Mar Vista Family Center

Established in 1977, and recognized as a national model for parent participation and community leadership, the Mar Vista Family Center (MVFC) Preschool provides low-income families with a comprehensive program that ensures that each child receives the necessary support to excel academically and developmentally. Established in 2008 in response to the needs of the community, the Baby and Me Program offers classes for infants and toddlers (ages zero to three) and their mothers to help promote early learning and socialization skills.

How the Preschool Program Works

Parents pay no tuition when enrolling their children in the preschool. Instead, they participate one day per week as teacher assistants. The children in the Preschool Program develop the basic learning and behavior skills they will need to begin kindergarten at the same accomplishment level as their peers. Their parents learn and expand parenting and life skills that supplement their child’s preschool education, encourage discipline, communication, and compassion among family members, and strengthen reasoning and leadership abilities valuable both inside and outside the home.

Preschool Curriculum

MVFC’s Preschool curriculum is designed to allow children to achieve age-appropriate physical, cognitive, literacy, social and emotional competence. This includes a comprehensive school readiness curriculum involving activities such as art, dramatic play, physical exercise, music and storytelling. Activities using puppets, games, and songs provide reading readiness skills. All children receive annual speech and vision screenings and children with special needs are referred to appropriate agencies for additional services.

How the Baby and Me Program Works

This program has been named Baby and Me, recognizing that it might be the mother, father, grandparent or other caregiver attending with the young child. Eight-week class sessions are held for three age groups (0-12 months, 1-2 years and 2-3 years). These tuition-free classes focus on key milestones in language, intellectual, social-emotional and motor development skills for specific age ranges, as well as what parents or child care providers can expect next in their child's development. The information is delivered through a variety of interactive activities that allow the parents or child care providers to socialize with their babies through play and music.

Early Childhood Certification

Since the inception of the parent-participation Preschool, nearly 100 MVFC parents have been led by their interest in their preschool activities to enroll in on-site UCLA Extension courses in Early Childhood Education, and have received preschool teacher credentials. Most of these parents are now working in preschools in the Mar Vista area, several of them at MVFC.