Please click below to read about any of our programs and services (in alphabetical order):
Case Management (for parents only)
Case management are one-on-one individual and confidential sessions with families to identify specific areas of need, complete the Parent Empowerment Assessment Tool (PEAT), set realistic goals for change using a strength-based approach, and use a Family Plan to accomplish goals. Sessions are held for 6-8 weeks, are each 30-60 minutes long, and take place in the home, school, or in the community.
Children’s library (For parents and children)
The Robert L. Severns Children's Library at GFS is the only library in the local community serving families with young children. With no public libraries within walking distance, the Children's Library offers a welcoming environment that invites families to discover the joys and love of reading. The Library has a collection of more than 10,000 Spanish, English, and bilingual books appropriate for children ages 0 to 8 years of age. The hours of operation for our library are Monday-Friday 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm.
Community events (for parents and children)
These events are aim to strengthen the relationship between teachers, parents, and their children. They bring together students, teachers, and family members over a welcoming dinner. Each event is split into two activities, one to bring teachers and parents together (while children participate in a separate activity), the other to integrate children. This last hour responds to the needs assessment’s finding that parent-child activities are a top wish for families. The events are designed to:
- build trust and comfort between families and teachers (a barrier to meaningful parental engagement)
- develop an understanding by families and teachers of the need for family-teacher collaboration for a child’s success
- help children understand that their teachers and family know each other and play complementary roles in their (the children’s) lives
EQ4Kids (for children only)
Program implemented at local schools to help the social and emotional development of children.
Hablemos Juntos (for parents only)
In 2012, researchers at Stanford University invited Grail Family Services to join them as a community partner in developing a new program for supporting parent engagement with young children. This program, called the Habla Conmigo Academy, is designed to empower Latino, Spanish-speaking parents from disadvantaged backgrounds to foster the language-rich home environments that help propel young children to success. Using materials from the curriculum developed in this collaboration, GFS developed a related program called Hablemos Juntos. Hablemos Juntos consists of weekly workshops where parents from similar backgrounds develop and practice skills that will help enrich their child’s language, cognitive and socio-emotional development. Parents learn about the brain and child development, and what they can do at each stage to engage their child in positive interactions and meaningful conversations. The primary objective of Hablemos Juntos is to engage parents as partners in fostering the strong communication; social-emotional and academic skills that will ensure their children enter school confident and ready to learn. This objective is reached by increasing parents':
- Knowledge about the importance of early stimulation for optimal development
- Understanding that intelligence can be developed
- Understanding of what they can do to help their children be “smarter”
- Confidence about parenting skills
- Social support and social connections in the community
NuParent (for parents only)
The NuParent program is designed to provide parents of infants with the confidence and skills to deal with the challenges of being a new parent and to support their child’s health and development. Parents and their infants attend together. NuParent supplies learning experiences and hands-on activities that develop knowledge about the stages of infant development and how to create a healthy, nurturing home environment. This 8-week program also includes opportunities for participants to create a support network to reduce the feeling of isolation and stress.
Parent Empowerment Assessment Tool (professional development)
The Parent Empowerment Assessment Tool (PEAT) was developed as an overarching framework of evaluation in order to measure changes in parent empowerment that arise from participating case management. The PEAT assesses parents’ empowerment in four domains (culture, parenting, basic needs, community support). The tool was developed after researching literature on family empowerment. The four domains of parent empowerment listed in the tool were carefully selected because they represent the most relevant and important areas for determining empowerment. You can find the tool, here.
Raising A Reader Plus (for parents and children)
Raising A Reader Plus (RAR Plus) rotates bright red bags filled with award-winning books into children's homes on a weekly basis, exposing children on average to over 100 books per rotation cycle. RAR Plus pairs this book rotation with parent training and information on how to effectively share books to promote family literacy habits, language and literacy skills, and a love of learning. Families are also connected with their local public library and children receive a blue book bag at the end of the program to keep so that they can continue the practice of borrowing books and build a lifelong habit of reading.
SEEDS of Early Literacy Program (professional development)
The Family Child Care Provider Program will engage licensed family child care providers and Community Promotores in the SEEDS of Early Literacy Program. SEEDS is a nationally recognized professional development program based on relationship theory. Using the SEEDS curriculum, we recruit, engage, train, coach and support licensed family child care providers (FCCP) and Community Promotores in East San Jose. In addition to the SEEDS curriculum, we have augmented the training by adding a workshop on Oral Language Development, Hablemos Juntos (see above), and a second workshop on the Building Blocks of Parenting for Family Engagement (see above). Together, the three components will ensure that early child care providers, Promotores, and parents in our community are using consistent practices and messages to engage young children in meaningful oral language, learning, and literacy experiences during the most critical developmental periods. Numerous studies converge on the fact that caregiver engagement starting at a very early age is critical to a child’s success at school and in life. A recent assessment conducted in our target community by the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities found that children ages 0-3 and their parents are a particularly underserved population. We have worked and will continue to work tirelessly to help remedy this situation.
Sí, Se Puede Collaborative (collective impact)
Grail Family Services is part of the Sí, se puede! Collective, which includes Amigos de Guadalupe, School of Arts & Culture, Grail Family Services and SOMOS Mayfair. The Sí, se puede! Collective brings together four like-minded and respected community agencies serving low-income Latino families in the Mayfair neighborhood of East San José. Through joint advocacy, coordinated service delivery and accessibility, and sharing of costs and business operations, we are working to create a model of organizational collaboration and integration to promote greater collective impact and inform the broader field.
Strengthening Families Program (for parents and children)
Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is an evidence-based family skills training program designed to reduce problem behaviors, increase positive family communication and to improve social competencies and school performance. SFP assists families in developing a stronger bond, better communication, and learning how to deal with challenges more effectively. It is hosted on a school campus, in Spanish and English, in 14 weekly 2-hour sessions, has student participation, and includes family dinner time and child care. SFP serves from 8 to 12 families per session (children are considered the clients).
Summer literacy academy (for children only)
The Summer Academy comprises: (1) A Literacy-Building Curriculum and Related Activities in the GFS classrooms and Children’s Library; (2) Computer Skill Development activities in the GFS Computer Lab; (3) Recreational Enrichment and Personal Development activities; and (4) Weekly Educational Field trips designed to expand participants knowledge of the world around them and expose them to potential academic and career opportunities.
Support Group (for parents only)
The program is designed to help women build a network of support through providing a safe space where they can share their experiences, learn about different topics, and a space where they can learn about the importance of self-care. It is an 8-week program and usually runs once every ESL Semester. Each cohort differs in the weekly themes discussed and activities that they do based on the women in the group and their needs. The first week is an introductory session that allows for discussion on the purpose of a support group, allows participants to get to know one another, and has the parents begin to reflect on themes they would like to discuss, goals they have for themselves and their families, and how to take steps in reaching those goals. The second session allows for parents to share their goals and themes they would like to discuss. Then, the following week’s themes are set to match the women’s goals. Common themes are self-esteem, depression, anxiety, disciplining children, self-care, and health and exercise.
Yes We Can Read! (for parents and children)
Yes We Can…Read!™ (YWCR) is a comprehensive literacy program designed to address the low reading levels of children in the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District. YWCR matches K-1st graders with trained Reading Mentors who volunteer for weekly one-on-one reading sessions. The program also includes Parent/Teacher Workshops and Family Literacy Nights to further support the children’s learning. Launched in the Fall of 2010, the Yes We Can…Read™ Children’s Initiative is a collaborative effort that involves several providers, including the San Jose City Library, United Way Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District. The program is designed to improve the reading levels of students in K-1st grade so that they can successfully transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Yes We Can…Read™ has three complementary components that work together to nurture and support children’s love of reading.
- Reading Mentor Sessions. Volunteers from local corporations and the community are matched with K-1st graders for 12-24 weekly, one-on-one literacy development sessions at their school. In addition to strengthening their student’s reading skills, Mentors provide a caring and positive role model. Highly-structured mentor sessions give mentors guidance and help keep lessons on track. We developed a structure that focuses heavily on alphabet recognition exercise, recognizing the sounds of the letters, as well as reading comprehension, critical thinking, and vocabulary building.Want to be a Reading Mentor to a young child? please follow this link here.
- Parent/Teacher Workshops. During these weekly parent engagement workshops, parents are provided with the tools and skills they need to support their children’s learning experiences. These 2-hour workshops are held for 6 consecutive weeks at the school. To facilitate open communication between the parents and the school, teachers are encouraged to attend. GFS provides the children with dinner and childcare while their parents attend the workshops.
- Family Literacy Nights.These 2-hour parent-child learning opportunities are held at local libraries and conducted by the San Jose Public Library staff. During Literacy Nights, parents practice with their children the concepts they learned in the parent workshops, and learn how to access the public library system and resources.
ESL (for parents only)
ESL is comprised of 3 activities: Activity 1 - Traditional ESL classes will comprise 2 consecutive semesters, each serving a total of 35 adult learners who will meet Monday through Thursday, 8:30 am to 11:30 am. Activity 2 - Sed de Saber, a self-paced, culturally sensitive technology approach that builds on the traditional class, is used by each student for 30 minutes twice weekly, immediately following the ESL class, for 10 weeks. Activity 3- Let’s TALK, TALK, and TALK is held monthly. Participants are placed in small groups with volunteers from the community who speak English only. Volunteers facilitate conversations and assist the learners as they practice their English skills. All conversational sessions are “English only.” All participants take part in all three strategies.
Family engagement training and Building Blocks of Parenting (professional development)
In September 2014, Grail Family Services and its Family Engagement Impact Project (FEIP) partners began to develop family engagement messages that would be easy for families to put into practice. The messages would answer the question: “what does it mean to be an engaged parent?” As a first step, we divided the original messages (36 of them) into messages and strategies. The messages are ideas parents can keep top of mind, while the strategies are simple ways to put those ideas into practice. We eventually reduced the number of messages to six, and the strategies to no more than three per message. We then shared this draft with parents at each of the partner agencies. Parents gave us substantial feedback, most of which was integrated into the final version of the messages and strategies - which we now call the Building Blocks of Parenting. Please find the final version of the the Building Blocks here (for English) and here (for Spanish), and follow these guidelines if you do.
Each of the Building Blocks is supported by a body of research that explains why they are important and effective for parents and families. For each of the 6 messages, we wrote a summary of the research that supports it. We hope this helps staff working directly with families to explain the importance of the Building Blocks in helping families support the positive development and educational outcomes of their children. You can find this summary, here.
This comprehensive family engagement training gives providers specific tools to interact with the parents of the children they serve. Participants gain an understanding of what research says about family engagement, how to promote family engagement and overcome common obstacles, the role of The Building Blocks of Parenting in family engagement, and how to develop a plan for family engagement.
Each of the Building Blocks is supported by a body of research that explains why they are important and effective for parents and families. For each of the 6 messages, we wrote a summary of the research that supports it. We hope this helps staff working directly with families to explain the importance of the Building Blocks in helping families support the positive development and educational outcomes of their children. You can find this summary, here.
This comprehensive family engagement training gives providers specific tools to interact with the parents of the children they serve. Participants gain an understanding of what research says about family engagement, how to promote family engagement and overcome common obstacles, the role of The Building Blocks of Parenting in family engagement, and how to develop a plan for family engagement.
