The goals and objectives of Children's Service Society of Wisconsin's Family Visiting programs are as follows:
- Enhance the physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of children.
- Provide support to parents and other family members.
- Promote positive parenting.
- Enhance parent-child interaction and parenting skills.
- Empower parents as primary educators of their children.
Building Families - Eau Claire
Building Families is a voluntary home visiting service for first time parents. The program offers parent education activities and support to reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect to those individuals who are identified at risk of abusing their children. Services begin upon discharge from the hospital with systematic screening, completed by local public health departments, of all new parents to identify those in most need of in-home support and education. The overall approach of Building Families is to offer all new parents supportive services, whether it is only one or two home visits, or more visits for at-risk families.
Home visitors coordinate access to an array of community-based services such as housing; Women, Infants and Children (WIC); financial services; and recreation.
For more information on the Building Families program, call the Eau Claire office at (715) 835-5915.
First Steps - Madison
First Steps' primary focus is families with newborns, but also provides assistance to expectant families and families with preschool-aged children. First Steps' family visitors connect parents to the information and support they need to make healthy decisions for themselves and for their children.
First Steps' family visitors help families recognize that they have strengths. Family visitors assist with identifying a family's resources and capabilities and help to map their social support network and to mobilize those resources.
All families that have questions or want continuing information about what to expect as children grow, can benefit from First Steps. First Steps is a valuable resource for families that need information to make good, healthy parenting decisions.
For more information on the First Steps program, call the Madison office at (608) 221-3511.
Parents as Teachers (PAT) - Lincoln County
Children's Service Society believes that every parent is a child's first and most influential teacher. PAT is a free and voluntary early learning, in-home program for parents with children ages birth to 3. PAT helps parents lay a strong foundation for a child's future success in school.
The program includes personalized home visits by a certified parent educator, group meetings with other parents, a network of resources that can assist with special resources beyond the scope of PAT and developmental screenings to help parents identify areas of development that need special attention.
Independent evaluations of PAT have shown that children enrolled benefit greatly from the program. These children have enhanced language, problem-solving and social development; higher scores on standardized reading and math tests in early elementary grades; parents who are more confident in their parenting knowledge and skills and who read more to their children; and a lower incidence of child abuse and neglect.
For more information on the PAT program, call the Merrill office at (715) 539-9228 or Tomahawk at 715-453-9969.
Start Right - Marathon County
Start Right serves families through two major components-home visiting and center-based parenting education and support. Within the home visiting component, a public health nurse contacts each family of Marathon County newborns and offers a home visit. At this visit, the nurse reviews the health of the baby and mother, discusses how the family is dealing with the addition of a new member, talks with the family about needs they identify, and offers resources in the community to meet those needs.
One of those resources can be parent aide services. A parent aide is a paraprofessional who will visit the family on a regular basis and helps parents develop and refine their parenting skills. For example, a parent aide may help a parent with learning how to comfort a crying baby, how to discipline an independent 2-year-old, how to manage the parent's own stress and anger, how to child proof their home, or how to coax their finicky 3-year-old to eat vegetables. Through Start Right, parent aides can be available to families over time to assist families through each developmental state, helping them learn the skills they need to be loving, nurturing and effective parents.
Center-based parenting education and support is the second component of Start Right, and can be found through Children's Service Society family resource centers. Family Resource Centers offer a wide variety of parenting resources including books and videos, knowledgeable staff and group-based parenting classes.
For more information on the Start Right program, call the Wausau office at (715) 848-1457.
