American Academy of Pediatrics

In 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Project Head Start formed the Head Start Medical Home Learning Collaborative. Based on requests from the six sites participating in the project, Be Strong Families provided technical assistance on parent engagement, Parent Café training, Living the Protective Factors training. Ultimately, Parent Cafés were launched at the sites in Howard County, Maryland and Coos Bay, Oregon. Living the Protective Factors was offered in Dallas, Texas. A specialized workshop on Reducing Toxic Stress by Living the Protective Factors was developed for the site in Seattle, Washington. With the support of AAP, in 2016, Be Strong Families debuted Vitality Cafés at the National Head Start Association Conference. As the initiative evolved, Be Strong Families as faculty for the Toxic Stress Medical Home / Early Childhood Education Learning Collaborative and reviewed learning collaboration proposals and developed a web-based toolkit for mitigating toxic stress.