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Early Childhood Home Visitation

An AmeriCorps Program at Porter-Leath

 “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Home Visitation Team: Members conduct monthly visits utilizing the Parents as Teachers curriculum with program participants, focusing on prenatal moms.Members are required to recruit program participants. The goal of this team is to reduce the infant mortality rate in Shelby and Fayette counties.

School Readiness Team: Members serve in one of the two Head Start Centers or Early Head Start.Each member is assigned a classroom in which they conduct circle time with students focusing on ways to increase their social, emotional and literacy skills.Members are also assigned children to work with individually to address their individual needs.The goal of this team is to ensure children obtain school readiness skills.

Become an AmeriCorps member at Porter-Leath!
http://www.americorps.gov/forms/americorps_application.pdf

Purpose
Meeting the needs of 600 pregnant and parenting families in their homes to give preschool children the best start in life.

Description
Parents play a critical role in laying the basic foundation for their child’s learning. Many have the tools they need to succeed in this area, but lack the confidence or knowledge to make the most of them — tools such as the environmental conditions of the home and the simple, intellectual stimulation of the child. Cornerstone is an early childhood home visitation program that provides pregnant mothers as well as families of children from birth to age 5 with all of the proper tools necessary for positive child development. Porter-Leath staff, and AmeriCorps members, use two, nationally-recognized, age-specific curriculums to teach these skills to families in their homes, where they can be immediately put into practice.

Services Provided
• Home visitation, referrals, pre- and post-program testing and health screenings all contribute to the effectiveness of the two curriculums provided to the families.
• The first curricula, the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker Program (MIHOW), teaches preventative health, healthy parenting practices and self-sufficiency in pregnant women as well as parenting families with children from birth to 3 years of age.
• Parents of children ages 3 to 5 are taught to be their children’s first teacher through in-home training. The Home Instruction for Parents of Pre-School Youngsters (HIPPY) curriculum provides weekly activity packets using activities that build skills children need for school readiness and success.

Benefits
• Positive changes in a child’s environment increases his or her chances of entering school ready to learn, ultimately leading to greater success in life. Specific conditions affected include: emotional and verbal responsiveness of the mother, avoidance of physical punishment, organization of the environment, provision of appropriate play materials, maternal involvement with child and opportunities for variety in daily stimulation.
• Increased self-esteem of both parent and child helps to foster a stronger family relationship

History
Porter-Leath AmeriCorps volunteers began administering the HIPPY curricula in February 1996 in the LeMoyne Gardens Housing Development in Memphis. Following its success, the MIHOW program soon followed in 1999.

Other Facts
• Clients qualify if they are pregnant or have a child under age 5, with recruitment targeting low-income, at-risk families.
• Clients are recruited through referrals from other agencies, word-of-mouth and door-to-door.
• Funding is provided by Corporation for National and Community Service, Tennessee Department of Health, the City of Memphis, United Way of the Mid-South and private donations.