Providing Continuing Education to Child Development Professionals in
Riverside County

First 5 Riverside CARES Plus is a program of professional support that provides incentive stipends to eligible early care and education professionals. CARES Plus builds on the success of its predecessor, CARES. As research has shown, children have a fundamental need for positive, sensitive relationships with their caregivers. As such, CARES Plus was created with the sole purpose of improving early care and education professionals' practice and effectiveness with their interactions with children ages 0 to 5. Ultimately, the goal is to enhance early learning programs by focusing on increasing the quality, effectiveness, and retention of early care and education professionals in an effort to improve our young children's learning and development outcomes.

With an enhanced focus on accountability and outcomes at all levels, CARES Plus incorporates a new program component for participants, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). CLASS is an observational tool that focuses on the classroom interactions that boost student learning. Teacher-student interactions are categorized into three domains:

1. Emotional Support
2. Classroom Organization
3. Instructional Support

The fundamental objective of CLASS is to help support teachers' individual professional development needs in an effort to provide the most effective classroom environment and increase the opportunity for student success.

The Riverside CARES Plus Project is funded by First 5 California and First 5 Riverside.