One of the first things Laurel Kloomok did when she moved to San Francisco 16 years ago was enroll herself and her 6-month-old daughter Amelia Smith in a class at Parents Place.
Today she’s director of the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services program.
“My work is about supporting families with young children in many ways,” said Kloomok, now a San Francisco mother of two who has worked as a teacher, special education coordinator and consultant shaping public policy affecting families with young children.
“This is a very different way of spending time,” she said, “but it’s all within the same vein.”
“When I first started my career I was more child-focused. But soon I realized you can’t just focus on kids. Where there’s children, there’s family, and we’re working toward ways of supporting them.”
Right now Kloomok, 46, is gearing up for Preschool Preview Night, to which she points as an example of the Parents Place mission in action.
The program is proactive, provides tangible resources, helps families help themselves and provides a sense of community, she said.
On Wednesday, Feb. 5, more than 80 local preschools and child-care programs and 1,000 area parents will gather at the Hall of Flowers in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to network and share information.
Public, private and parent-cooperative schools will be represented at the event, now in its fifth year. Parents Place education coordinator Lee Ann Slaton will offer tips on choosing a preschool.
The event is free. It is sponsored by the Gap Foundation and co-hosted by San Francisco-Peninsula Parent Newsmagazine.
“This was in reaction to requests from families. Many of them were anxious about their children starting preschool. It’s a transition,” Kloomok said. “Preschool Preview Night is a consumer report. It brings all the resources together.”
In past years Kloomok has developed mental health guidelines and strategic plans for San Francisco schools’ special education department. She currently sits on San Francisco’s Starting Points council, helping to develop a strategic plan for spending Carnegie Corp. grant money to assist San Francisco families with children up to age 5.
The council promotes ways to access information about child-rearing and to services and outlets where parents can meet other parents.
“This is really what we’ve always been doing at Parents Place,” said Kloomok.
Her challenge is responding to families’ changing needs. Parents Place serves about 4,000 families each year.
Pointing to the many varieties of families that now exist — both parents working, single parent, shared custody — and noting that, more often than not, members of extended families do not live near each other, “the need for support is more glaring,” she said.
“We need to remain relevant and offer what families ask for.”
In addition to offering hotlines, classes, counseling, advice lines and workshops, Parents Place also hosts father support groups and biological parent groups.
Biological parent groups help couples decide whether or not to have a child. Father support addresses the concerns of male parents who want to be more involved in raising their children but don’t know how.
“Dads don’t have the same traditional supports as moms,” Kloomok said, adding that the support group model that works well for mothers “doesn’t always work well for fathers.”
Kloomok is exploring options like father-child outings where parenting issues are discussed and job clubs where fathers can learn how to balance work and family while networking.
“I still think there’s some hesitancy for families to come in for counseling, but that’s changing too,” Kloomok said. “People are coming to get educated, to meet others.”