The first five years of life have a significant effect on children's development and learning and parents play the most important role during this time. Parenting education and support are key to raising successful children, creating confident parents and building strong families and communities. Partners in Parenting promotes positive parenting and child health and development, thereby preventing child abuse and other poor childhood outcomes. Recent research shows that parents of young children who received a parent training program or attended parenting workshops improved their parenting skills (Golan, Spiker & Sumi, 2005; Hodnett et al., 2009).

Partners in Parenting offers many educational programs, workshops and resources primarily for parents with children 3-5 years of age to support healthy child development, school readiness skills and positive parent-child interaction. Several programs, workshops and resources are also for families with children ages 0-18.

Para programas y recursos en Español contactar a Olga Soto.

Programs:

• Little Books & Little Cooks Program is a national award winning program (from the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences) to address parenting and nutrition information. The program teaches both parents and their young children (ages 3-5) important milestones of early learning and literacy, school readiness and good nutrition through a six week program.
   
• Fun to Play for Preschoolers Program encourages positive-parent child interaction and learning through creative play in a six week program series. It also promotes children’s school readiness skills and introduces the Nevada Pre-Kindergarten standards.
   
• Let's Discover STEM Program is a family engagement program aimed at parents and young children (ages 3-5) together around simple, fun Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) activities. Interest, knowledge and skills in STEM begin before kindergarten and early exposure (either in school or at home) supports children's overall academic growth.
  
  
• Everyday SEL and YOU is a family engagement program for families with children ages 3-5. It focuses on enhancing young children's social emotional learning (SEL) while also building school readiness skills through engaging SEL activities, interactive book reading and family-centered support.
   
• Kinship Families is a family support program for caregivers of children (ages 0-18) in out-of-home placement. Currently, we offer an informational website using our 100+ page resource guide Raising Your Relative's Kids: How to Find Help. The guide is also available in print and on CD, including a Spanish version.
   
• Exploring Safety: A program for families with young children is designed to improve awareness of important child safety issues and to increase parenting knowledge. During each weekly class families (with children ages 0-5) engage in a variety of hands-on activities related to safety.
   
• Positive Connections for Parents & Teenagers is a four week educational series for parents with adolescents designed to help understand teen behavior and increase parenting knowledge.
   
• Digital Parenting Program connects with parents using digital media to provide parenting information as well as offers an opportunity for early care and education staff to easily and effectively communicate with families beyond the classroom. The digital library offers access to parenting messages that allows parents to engage in their child's development and learning, thus creating a healthy atmosphere to establish positive early childhood parenting. 

• Family Storyteller: Interactive Literacy promotes family literacy and school readiness skills through parent-child reading and make-and-take activities. Educational workshop topics include: Fun with Non-Fiction, Favorite Fairy Tales, First Steps to Writing, and Phonics & Sounds. This workshop is for families with preschool aged children.
   
• Screen Time Smarts is a digital media workshop with learning, reading and iPad activities. In today's world of smartphones, tablets and on-demand services, children are a technology and media-saturated generation. It's important that parents understand how to use digital media with their children in healthy ways. This workshop highlights:  healthy habits and media use guidelines; educational and quality screen time; digital citizenship; and online safety and cyberbullying. This workshop is for families with children ages 3-11. 
  
  
• A Guide to Social-Emotional Learning is designed to introduce parents/caregivers to the keys of social and emotional learning (SEL). SEL is beneficial for children of all ages and can help children develop and maintain positive relationships, become lifelong learners, and contribute to a caring society. The workshop is open to families with children PreK-12^th grade and also includes a SEL hands-on learning activity.
  
  
• Cooking with Young Children is an educational parenting workshop that promotes healthy eating and presents the benefits of cooking with young children (ages 3-5). At the workshop, families will learn why you should cook with children, discover what children can learn from cooking, and sample a healthy snack.
  
  
• Let's Discover STEM:  Seasons are a series of four workshops that combine STEM learning with the unique changes of each season. Seasons help young children learn about how time passes, how different seasonal changes influence everything around them, and make them more aware of the natural world. During the workshop parents and children ages 3-5 learn about school readiness related to STEM, build an interest in STEM, and participate in a book reading and hands-on activities. Topics include:  Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer.

• Raising Your Relative's Kids: How to Find Help (resource guide for families with children 0-18 years old)
• Just in Time Parenting (online parenting newsletter, prenatal to age five)
• Partners in Parenting Playlist: (short YouTube videos for families to gather tips, explore and learn together) 

What do we do?

• Programs and workshops are taught in Clark County all year long at community sites such as elementary schools, recreational centers, family engagement centers and libraries.
• All classes are free and available in-person (some with an online option) and in Spanish (based on instructor availability).
• Host  Kickoff to Kindergarten an annual school readiness fair.  Save the date for the 10^th annual event:  Saturday, August 23, 2025, at East Las Vegas Library.
• Clases en Español son disponibles (contactar a Olga Soto).