Parenting Classes

About the Program

Category: Libraries (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Parenting Classes San Diego County, CA Population: 2,933,462 San Diego County recognized the difficulties of being a parent and how here is not much training for such a challenging task. Therefore, San Diego County Libraries developed the Parenting Classes @ Your Library program to provide educational assistance to parents with raising children. Parenting classes are supported by County departments and local community-based organizations. These classes are taught by experts who provide different curricula based on their expertise but the overall curriculum of the program is to teach parents that they are their children’s first and most important teachers, early intervention and education are critical to school success and the development of healthy, resilient people and outcomes are better when services are geared toward the whole family. Parenting classes are scheduled by library staffs who also work to incorporate children’s programming and promote the program by reaching out to the targeted audience and serving as on-site facilitators. There are five different parenting classes offered at San Diego local libraries. Parenting Classes with Sra. Pastrana is taught by a child development expert who focuses on teaching positive discipline, peer pressure, communication, and helping develop responsible children for parents of elementary and secondary aged children. Proyecto Paternidad is a six week Spanish language parenting series aimed at parents of preschoolers. Let’s Read Together is a six-week literacy-based parenting series based on promoting parent/child bonding while sharing books and playing together. Positive Parenting is a series of three classes which focuses on positive communication habits with families, and raising confident, resilient children. Healthy Families is provided by Family Health Centers of San Diego and offer preschool developmental screenings after story time because parents who aren’t aware that their preschoolers need services and/or are not aware of affordable services to help their children be ready for kindergarten. Since 2009, 27 parent education series have been offered at San Diego County Library branches as part of Parenting Classes @ Your Library, with 507 parents and 624 children participating. Approximately half of all families attending the classes are new library users. If they don’t already have library cards, all participants get one for themselves and their children. So far, more than 225 new library cards have been issued to program attendees. Almost all parenting classes at San Diego County Library are filled to capacity.