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Thursday, April 6, 2017

Janet Harris

Early Childhood and Family Engagement Initiative

Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

We are happy to announce that we received a 1.9 million dollar grant (over three years) from the Jim Joseph Federation to support the continuation and expansion of our work in Early Childhood Jewish Education and Family Engagement. The Jewish community federation is also generously supporting our work. Our new grant has three components:

1. Internship program
2. Jewish Resource Specialist program
3. “Reshet;” a program for professionals who engage with  families with young Jewish children

The purpose of the internship program is to bring in 24 educators that are new to our field and to create a protocol for onboarding new Jewish Educators in ECE. The internship is one year. We anticipate working with 8 interns each year, for three years. The interns will have an onsite mentor who will work three extra hours each week to guide the intern. The mentor will receive mentor training, as well. Both the intern and mentor will have their own Community of Practice and other learning opportunities.

The Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) program will begin its third cohort late this summer. The JRS program provides ten extra hours per week to a promising classroom teacher to become a “teacher leader” for their site. The goal is to deepen Jewish learning at the school and engage families in Jewish life. The JRS program is three years. The JRS’ participate in regular community of practice meetings, retreats, Y’mei Iyun, and a symposium in Israel during their second year. They also have monthly coaching from the JRS. To date, we have worked with 15 Jewish ECE programs in our area, and anticipate a minimum of five in our final cohort.

Reshet is a new program for us. We will be working with Family Engagement professionals to deepen their work in Community Building and to create a Community of Learners who will benefit from their colleagues. In addition to a retreat and a Yom Iyun, each participant will work with a coach in order to deepen the experiences for the families they work with. There will be two 15 month cohorts, beginning in the fall of 2017.

Please feel to contact Janet Harris (janeth@sfjcf.org) or Denise Moyes-Schnur (denises@sfjcf.org)

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