Early Head Start Home Visitation helps parents, families
With the goal of helping families with newborns achieve long-term success, Mercy Health is celebrating its 10th year of offering Early Head Start Home Visitation, the only of its kind in Lucas County.
Early Head Start programs are proven to assist participating families with stability in their home environment as well as helping them achieve economic stability and better health outcomes. Mercy Health offers in-home visitation to area families with the goal of assisting parents’ ability to support their child’s health and development.
“Meeting in a family’s home provides home visitors with an opportunity to know families intimately. This sets the stage for close, trusting relationships — a critical element in any program designed to support children and their families,” said Cindy Pisano, supervisor, Mercy Health Healthy Connections. “We help parents provide safe and developmentally enriching caregiving that promotes their child’s physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. This lays a strong foundation for the child’s success in school and life.”
Home visitors come once a week and work with parents and their children. Together, they plan ways to help the child learn using parent-child interactions, daily routines and household materials. A small group of children, parents and their home visitors also gets together on a monthly basis for group socializations.
Research shows that during the first three years of a child’s life, the brain develops 700 connections per second. Early Head Start provides comprehensive services, including child development, family support, and help accessing medical dental and mental health. Mercy Health’s home visitation program is available for those unable to travel to a local Early Head Start program or who prefer to have the services closer to home.
Since its inception, Early Head Start has helped more than 800 children in the region. Additionally, low-income children who participated in Head Start were 2.7 percent more likely to finish high school, 8.5 percent more likely to enroll in college, and 39 percent more likely to finish college.
“When we found out I was pregnant, I was crying and very scared. We didn’t have money and didn’t know how we were going to be able to afford a baby,” said Domonic High, of Toledo. “My OB/gyn directed me to Mercy Health Pathways and they were able to provide services during my pregnancy. After the baby was born, they referred me to Early Head Start services and we contacted them right away to fill out application.”
Early Head Start offers parent education and training opportunities, family support services, support in accessing medical care and resources and assistance to parents in accessing employment or educational opportunities. Additionally, Early Head Start is proven to better prepare children for a transition into kindergarten.
“Our child has gained a lot of knowledge by being in the program and we have gained more knowledge as parents,” said High, who added that she has since recommended others in her family to participate in the program. “Being new parents and knowing more about our child and child development, we encourage other parents to engage in the program and learn more about productive ways to cope with parenting. It’s also a great way to interact with other parents, at group socializations each month, who are going through the same situations and concerns as us.”