Training - 'Make the Connection' Workshops

"...we gently guide parent-infant interaction
and provide positive feedback."

Make the Connection facilitator training workshops are highly interactive, informative and informal, which, like the parent programs, were designed using well-established adult learning principles. The workshops qualify participants to deliver Make the Connection (MTC) programs in their communities.

The workshops incorporate hands-on practice at planning and facilitating each component of a MTC program including the parent-baby activities, parent discussion and the video review.

Using selected video samples, participants sharpen their observation of parent-infant relationships, practice ways to gently guide parent-infant interaction and provide positive feedback to parents in a group or one-on-one situation. Videotaping is a core tool in MTC that helps parents become more responsive to their baby’s cues and a significant confidence-builder.

Much of the information and facilitation skills learned in this training can be applied to other aspects of a participant’s work with families.


The two offered facilitator training workshops are based on the parenting programs:
Make the Connection: Birth to One (MTC 0-1) and Make the Connection: One to Two (MTC 1-2).

While First Three Years does not offer the MTC programs directly to parents, MTC facilitator-trained staff offer the programs to parents attending community programs and/or home-based services.

Participants must take the MTC 0-1 two-day training workshop first in order to register for the MTC 1-2 one-day training. The two workshops are frequently offered back-to-back over three days.

Training workshops are held several times a year at First Three Years' office in Toronto. When participants attend a workshop they are provided with a complete package of Training Materials.

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Who We Train
"...training front-line staff in the delivery of MTC programs reaching thousands of families."
To date we have trained close to 1000 front-line staff in the delivery of MTC programs who, in turn, have reached thousands of families. In 2006, Toronto Public Health selected Make the Connection to be offered to families throughout the city of Toronto. We have trained 65 nurses to deliver MTC parent programs and are currently in the process of training TPH “in-house” instructors to ensure on-going training and support to MTC program facilitators.

Our impact has expanded to provinces across Canada. MTC programs are now available in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Both B.C. and Saskatchewan are in the process of training Provincial Instructors to oversee and deliver MTC training in their respective provinces.

Our training workshops are most utilized by:

  • Family Resource Programs
  • Ontario Early Years Centres
  • Community Health Centres
  • Aboriginal Health/Community agencies
  • Children’s Aid Societies
  • Services for Adopted Asian Babies
  • Home-Based Infant Development Programs
  • Integrated Nursery Schools