Explore Our Programs

Strong Start™ Before Baby – For Dads

Strong Start™ Before Baby for New Dads is 3 one-hour zoom sessions, plus take-home exercises. You will learn what you can do now to prepare for your baby’s arrival. Get all the tools you will need to set your family up for success!

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StrongStartTM – Team Practices

Classes (“Team Practices”) are temporarily suspended at the Pump Station in Santa Monica, the Growing Place in Santa Monica, Mother’s Haven in Encino, privately, and at other preschools. In these communications-focused groups, kids play freely, while their dads (or other caregivers) learn about their different roles and when and how to take them on. They meet other dads, relax, and learn – from their kids, from each other and from a trained coach. By closely observing their children, and through discussion and demonstrations from the facilitator, dad and kids work on “talk” that will benefit both in their lifelong partnership. Specific topics can include tantrums, boundaries, conflicts, eating, cooperation, respect, responsibility, siblings, spouse/partnership, mental wellness, patterns of thought, self-management and having a good time, as well as when and how to intervene in young children’s play. Fathers learn to make the most of what time with their children they do have, and to develop a framework for more enjoyable interactions that support the child’s social, emotional and cognitive development, and thus there lifelong success in school, at work and in relationships.

Besides prenatal sessions, regular Classes are for young children (2 mos to 3 years) and their caregivers and take approximately 90 minutes. Limit 8 kids per session, with groups separated by child’s mobility stage. Our Strong StartTM teams become pop-up communities that are safe, cognitively challenging and emotionally nurturing for the children, while being inclusive, peaceful, comfortable and intellectually stimulating for the adults. No Phones!

Through strategic partnerships, we hope to continue to train more coaches and offer more classes to a broader and more diverse range of fathers and other caregivers.

Class Excerpt

60 seconds from a group that had been meeting for a while.

Bonus: “Get in The Game” Video Sample

We often use the language of sports. With a small donation we shot raw footage for a “Sports Analysis Show” focused on father attunement. Here is a short preview clip:

Richard Cohen, PhD

The Ages and Stages Questionnaire (“ASQ”) is a screening tool for developmental delays in young children from 0 to 60 months old. Heralded as the “gold standard” for developmental screening by leading authorities and users worldwide the parent-administered ASQ screening tool offers a powerful combination of reliability, convenience, affordability, and family involvement. ASQ deployment is a critical part of any effective a home visitation program.

In this training, participants will learn to administer the questionnaire, to discuss the results with parents, to make referrals as necessary, and how to use deployment of the screening tool as an opportunity to build relationships with new parents.

Featured Presenter:

Richard Cohen, PhD
Former Director of Project ABC, Children’s Institute, Inc.

Contact us directly to learn more about the ASQ Program.

How To Help

We seek energetic partners and qualified volunteers. We are actively recruiting board members with connections to cash and/or groups of dads with young kids. We offer scholars a chance to do research that will make a big difference fairly soon. We represent an extraordinary opportunity for corporations or funding organizations interested in high-profile support of the work of fathers.

Contact Us

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