Summit County parents benefit from two fantastic home-visiting programs: Welcome Baby and Parents as Teachers. The holistic, two-generation home-visiting approach is defined as follows:
“Early childhood home visiting is a service delivery strategy that matches expectant parents and caregivers of young children with a designated support person—typically a trained nurse, social worker, or early childhood specialist-who guides them through the early stages of raising a family. Services are voluntary, may include caregiver coaching or connecting families to needed services, and provided in the family’s home or another location of the family’s choice.”
Home visiting has measurable benefits tied to positive parenting practices, improvements in child development, school readiness, child and maternal health, and stronger family economic self-sufficiency, including:
Increasing access to prenatal care;
Increasing infant-caregiving practices like breastfeeding;
Providing knowledge and training to reduce the risk of unintended injuries and child maltreatment;
Promoting reading and other child development activities; and
Connecting families with job training, mental health, and other resources.
Parents need access to these valuable home-visiting services and we are so thankful that both programs are operating in our community.
Posted in: Early Childhood