Despite over 40 years of mandates, legislation, and focus on including children with disabilities in preschool programs, most states report that only a small percentage of these children receive services alongside their typically developing peers.
In California, only 27.3 percent of preschoolers with disabilities receive services in regular education settings at least 10 hours per week.
Purpose
Beginning Together, operated by WestEd and funded by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), promotes appropriate inclusive practices in a variety of early care and education programs and settings through training, technical assistance, leadership development, and information dissemination. At its center is a proven training-of-trainers model that equips early childhood professionals to become certified Inclusion Facilitators who bring inclusive practices to their own communities so children with disabilities and diverse needs learn alongside their peers from the very start.
- over 900 specialists trained in inclusive practices
- one in three participants go on to pursue certification
- 38 California counties reached
- 7 years of continuous Institute cohorts since 2019
Beginning Together staff are specialists in early intervention, mental health, early childhood special education, child development, and research and evaluation, and they include parents of children with disabilities.
Building on years of experience and research on how new practices take hold and last, Beginning Together works to empower teachers, administrators, and families to “change the world” for children with disabilities and their peers.
Our program integrates systematic training and team reflection into every professional development opportunity. In collaboration with the state funding source, Beginning Together has expanded in recent years to better address the need for inclusion training and support in the early childhood field. Additionally, we offer individualized professional development as part of our fee-for-service work.
Audiences Served
- Child care providers, including infant and preschool teachers
- Head Start and Early Head Start staff
- Family child care providers and family, friend, or neighbor care providers
- School district staff and special educators
- Early interventionists
- Administrators
Inclusion Facilitator Institute participants come from local programs and districts, county offices of education, and statewide and regional partners such as Resource & Referral agencies and Family Resource agencies.
Project Activities
The centerpiece of Beginning Together is the annual Inclusion Facilitator Institute, a 4-week training-of-trainers experience:
- Learn: The Institute features weekly live sessions and asynchronous coursework, all grounded in trusted frameworks like the Pyramid Model and the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC).
- Certify: Every Inclusion Facilitator completes a real training activity and a real facilitation activity, not just coursework.
- Act: Participants build and carry out a Team Action Plan for inclusion in their own community. Most attend as county or agency teams; individuals are welcome too and are grouped with others in the cohort who share a similar role.
- Sustain: Certification is followed by a full year of liaison support that is grounded in relationships and an ongoing community of practice.
Beyond the Institute, Beginning Together offers inclusion webinars, technical assistance, and liaison sessions with regions, counties, and programs, plus individualized professional development through fee-for-service work.
Project Director
Linda Brault
Funder
This project is partially funded by the California Department of Social Services with Quality Initiative funds.
Project Duration
Beginning Together was initially funded in 1999 and has been funded continually since that time.
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