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En español: ¡El Apoyo
Familiar Funciona!:
Cuando la ayuda llama
a la puerta
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This article originally appeared in the September-October 2004 issue
of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.
Family Support Works!
When support knocks at the door
Home visitors give new parents someone to turn to in times of stress
By Melia Franklin
"I'm a single mom," says Amber Vigil, 24, a resident of Del
Paso Heights in Sacramento. "My stress level is high as a result."
Sometimes, when the kids get sick, the refrigerator breaks, and the money
runs out, working full time as a medical assistant and parenting her two
boys--Matthew, five, and Joshua, three--can seem overwhelming.
Luckily, Vigil has support--at her doorstep. Since Matthew was three
months old, she has participated in Sacramento County's Birth and Beyond
program, which offers home visiting and other services to parents of children
under five, through family resource centers. Families participate for
an average of eight months, some up to three or four years. Visits are
two to four times a month, based on the needs of the family.
County to neighborhood
"We have made a major commitment to home visiting as a child-abuse-prevention
strategy," says county supervisor Roger Dickinson, whose district
includes Del Paso Heights. The county uses state social service funds
to pay for Birth and Beyond; Sacramento First Five has added $10-15 million.
FRCs provide a "neighborhood base...where parents can go and see
other families," Dickinson adds. "That can reduce the isolation
at-risk families often experience."
"Right here with you"
Vigil connected to Birth and Beyond through Mutual Assistance Network
of Del Paso Heights (MAN), one of nine FRCs offering the program, which
hires home visitors from the neighborhood. "Only residents can really
understand their community," says Wilmer Brown, MAN's director of
family services. And the money they earn "stays in the community."
Mona Shields, a former MAN home visitor, agrees: "I personally can
understand where (the parents) are at. I was a TANF [Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families] receiver. They see me in the grocery store. I can
say, 'I'm right here with you. I've been through what you've been through.'"
Shields and other home visitors receive extensive training and work with
a team leader, a licensed counselor. They can also bring in specialists
from MAN to address mental health, child development, nutrition, employment,
and other needs.
At age two, Joshua, Vigil's younger son, "wasn't speaking at all--'baa
baa' and 'maa maa' was all he was saying," she recalls. Her home
visitor noticed the problem and called in MAN's development specialists.
They arranged for a state-funded speech therapist to work with Joshua
at child care, so Virgil wouldn't have to miss work for appointments.
"Now my son can speak better than most children his age!" she
reports.
Helping parents succeed
With each new family, "we start where that family is and move on
from there," says Donna Bell-Dent, team leader for Birth and Beyond
at MAN. "We ask: 'How can we go into this home and help them succeed?'"--whether
it's helping a parent complete Medi-Cal forms, understand stages of child
development, or get a GED.
"If I needed something, she was right there," says Vigil of
her home visitor. Once Vigil's refrigerator broke and all the food spoiled.
"I called [my home visitor]--within a day, she got someone to donate
a fridge and delivered it to my house."
In addition to helping with immediate needs, a major goal is "helping
families be self-sufficient," says Bell-Dent-"showing a mom
how to catch a bus and taking it with them so they can do it themselves
the next time." Adds Vigil: "They help me if I get stuck, but
they give me the opportunity to be the independent person that I am."
Trusting relationships
The first months with a new parent, says Shields, "we're building
up relationships." Little by little, the mom "starts talking
to me more, asking for more information."
At first home visitors do more listening than talking. When Vigil walked
into MAN's office one late afternoon, "they were all busy, but Lisa
[a home visitor] came out...to sit down with me," she recalls. "She
didn't rush me. She took the time...to find out what I wanted to know."
"She didn't treat me like a client, but rather as a person,"
adds Vigil. "A lot of programs are very formal. [Lisa] helps me interact
with my children and she has a great personality. I didn't feel like I
was being interviewed every time. If I was too busy to call her, she called
me."
"Our home visitors become very enmeshed in their families' lives,"
confirms Bell-Dent. One home visitor stayed with a mom through childbirth
"because the mom was Spanish-speaking and had no one to translate
for her."
Building economic self-sufficiency
MAN aims to help families attain "success on all levels--academic,
health, jobs, etc." says Executive Director Richard Dana. So its
home visiting program includes helping families "move forward financially"
as well as the Birth and Beyond program.
Employment specialists "go into a home and do an assessment of the
mom, to see whether she needs to get a GED, training, or go right into
the workplace," says Brown. They can also connect parents to MAN's
employment program, with certificate programs in medical work, data entry,
and billing. "We're not only finding people jobs, but finding people
careers," Brown adds. "By integrating family support programs
with employment...we help family members prepare to get a job and keep
it."
Promising results
The difference Birth and Beyond makes is "enormous," says Dickinson.
He cites a 32 percent drop in substantiated reports of child maltreatment
for families who have participated in Birth and Beyond.
Vigil agrees: "I've been able to grow as a person. I've become a
better mother."
For more info:
- Birth and Beyond, 916-875-2020
- Mutual Assistance Network Family Resource Center, 916-927-7694
Family Support Works! is a six-part series supported by the Evelyn
and Walter Haas Jr. Fund and the S.H. Cowell Foundation. For more information
contact Jean Tepperman, 510-444-7136, aacjean@4children.org
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The research shows
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2003
that "home visitations by trained personnel play an effective role
in the reduction of child maltreatment, including abuse and/or neglect."
- The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visiting by registered
nurses to at-risk parents of young children. Studies have shown that
the program leads to a 79 percent reduction in child maltreatment and
saves $4 for every $1 invested, by reducing future costs of substance
abuse, crime, and welfare.
- Healthy Families America provides home visiting by trained paraprofessionals
for families of children from birth to five. In five studies in different
states, Healthy Families participants' rate of child maltreatment was
less than half the statewide rate.
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What is an FRC?
The family resource center (FRC), part of an innovative strategy to promote
healthy families and communities, is a warm and welcoming community hub
that engages families in a variety of programs and activities that build
on their strengths and meet basic needs. FRCs respond to what the community
says it needs and often work in partnership with other community agencies.
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