FEATURED LEADERS
Our Featured Leaders are Early Childhood Community stakeholders who work to make Oakland smarter and stronger. They are parents/caregivers, providers, educators, and collaborators.
Valentina Torres, MFT
The ROCK Professional Learning Communities have been an important offering for OUSD and Head Start early educators, providing a space for safety, community, and professional growth. Now we’re excited to debut a community-wide PLC for family child care and small center providers, adapted to their settings, in English and in Spanish. The series kicks off in January. We recently caught up with Valentina Torres, MFT, one of the lead facilitators for this new series.
What are some of the key issues you expect to cover during the upcoming community-wide PLC?
We’re creating a PLC that can be done on Zoom, for people who work in their homes or in small centers, and in the instance of my work, it will be in Spanish. While many of the issues the providers deal with are similar to those faced by school-site providers, there is something different about working out of your own home. The risk of burnout may be extra high.
We’ll be helping providers switch their lens from “this child and their behavior” to understanding that there’s probably a lot of trauma behind the behavior that requires trauma-responsive strategies. As adults who work with little kids, we all need support to make these shifts in our own responses.
For the upcoming program, Melissa Luc is taking the lead on tailoring the curriculum to work for Zoom. We’ll have an in-person session first to help us all build community, and we’ll have a mini-workbook that folks can use at home. I’m excited!
What drew you to the ROCK work?
I’m a therapist by training. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t had their sensory system impacted in ways that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable. I appreciate so much of the ROCK work, including the whole toolkit.
I like how ROCK frames the work as “trauma responsive” as opposed to “trauma-informed” because “responsive” puts the emphasis on choosing to respond to people in ways that are kind, curious, and bring more understanding.
What impact do you hope your work will have?
What impact do you hope your work will have?
I work in early childhood because I really do believe that the first 5 years are fundamental to the new humans on the planet who will be in charge at some point. And when I have the opportunity to work with educators, it feels like my impact can be that much greater.
What are some of the key issues you expect to cover during the upcoming community-wide PLC?
We’re creating a PLC that can be done on Zoom, for people who work in their homes or in small centers, and in the instance of my work, it will be in Spanish. While many of the issues the providers deal with are similar to those faced by school-site providers, there is something different about working out of your own home. The risk of burnout may be extra high.
We’ll be helping providers switch their lens from “this child and their behavior” to understanding that there’s probably a lot of trauma behind the behavior that requires trauma-responsive strategies. As adults who work with little kids, we all need support to make these shifts in our own responses.
For the upcoming program, Melissa Luc is taking the lead on tailoring the curriculum to work for Zoom. We’ll have an in-person session first to help us all build community, and we’ll have a mini-workbook that folks can use at home. I’m excited!
What drew you to the ROCK work?
I’m a therapist by training. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t had their sensory system impacted in ways that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable. I appreciate so much of the ROCK work, including the whole toolkit.
I like how ROCK frames the work as “trauma responsive” as opposed to “trauma-informed” because “responsive” puts the emphasis on choosing to respond to people in ways that are kind, curious, and bring more understanding.
What impact do you hope your work will have?
What impact do you hope your work will have?
I work in early childhood because I really do believe that the first 5 years are fundamental to the new humans on the planet who will be in charge at some point. And when I have the opportunity to work with educators, it feels like my impact can be that much greater.