The Professional Development team wants to change the way we run our webinars in 2023 to make learning more meaningful and we want your input! We have outlined two main ideas to support professional development via our webinar series. We want to hear your thoughts on which you'd like to see happen.
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Community Café Model or ‘Roadshow’
DCYF is ready to hit the road! Instead of joining you from our home offices, we are coming to you! Are you itching to be back in person like us? Join us for our regular webinar series but in your community.
How It Works
Each month, DCYF will travel to various communities across the state, and cover content areas that are of interest to that community. We will present live and answer the questions that you may have. We can provide Community Cafés in English, Spanish or Somali.
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Cohort-based Community Engagement Model
We believe that community involvement is always a collaborative effort. The cohort model ensures that each individual is supported by systems, which are invested in their success. The work of providers enhances by the exchange of perspectives and insights among trusted colleagues.
Cohorts generate feedback because each member is expected to actively contribute to the group, and the close bonds formed through collaboration result in a professional network that can help push systematic boundaries, and transform them for the better. The program is mission-driven, allowing each provider in the cohort to become a part of something bigger than themselves by sharing that mission.
How It Works
We want to develop a cohort-based community engagement model for providers that involves a specific group of providers with shared interests and goals who progress through an entire webinar series, engagement activities, or in-person event experience together.
This Cohort approach is ideal for providers (especially those who speak Somali or Spanish) because it creates a safe environment where providers can frequently rely on one another as groups, learn and support one another as a team, and share resources as a group, and in their preferred language.
Based on the success of the Cohort-based community engagement model, DCYF may use this strategy in other areas of our work that create a safe environment in which providers can frequently rely on one another. The early learning Division can also use the cohort model to significantly increase participant engagement and broaden our potential reach to underserved and underrepresented groups in our community, resulting in high participation rates. We can create this model in English, Spanish or Somali.
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The webinar series typically occurs every third Tuesday of each month, at 6 pm.
