners that are sharing data, creating shared measures, implementing shared strategies, taking a strengths-based approach when partnering with families in a culturally responsive and authentic way, and advocating for the needs of young children and families. MPN uses RBA tools, such as shared performance measures and turn-the-curve thinking, to ensure data and strategy discussions translate to action.

To better understand the impact of our early care and education programs — and our network of support on school readiness — MPN engaged in a longitudinal cohort study of 299 children leaving PreK in spring 2018 and entering kindergarten that fall. The study demonstrated that MPN 4-year-olds whose families also participated in MPN services had stronger scores across all developmental domains in the assessment performed by teachers. Additionally, these same children when entering kindergarten in a Mission District elementary school were 71% ready compared to the Mission District average of 48% for that year. For Latinx children, the results were even higher, at 72% readiness.

MPN has many lessons learned around the improvement of school readiness, but following are three salient elements of this early learning work:

Culture shift. MPN partners are working together to break down organizational silos, using a Collective Impact approach and RBA tools. This has meant working differently in various ways, running the gamut from developing a shared agenda for approaching school readiness to consistently sharing data.
Co-creation and capacity building. MPN partners have learned that it is most impactful to co-create with the community; in our case, with families of young children building their capacity to inform and lead this work.
Continuous improvement. MPN partners are building a culture of continuous improvement that focuses on data review and strategy improvement. This requires us to constantly adapt based on community needs, such as those presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To advance racial justice, we must all ensure that more children and families are able to benefit from these high-quality early care and education programs and MPN services. MPN partners are expanding their programs and continuing to integrate and refer across the network. Together, we are breaking down the barriers to access and supporting children and families to succeed in kindergarten … and beyond.

Archive

19

Ribbon-Cutting for Felton Institute’s Solmar Learning Center at Casa Adelante – 2828 16th St.

4

Good Samaritan: Pivoting to Best Educate Children and Serve the Community During a Pandemic

13

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