Triad Bright Futures Q1 Report | April 2025
Triad Bright Futures (TBF) had a busy first quarter of 2025, settling in with our new fiscal sponsor (Trailhead Institute), supporting pre-registration and two matching rounds for Year 3 of Colorado Universal Preschool (UPK), and getting our Community Learning Network off the ground. We also completed the hiring process for the TBF Mountain Coordinator, who begins in mid-April.
Universal Preschool
TBF hosted 18 outreach events in January and February at Jeffco Libraries, The Mountain Resource Center, Jeffco Head Start, Jeffco Schools dual language programs, and with the Exito program at Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition. We assisted 240 families with completing their UPK application through this outreach and responded to 719 UPK help tickets from families and providers. We are pleased with enrollment progress for the 2025-26 school year: 206 Jeffco/Gilpin/Clear Creek providers registered, 3,478 family applications and 2,618 children already enrolled.
Bright Futures Roadmap
The Bright Futures Roadmap cornerstone and mountain communities workgroups met for 11 meetings with 81 partners in attendance. In partnership with Expanding Early Care and Learning in Clear Creek County, we kicked off a series of five community conversations designed to expand funding strategies for child care Affordability, Quality, Usefulness, and Access (AQUA). Attendees at the first session included county commissioners, city administrators, directors of centers, and parents. These meetings are leading to increased interest at the county level to expand resources for early learning and care.
In January TBF launched the Community Learning Network for the Bright Futures Roadmap. This group of 15 engaged professionals and representatives from the four cornerstone areas are developing a theory of change to lay the foundation for the Bright Futures Roadmap evaluation plan. TBF has also met with State level partners in mental health consultation, home visiting, early intervention and early care and education to review alignment of Roadmap strategies with State strategic plans.
Cornerstone Updates
Cornerstone 1: Quality Early Care & Education
ECE partners have developed a Provider Wellness page hosted on the Triad Bright Futures Website with links to resources for those in the local workforce that need housing, public benefits, mental health supports, medical care, tax credit information, professional training and other services. We will be integrating these resource lists with the 2-1-1 platform in Q2.
Additionally, partners have formed the talent pipeline management cohort through the Greater Arvada Chamber of Commerce and will begin looking at data to identify top skills and knowledge needed by employers to build the talent pool.
Cornerstone 2: Family Support & Home Visiting Programs
Home visiting partners are working on shared training, coordinated outreach to families, and planning for the second annual Spring Fling, which will bring together 70+ home visitors across Jeffco for learning and professional development.
Cornerstone 3: Access to Mental Health Consultation & Support
Partners deepened the work of supporting mental health consultation by gathering community feedback on the landscape map of mental health resources for early childhood they have created. Additionally, partners have developed a community of practice to support understanding of current social-emotional development offerings and coordination of services for families.
Impact On Equity
Triad Bright Futures, Cuenta Conmigo Cooperative, Jefferson County Public Health and Edgewater Collective launched the Maternal Child Health Leaders in Equity Project in January. This project supports 20 Spanish-speaking community leaders to receive training in maternal child health and civic engagement along with hands-on practice. Nineteen TBF partners provide co-mentoring and volunteer opportunities for participants in the field.
We’ve hosted three educational sessions covering the social determinants of health, health equity, infant and child health, child rights, and navigating systems of care. It’s exciting to see the learning both within the educational sessions and in the co-mentoring relationships. Some pairs are even beginning to co-create training opportunities and think about different ways to serve families based on shared reflections. Our project team has observed community leaders moving from seeing themselves as individuals to seeing themselves as part of a community within the maternal-child health system. Likewise, organizational partners are observing changes themselves.
“Our team has learned so much. Not just about making the training accessible through language but also recognizing that our approach to harm reduction is generally very individualized – which works for some folks, but not all…. [this] has really reminded me that we also need to center on family.” – Organizational co-mentor
Communications & Advocacy
During the first quarter of 2025, TBF promoted licensed exempt care by enhancing resources on this website and through social media.
As we launch into spring, TBF was at the Capitol with the Children’s Campaign and Clayton Early Learning for Speak Up for Kids Day and had the opportunity to meet with Senator Lindsey Daugherty from Jeffco, to advocate for continued investment in early childhood funding, especially for local coordinating organizations, early childhood councils and CCCAP.
