Associated has an expulsion rate of zero.  Mental health and social service support has been available in its early education and child care programs for 30 years. The agency's Family Development Department employs five licensed clinical social workers who offer a range of services to families--from helping parents obtain food stamps, health insurance, or shelter, to crisis intervention, to therapeutic play sessions for individual children.  Family Development staff are also immediately available when a child shows challenging or difficult behaviors in the classroom; they are able to evaluate the situation and work with the child, family, and teachers to deal with the behavior while supporting the child's needs.

As Holly Bishop, Vice President of Family Development explains, "More aggressive behavior should be viewed as a red flag signaling that the child has a need that is not being addressed." Behavior that is difficult is often a reaction to emotional or physical stress and an attempt to communicate that something is wrong. Children who behave in these ways are often coping with poverty and other sources of instability and are, as Gilliam states, "the ones who stand the most to gain" from an early education program; they are also the ones who have the most to lose if expelled.

Thanks to a grant from the Department of Early Education and Care, Associated is now able to help early education and child care programs in the community to manage challenging behaviors rather than resort to expulsion. Lauren Collins, a new addition to Family Development as of January, will be providing mental health consultation to non-Associated programs that have submitted referrals on any of a variety of behavioral issues. Her approach is to assess the behavior from multiple angles, observing the child in several settings and meeting with staff and parents, in order to obtain information, determine causes, and develop a collaborative, child-centered plan. She will also be giving training to teachers and providers on how to handle difficult behaviors in a way that increases a child's feeling of security and does not result in a power struggle between adult and child.

Lauren possesses a multifaceted understanding of cognitive and social-emotional development, having received a Master's in Education from Harvard University's innovative Risk and Prevention (R&P) program in 2007. The program explores the many obstacles--psychological, educational, and social--to learning that children and adolescents face. It prepares its graduates to promote healthy social-emotional development and academic achievement through various methods, including direct intervention and prevention services as well as consultation.

As a mental health professional, Lauren hopes to help fulfill an unmet need in communities. "The more I learned, as a person of color, the more I became aware of the need for quality, culturally competent mental health services. There are very few people of color in the field." She cites her thesis on the connection between unidentified depression in African-American teenage males and high school dropout rates: "I found out that many of these young men had been in therapy but had quit because they didn't feel that their therapist, a white person, could understand their experience or see their point of view." She also aims to combat the isolation and diminished self-image that can accompany economic hardship and the experience of being non-white. She explains, "I think it's so important to start building a social-emotional foundation early on. There are not enough people telling low-income children of color 'you are smart, you are talented.'  I want to be a vehicle for those affirming messages."

According to Lourdes Sariol, Vice President of Family Child Care at Associated and former Executive Director of the Child Care Project, the two agencies were a match, because "We had similar missions and similar standards for providers, as well as credibility in the community, and our providers and parents were culturally similar. Wayne [Ysaguirre, President & CEO and former VP of Family Child Care] and I had been colleagues for 8 to 10 years, and I had always known and supported Associated's work. The merge began as a conversation: exploring similarities and where our cultures and visions aligned and didn't; they did seem to."

Associated and the Child Care Project are both committed to providing the best care for children. Lourdes explains: "The priority is the children, but in the interest of children, you need to make sure that child care providers have the tools to provide the best care: environment, professional development, licensing, and health and safety, so that no provider can say I couldn't because I didn't have access to these things." The agencies also share a commitment to partnering with families and communities in order to best serve the needs of children. Lourdes stresses that partnerships are formed and remain vital when an agency listens. "Really listening," she says "is sifting through the noise to get to what people are actually saying rather than what is being said for them" and building relationships and trust before dictating to families what they should do or not do for their children.

"You can talk about best practices, but if the parent or community does not believe that the outcomes are best for the child, it's going to be pretty difficult to sell. You have to listen to their needs and concerns first." Lourdes' goal for this year is to create more opportunities for parents to have a voice, through parent meetings and community forums, and to make these more accessible for families, both physically and emotionally: it should not only be convenient for families to attend, but the experience should be positive. "These families have no time," she says, "so we have to find a way to meet them where they're at. The last thing they want to do is go to a meeting at 6 o'clock at night about what doesn't work with their kids. They want to hear about the positive. We have a responsibility to reach them."

Lourdes says that, in administering family child care, working with families is the "most rewarding part and the biggest challenge" but that joining forces with Associated has given the Child Care Project, which was a small, single-purpose agency, more resources to do so. She says, "The infrastructure Associated has is incredible." As a large multiservice agency, it has a dedicated staff giving training and assistance to providers as well as professionals offering social support to families. By integrating into Associated, the Child Care Project is now able to provide more to its children and families, and Associated, uniting in values and vision with the Child Care Project, has expanded the community it serves.