Scaling for Impact: Juntos Aprendemos affiliate pilot project
In 2013, SVP began our partnership with Latino Network to strengthen its capacity in the areas of human resources & management infrastructure, strategic and operational planning, and program evaluation, all foundational work to scaling Juntos Aprendemos. Juntos prepares low‐income Spanish‐speaking children for success in kindergarten through pre-k classes that promote their cognitive, social, emotional and physical development, while their parents participate in classes to learn how they can best support their children’s positive development.
Six years later, Latino Network has built its capacity to scale Juntos and is launching an affiliate pilot with two schools in Central Oregon. Latino Network brings a wealth of experience in early childhood education; deep knowledge, relationships, and influence within the Latino community; and, expertise in culturally specific programming. With Juntos’ model, many more children in Oregon will have the foundation for learning and life success when they start kindergarten.
Director of Children, Family & Community Service Division, Sadie Feibel Holmes, shares her gratitude to SVP below, with a note to the team of twelve SVP Partners and staff who worked closely with the Juntos team over the past several years.
Dear SVP friends,
I am awash with gratitude as I write with the exciting news that we are rolling out 30 hours of training to launch the Juntos Aprendemos affiliate pilot program this week!You have all played an important role in helping us get to this moment, a moment that is truly a dream come true for the Juntos team. You helped us to codify our model, to imagine scaling scenarios, establish our non-negotiables, write a business plan, build a financial model for scaling, to develop and conduct a feasibility study and report the findings, develop legal agreements, you did project management, wrangled graduate students, reviewed literature, conducted policy and benchmarking analysis, advocated for funding, you gave generously of your time, your expertise, and your HEARTS.
As many of you know, over the past year, I have been developing a partnership with Better Together in Central Oregon to pilot our affiliate model. The Juntos lead staff have spent the past three months developing a week of training to prepare the brand new Juntos Aprendemos affiliate team from the High Desert ESD, who will implement our program in two schools in Central Oregon—one in Bend/LaPine School District and another in Redmond School District. They will pilot the program for 10 weeks this spring and roll out the full 30-week curriculum in the fall. Somebody pinch me! This still doesn't yet feel real.I am so grateful to each of you, and wanted to be sure you know how important your work has been to me personally, to our organization, and to this movement to bring high quality culturally specific early learning opportunities to Latino families across our state. Rest assured your "Juntos In A Box," business plan, feasibility reports, literature reviews, benchmarking and market analysis, and other documents and tools you helped us create are not collecting dust on anyone's shelf! They are living breathing tools of transformation.Thank you, thank you, thank you. We wouldn't be here today without each and every one of you and the support SVP has provided.
Thank you,
Sadie Feibel Holmes
Director of Children, Family & Community Service Division
Latino Network