Early Childhood Professionals

SEEDS professional development programs are designed for professionals and paraprofessionals whose work impacts young children, including program directors, administrators, supervisors, teachers, classroom aides, childcare providers, home visitors, social workers, and mental health providers.

Our programs support early childhood professionals in building nurturing relationships with young children and leveraging play to promote children’s school readiness and self-regulation skills.  These skills are foundational to children’s emotional and social development and early learning and are essential for a successful start in school and wellbeing throughout life.

When early childhood professionals participate in SEEDS programs, they practice trauma-informed, attachment-based skills during each session, try out those skills between sessions in their settings, and then share their experiences at subsequent sessions to receive actionable feedback.  This process helps participants connect knowing and doing to bridge the “application gap.”

Early childhood professionals also receive ongoing support from the UCLA-based SEEDS team. After completing Sprouts PD or SEEDS PD, professionals receive exclusive access to the SEEDS Early Childhood Professionals Learning Community. The virtual Learning Community provides an opportunity for professionals to seek consultation from the UCLA-based SEEDS team, collaborate with other members to customize SEEDS skills to their own settings, problem solve challenges, and share resources. Members can also access a robust library of handouts, activity guides, and videos, many of which are available in both English and Spanish.

We are currently offering Sprouts Professional Development Program and Sprouts Facilitator Training. Participating in both of these trainings prepare professionals to implement Sprouts in the community with a professional/provider audience or a parent/caregiver audience.