Merced County Office of Education (M.C.O.E.)

Thanks to funding from First 5 Merced County and the Merced County Mental Health Department, the Caring Kids program provides resources and services to children ages 0 to 5 and their families to help support healthy and optimal child development. The program helps children learn self-regulation and social skills. It teaches parents and caregivers the best ways to help children develop socially and emotionally. These services help build protective factors and reduce challenging behaviors which will increase the chances of children being successful in school.

Caring Kids employs Strengthening Families strategies when working with parents and guardians. The Strengthening Families approach is a research-based, cost-effective strategy that is aimed at increasing family stability, enhancing child-development, and reducing child abuse and neglect.

Goals:

Caring Kids aims to provide services that are comprehensive in their approach to help children develop optimally. We aim to help children directly and to help those that take care of them. We aim to help children learn appropriate social skills and to help parents and caregivers learn the best approaches to nurture positive social-emotional development.

By identifying and providing systematic early intervention to children with "at risk" behaviors, children will be better prepared for entering kindergarten 'ready for school' and less likely to require special education or mental health services.