A Virtual Family Series with Veronica Valente SBCSS Early Education and Development Department

Veronica Valente, an Early Education Specialist at San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, discussed her role in the Quality Start San Bernardino rating system and social-emotional coaching for teachers. She highlighted an upcoming family series aimed at supporting parents and teachers with strategies for managing children's behaviors and fostering positive interactions. The series, consisting of five sessions, covers topics like building family relationships, understanding children's behaviors, and developing friendship skills. The sessions are virtual and open to anyone, including grandparents and family members. Registration details will be provided through the OMS link and newsletter.

Family Series:  Keeping it Positive.      October 29, 2024 3:004:30.   
 https://sbcss.k12oms.org/2729-244774

Family Series:  Why do Children do What They do?  January 29, 2025 3:00-4:30.     https://sbcss.k12oms.org/2729-244781

Family Series:  Behavior Has Meaning.  February 19, 2025. 3:00-4:30. 
https://sbcss.k12oms.org/2729-244782

Early Education and Development webpage:
https://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/index.php/en/ess-2019/early-education-and-development

Music by lemonmusicstudio from Pixabay - Where the Light Is

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Nancy Sherrod, Veronica Valente, Ana Garcia

Ana Garcia  00:09

Hey everyone. This is Anna Garcia and 

Nancy Sherod  00:11

Nancy Sherrod from the Early Education and Development Department at San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. Tomorrow's Readiness Starts. Today is a podcast that is meant to introduce you to someone who is playing an important role in the preschool to third grade initiatives.

Ana Garcia  00:26

If you're a parent, teacher, family, child care provider, administrator, or anyone that has a passion for all things Early Learning, then you are going to want to tune in.

Nancy Sherod  00:34

This month, we're changing things up a little. We want to spread the word on a great new series that is launching this new school year.

Ana Garcia  00:41

Here with us is our own Early Education Specialist, Veronica Valente, welcome Veronica.

Veronica V.  00:47

Welcome everybody. Thank you for having me.

Nancy Sherod  00:49

We're so excited that you're here with us today. We love having our own team here first before we jump into your series and all the fun stuff, tell us a little bit about your role here at San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools.

Veronica V.  01:00

Okay, so currently I'm working as a rater for Quality Start San Bernardino, so it's a quality improvement rating system we have, mostly for family, child care providers, center based, even faith based, and some private with the partnership of Cal State San Bernardino. San Bernardino Superintendent of Schools, First Five, San Bernardino and Preschool Services. Another thing I'm doing right now is the social emotional coaching. So I'm going out in the classrooms with the teachers and helping them conduct, build them items or tools that they can use in their tool belt to help them with behavior strategies. And then some of the trainings I'm conducting as well. I'm doing social, emotional, some inclusion and the family series I've been on the CLSD coaching for literacy so we've done with the state, we've done some coaching with the different coaching cycles. So if we've done like a interactive classroom, supportive learning and play, rich literacy, rich environments, and addressing the whole child and also establishing those literacy foundations and family engagement. Yes, exactly. 

Nancy Sherod  02:28

So here's a fun hat that we're going to talk about today.

Ana Garcia  02:32

All right, Veronica, so we love all the great things that you're doing to support our little learners. And so we want to know a bit more about your family series that is coming up pretty soon.

Veronica V.  02:39

Yes. So recently, we just had one on the eighth of this month, and we did one of them, so it's one out of five, and you don't have to attend all of them. You can attend one, or you can attend all of them, but it would be beneficial if they attended all of them, because everyone has different components that we go over. So for the first one, we're doing the making connections as a family. They're building relationships as a family, learning how to manage their emotions and trying to communicate those behaviors, learning how to replace those challenging behaviors. The one that's coming up in October, we have the family series, keeping it positive, understanding how to play with powerful parenting practices, learning how to help children develop friendship skills, and linking that relationship with positive comments and encouragement and play to children's behaviors.

Nancy Sherod  03:32

But let's stop for a second. Yes, so these parents are coming to a Virtual Family series, right? And they're talking about what you said in the first one, and the behaviors and the positive. So can you give an example, like we just did one on August 8? What was one of the tasks, or one of the questions or one of the activities that happened in that August 8 session that families can expect going forward, or what was one of the things they did, so that families know this is what it's doing. It's not you sitting and getting but it's bigger than that.

Veronica V.  03:59

 So I think it's great that the parents came in, because we also had teachers and we had assistants. We had different people that participated some of the techniques that they learned in this last one is building those quality times with their children, so those one on one relationships with them, and then also having like, what kind of activities? Because sometimes we know, like, a lot of these parents, have busy schedules, so trying to fit that into their schedule and making them more purposefull, so that they can make those moments in there. And they don't have to be big moments, they can be little moments, like brushing their teeth or before going to bed, like, what can like, read a story with them, even when they're in the car, some of the things that they can do, sing songs, just getting to know like maybe when they pick them up, like, what what's going on in their day, or what happened in school? So just making those connections.

Nancy Sherod  04:26

So it's really an opportunity for parents to come get ideas if they need them, but also to pat themselves on the back that they're doing. Times, oh, I'm doing that already. I didn't know that's what that was. Perfect. Okay, sorry, I cut you off in the middle of you talking through series. So we know October's what are the other three topics?

Veronica V.  05:09

So the one in January, we have a Why do children do what they do? So that one's more like the behaviors. So a lot of these ones are behaviors, especially with covid, some behaviors where everything just just went backwards, upside down, and so not having that engagement that we used to have in the classroom, or socialization. So now these kids are going into these classrooms, not having the skills that they need, so that they have to learn these skills that they lost before or didn't have practice to have in the house or with other children.

Ana Garcia  05:49

And I also hear teachers really want to participate in your trainings, because I know the first session that you had, there was a few teachers that were interested in learning how they can pass that information onto their families. So I think that's a great thing to note here, that it's not just for families or parents, it's for teachers, anyone who wants to learn more about how to manage behaviors and work with children, you know, who have some challenges in their classrooms. So I think it's a great thing that you're doing this for our County

Veronica V.  06:18

 Yeah, thank you for bringing it up. Yes. And it's great to see some of the teachers that I'm coaching currently coaching, them. And so I think they're putting stuff that we're showing them in the classroom into practice with some of these families and the children, and then they help the families that they provide better in their classrooms as well

Nancy Sherod  06:36

because the best students are have a team of parents and teachers together. Yes, that's really what we want. So what? When parents hop into one of these, how long can they expect to be there? What's expected of them? Can they have their child next to them? Should they have their child next to them?

Veronica V.  06:51

Well, this is more. We don't recommend it, but we understand sometimes they don't have child care available. So maybe when they go on, because most of them are zoom, they can mute themselves, and then if they need to step away, then it's understandable. We try to make it more engaging for them. So I think it's more better if they were there by themselves, so that they could get that full experience, and then being able to participate and listen to some of the suggestions, because even some of the other parents chime in, or they add to the participation, which is great, because then they get an idea of what parenting is. There's no handbook. There's no way that works for every child. You might have one strategy for one child, but it doesn't work for the other child, or if the other strategy works for this child, doesn't work for the other ones, so just giving them those tools.

Nancy Sherod  07:45

awesome. So who are we hoping to support with this series?

Veronica V.  07:49

So like I said, just anybody that wants to come and listen to it, even we wouldn't mind, like having grandparents or family members of other some of the younger ones, I know maybe if they have their first nephew or niece, and maybe they don't know, like what to expect, so then they kind of are aware of some of the things that work when they go in there, like, okay, maybe this is what I'm gonna expect when I'm engaging with my with my nephew or my niece, or even, Like grandparents, sometimes like having those that time with them, with their grandchildren.

Ana Garcia  08:25

Awesome, Veronica. And so how can listeners get the information and register for this family series?

Veronica V.  08:31

So we have an OMS link that everything is on, where they can go and look at all the series. And we have these series, and then we have all these other available trainings on the OMS as well as we also have the newsletter where they can sign up to have the mailing so that they can get all the trainings that are coming up in the future.

Nancy Sherod  08:54

So that means, at the notes for this session, everybody, we will have the link to register through OMS, another acronym, and I'm going to be honest, I don't know what OMS stands for, but it's where you register. So look that up. We'll do that piece. We will have the registration link in there. We're just going to own the acronyms. We don't know. We talk acronyms every time. We'll know for next time, guys, we'll register there. We'll also have a link to the list of other activities we have. We have a ton of different workshops on all sorts of the growing brain and ways to support behavior, social, emotional. So we'll, we'll put that in the notes for this, to make sure that you have access to that and to spread the word. Because it's not just for families like you said. It could be for teachers, it could be for providers or family, child cares. If you are a social worker working with people, let's invite the parents to this. Let's invite some of your colleagues to this. This is definitely a great series that we want to see take off and get lots of bodies there.

Veronica V.  09:55

And it's growing because we first started with a few in enrollment  And now it's like we doubled what we the first series. So we're hoping that we keep growing and having more people attend.

Nancy Sherod  10:07

We love this, and we want to thank you for taking time out to help us spread the word on this exciting new opportunity for our department. We know this is just a toe dip into the next level of ways we can support those zero to eight year olds throughout our County

Veronica V.  10:20

Thank you for having me today. I really enjoyed being here and letting you guys get information about the series, and hope you guys attend

Nancy Sherod  10:28

We appreciate you sharing. Thanks.

Ana Garcia  10:30

Veronica, so that's a wrap for today. Please to help us spread the word about our family series and join us next month as we bring you another ep