We provide services in food, case management, emergency financial assistance, employment services, and child care resources to those residing in our service area, which includes:
Visit our Contact page for complete hours of services.
Caring for Kids (CfK) team members partner with families to ensure children enter kindergarten ready to learn. CfK supports parents and families with young children through:
To learn more or get started, email us at clientintake@iocp.org, or call 763-489-7500.
The Caring for Kids (CfK) program is a collaboration that includes IOCP, the Wayzata and Orono School Districts, Bloom Early Learning Center, and a network of quality area childcare providers.
To learn more or get started, email us at clientintake@iocp.org or call 763-489-7500.
CfK provides early education scholarships that allow parents to choose high-quality childcare and education programs, case management, parent education and support, mental health support, and basic needs assistance. To learn more, email us at clientintake@iocp.org or call 763-489-7500.
Sign up for one or more of the following support services to learn about your child’s behaviors, improve your parent-child relationship, and/or get to know families who are experiencing similar joys and challenges in parenting.
CfK’s Home Visit Service is for parents with children up to age five who want to receive private, personalized, culturally sensitive support with the goal of strengthening the important parent-child relationship.
This service includes one-on-one consultations in your home, or if preferred, in a public setting in the community. Each session can be tailored to the unique needs of your family and include:
Food, Connection, Learning, Playtime – Starting soon, we’ll offer an opportunity for families to enjoy a community meal, connect as parents and caregivers, and give children an opportunity for supervised play.
Connect at 3
Wayzata Public Schools partners with families of three- to four-year-olds to make sure they’re getting the support they need from the time a child turns three until they start kindergarten. Simply sign up for Connect at 3 emails and texts to learn about fun parent-child events, lessons on childhood learning and development, and how to sign up for a free assessment.
Wayzata Public Schools Early Learning Outreach Team
If so, the Wayzata Early Learning School’s (WELS) Outreach Team would like to connect with you! WELS offers a variety of early learning opportunities for children ages birth to five including preschool, parent and child classes, early childhood screening, intervention programs, and much more! We offer both in-person and virtual classes. Our Outreach Team can assist you with class registration, scholarship information, get you connected with community resources, and/or answer questions about our programs and school district. Call us to learn more about our free family activity classes!
Contact Tori Lee, Early Childhood Outreach Specialist, at 763-238-9701 or email: Tori.Lee@wayzataschools.org for more information. You can also visit the Wayzata Schools Early Learning website.
If you are in need of childcare, you can call Hennepin County Child Care Assistance (CCAP) at 612-348-5937 to check your eligibility and begin the application process. Please let Caring for Kids staff know if you have any questions regarding this application process or any other childcare related questions at cfkteam@iocp.org.
Caring for Kids is proud to be a part of Little Moments Count, a statewide community awareness campaign focused on supporting parents and communities to understand the importance of talking, playing, reading and singing early and often with children. Research shows that these types of positive interactions and experiences in early childhood greatly impact health and well-being outcomes later in life. Learn more about the science of brain-building.
Check out this insightful video from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, which discusses the importance of play, and how such “serve and return interactions” like play are easy to do, especially through practice.
Find parenting tips and more in CfK’s blog posts:
Together, we can create an ecosystem of support in which every child in our community:
- is nurtured at home, in school, and in the community.
- is prepared for kindergarten.>
CfK resources help fund the following:
Interfaith Outreach convened community members to learn and reflect on the importance of high quality early childhood development. Together we committed to individual and collective action to advance this topic. View a list of suggested actions anyone can take to advance this topic and move us closer to a system and practices that work for us all.
Want to play a role in this important work? Contact CfKteam@iocp.org.
It started with a promise more than 40 years ago.
What started as a small food shelf has become a resource for thousands of people in eight west Hennepin County communities. Learn more…