Parents as Teachers (Padres Como Maestros) is an evidence-based early childhood home visiting model, which is designed to build strong communities, thriving families, and children who are healthy, safe, and ready to learn.

The Parent as Teachers program earned the Blue-Ribbon designation in 2017 through the Parents as Teachers Quality Endorsement and Improvement process.  Affiliates with the Blue-Ribbon Designation are recognized as being exemplary affiliates, delivering high-quality services

The Parent Educators in this program share research-based information and utilize evidence-based practices by partnering, facilitating and reflecting with families through home-based services.  The services are delivered twice per month.

Goals and Objectives:

1.         Improve maternal and child’s health.

2.         Increase parent knowledge of early childhood development and improve parenting practices.

3.         Provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues.

4.         Improve Family stability

5.         Prevent child Abuse and neglect.

6.         Increase children’s school readiness and school success

Target Population

•          Hispanic Parents residing in Oklahoma County.

•            First time pregnant women past the 29th week of gestation

•          Expectant parents with a sub-sequent pregnancy at any time of gestation.

•          Families who have at least one child 5 years old and younger

Program Components/Services:

•          Group connections

•          Child Development Screenings

•          Resource network

Approach

Parent-Child interaction

•          5 parenting behaviors

•          Child development

•          Parent-child activities

Development-Centered Parenting

•          Link between child development and parenting

•          7 developmental topics

Family Well-Being

•          Family strengths, capabilities, and skills

•          Protective factors

•          Resourcing

SafeCare (Familias Seguras) is a program for the prevention of child maltreatment that supports evidence-based home visitation services for high risk families, whose purpose is to meet the health, safety, and well-being needs of families with young children.

The SafeCare program is accredited through the National SafeCare Training and Research Center. In this home-based parenting support program, the family support workers use curriculum to help reduce stress in the family. The services include education on parenting, managing child behavior, preventative health, home safety, and communication skills. Services are delivered in an interactive way that allows families to learn and practice skills while receiving support from their provider. Families are also connected to community resources throughout the program based on the individual family needs. The services are delivered weekly.

     Goals and Objectives:

1.         Help parents recognize health care needs of their children

2.         Help families plan ways to ensure safety of all family members at all times

3.         Provide parents with useful skills for dealing with the most stressful daily routines

4.         Increase positive interactions between parents and children

5.         Provide information about how relationships can affect health and well-being for parents and children

6.        Assist families in addressing substance abuse, family violence, mental health issues and linking the family to appropriate

Target Population:

•          Families who have at least one child 5 years old and younger

•          Families that live in Oklahoma County

•          Families who do not have a current Child Welfare case with DHS

Health Module- The goals of this module are to train parents to use health reference materials, prevent illness, identify symptoms of childhood illnesses or injuries and provide or seek appropriate treatment by following the steps of a task analysis.  The family receives a first aid kit and health manual.

Home Safety Module- This module involves the identification and elimination of safety and health hazards by making them inaccessible to children. The family receives safety devices and are installed in the home.

Parent-Child/Parent/Infant Interactions Module- This module consists of training parent-infant interactions and parent-child interactions. The purpose of this module is to teach parents to provide engaging and stimulating activities, increase positive interactions, and prevent troublesome child behaviors. 

Managing Child Behavior Module- This module consists of teaching the parents effective techniques to respond to child misbehavior and to be consistent with their responses in order to increase positive interactions among themselves. 

Healthy relationships Module- This module identifies the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy relationships and assesses the type and quality of the parent’s important relationships. It teaches parents interpersonal skills to facilitate enhancing the quality of all their personal relationships.

Problem Solving and Motivational Interviewing- Two additional focal points of the SafeCare module are problem solving and counseling skills.  Problem-solving is used by providers to help parents work through the many problems they made face that are not address by the SafeCare model.  SafeCare also teaches the providers to use good communication skills including: building rapport, how to ask questions to illicit more information and change and how to provide positive and corrective feedback.

All modules involve a baseline assessment, an intervention (training) and a follow-up assessment to monitor change.