ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The Primary School (TPS) is a new non-profit organization dedicated to dramatically improving health and educational outcomes for children. Fueled by the belief that the current model of school is too limited to close the achievement gap for our nation’s most at risk children, TPS is designing a new model of primary education and primary care which braids together education, health, and family support services starting at birth. In doing so, the school will expand the traditional definition of “school” in order to prepare all children to succeed in college, career, and life. TPS was seeded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a major national philanthropy.

TPS’s innovative new model of support has three defining characteristics:

• Provide integrated and comprehensive services: The new school will partner with an existing health care organization. Educators and health care professionals will provide integrated academic and health (physical, mental, and socio-emotional) services to students and families.
• Begin serving children as early as possible: The school aims to admit students as close to birth as possible and will provide early childhood supports alongside medical care during the critical years of child development, ensuring that students are school-ready by the time they enter the elementary school grades.
• Offer two-generation supports: Families will receive services, including primary care and intensive parenting education, to help them better support their children and become healthier themselves.

We opened our first site in East Palo Alto in 2016 and currently serve 250 children (ages 0 to 5) and their families. In addition to our core focus on directly serving children and families, TPS is committed to designing a model that is replicable in other communities. We are investing in design, research, evaluation, and dissemination that will allow us to replicate our model and/or transfer our learnings to others.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We believe deeply in the importance of supporting children and their families from an early age. We currently focus on serving children between the ages of 18 to 36 months of age and we will expand our services down to birth over time. We are seeking a clinician for the birth-to-three program who will be responsible for designing and delivering programming that builds parent-child relationships through parent capacity building.

This individual will be exceptionally skilled at building trusted relationships through group-based and dyadic programming with parents and families of infants and toddlers.  The role is mission critical to delivering upon The Primary School’s innovative model of aiming to support children from birth.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate and deliver weekly group-based psycho-education in English and Spanish, focused on parent-child attachment, parental well-being and sense of self-efficacy.
• Design, plan, and implement social-emotional learning groups with parents and children together. These groups will focus on 1) nurturing the parent-child attachment relationship, 2) demonstrating evidence-based parenting techniques, 3) strengthening children’s development, 4) increasing parents’ knowledge of their children’s developmental needs and strengths, and 5) building community between families.
• Conceptualize cases utilizing reliable and evidence-based tools like developmental screeners and assessment tools.
• Support parents in implementing strategies that lead to positive attachment and their child’s social-emotional development.
• Work in deep partnership with families, parent wellness coaches, 0-3 program interventionists, and school teams to ensure program delivery and optimal care for families.
• Coordinate support for families with other Primary School team members and community organizations by maintaining well-documented and organized information.
• Help develop and provide feedback on technology that can support child-directed time and the parent-child relationship.
• Participate in the design, evaluation, and refinement of all of the above programs and services.
• Participate in and contribute to the universal activities of the 0-3 program and The Primary School.

As needed:

• Conduct dyadic coaching interventions for families in need of additional, personalized supports.
• Provide training to Primary School parent wellness coaches with varying levels of expertise in child development and parent-child attachment.
• Attend trainings relevant to parent education and/or parent-child curriculum and share new learnings with TPS staff.