PAT Training

Training Parent Educators and Supervisors

The Parent Possible PAT team provides technical assistance, implementation support, and model guidance to all affiliate sites implementing PAT across the state. The PAT team provides in-person site visits, virtual site visits, check-in and support calls, grant compliance support, and monthly webinars.

Parent Possible offers regular trainings on specific topics related to PAT implementation and model fidelity, including the PICCOLO parent-child interaction observation tool, the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, reflective supervision, and infant and early childhood mental health. Parent Possible also hosts a state-wide Home Visiting Conference which is open to all home visiting professionals.

Parent Possible hosts the Colorado PAT State Training Team, which helps ensure new sites staff receive timely and high-quality PAT training. The training team consists of experienced former PAT program supervisors who have completed a rigorous certification process. For more information contact: indira@parentpossible.org.

PAT Training Team

Debbie Paauw

Debbie Paauw has a BA in Elementary/Early Childhood Education and a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction.  She has spent her career in education, first as a classroom teacher for students in kindergarten and second grade and then as a coordinator of a family literacy program in Colorado Springs School District 11 for over 20 years.  She has been a director of a licensed infant/toddler/preschool program and provided training and technical assistance across the state of Colorado through the Colorado Family Literacy Training Center.  Debbie was also the Coordinator of Motheread/Fatheread Colorado and continues to provide training in this program across the state. Debbie was trained as a parent educator in Parents as Teachers in 1995 and later supervised a PAT program through Colorado Springs School District 11.  She became a National Trainer in 2007 and continues to train new parent educators across the nation.

Indira Galaviz

Indira Galaviz is the Parents as Teachers (PAT) Program Manager at Parent Possible, Colorado’s PAT State Office. In her role, she is responsible for providing guidance, fidelity monitoring, training, and technical assistance to PAT sites across the state. She has more than 16 years of experience working with under resourced populations. Indira started her enthusiasm for family services in Mexico, where she supported different health and hygiene campaigns for low-income children.

Prior to joining Parent Possible, she worked as a preschool teacher, and for a Family Resource Center in the Denver metro area. During her non-profit experience, she coordinated four different family programs that offered direct support to the demands of the Latino communities. Additionally, in her tenure as the manager of the organization’s Parents as Teachers Program, she obtained, for the first time, the Blue-Ribbon affiliate designation of quality for the PAT program.

Indira loves having the opportunity to impact her community by providing information and support networks to families. Indira’s educational background in in Early Childhood Education, Social Work, and Family Development. She spends her time outside of work sharing her energy and passion for fitness with her fitness community. Along with wellness, her greatest passions are education, family, and unity.

Peggy Herrera

Peggy Herrera, a Colorado native, has her BA in Elementary Education and a Masters in Special Education.  Before becoming the coordinator of the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) in 1990 and a supervisor for Head Start Option (1991) and Parents as Teachers (PAT), (1996) she taught in a Special Ed Resource room as well as in 2nd and Kindergarten classrooms.  Peggy has been a national trainer for PAT for over 22 years and HIPPY for 31 years,  in addition to teaching at Adams State University as an Adjunct Professor in their Early Childhood Department.