The Playful Resources Series highlights several topics related to the benefits of play, incorporating play into daily life, play equity, and more.

Future topics and related resources will be released periodically through 2027.

When you donate to Trying Together you are helping to create a future in which:

• all children have access to high-quality, early learning environments;
• all families have the resources they need to support their children’s early learning experiences; and
• all caregivers feel valued.

Please consider participating in #GivingTuesday on November 28 by making a donation to Trying Together! Help us continue to advocate together, learn together, and partner together to make sure caregivers and families have the resources they need to make the best decisions regarding children’s early learning experiences.

Trying Together provides early childhood teachers with essential professional growth opportunities at low or no cost to ensure that every child has access to high-quality early childhood and early learning experiences.

Staff have worked with program administrators, classroom teachers, and assistant teachers and home-based child care providers to develop new skills and continuously improve their early childhood teaching practices to achieve higher program quality.

In 2018, Trying Together launched its Strategic Roadmap.

As the end of 2022 approaches, Trying Together reflects on the significant progress that was made in achieving its goals, instances where it was necessary to pivot and reprioritize to meet the needs of children, families, and educators, and opportunities to expand upon this work in 2023 and beyond.

Parents are a child’s first and most important teacher. The importance of the everyday interactions that adults have with the young children in their care have a great impact on their healthy development and learning. Thank you for utilizing Trying Together’s digital resources.

• Request free printed materials from our Developmentally Appropriate Parenting Series.
• Let us know your feedback and ideas for new resources via an anonymous survey.
• Record a video sharing your experience with utilizing our parent and caregiver resources.
• Consider making a small donation to help Trying Together continue to provide free resources for families in Western Pennsylvania.

Social media is a powerful tool for advocacy, even if you don’t consider yourself to be an ‘expert.’

If you spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you can use those platforms to advocate for issues that are important to you. For the Summer of Play in 2021, use social media to promote learning through play and engaging in playful activities.

Download Summer of Play graphics (in English and Spanish) to share on social media and find sample posts and helpful tips in the toolkit.

The Recess Advocacy Toolkit is designed to be a resource for educators and families on the importance of recess and play for the healthy social-emotional growth of children and includes:

• information on different types of play;
• research to inform educators and administrators on the benefits of recess;
• testimonials and tips from Physical Education teachers; and
• template emails and social media posts for digital advocacy.

In 2017, LaPiana Consulting guided the Board of Directors and staff through a strategic planning process to reflect on the organization’s history and growth. We considered the initial problem we sought to solve, progress we had made, and what more needed to be done; refined our mission; and articulated a vision statement to serve as our “northstar”. Finally, we identified four goals that would drive our work forward.

Never has there been a better example for why Trying Together embarked on real-time strategic planning, than these past couple years. As the organization is acutely aware of how quickly the world is changing and the importance of having charted a long-term direction with the flexibility to respond rapidly, Trying Together now finds itself at the midway point of this journey.
Since these strategic goals are being prioritized through 2022, Trying Together has highlighted within this midway report its success in meeting these, and others that require continued perseverance and reconsideration.

The Parenting Together Pathway is a video-based learning series to provide high-quality information on early childhood development to parents and caregivers in Allegheny County and surrounding areas.

Learn more about the series.