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Parents as Teachers
OutcomesParents that participate in the Parents as Teachers program learn to more effectively interact with their children, better understand child development, and spend more time with their children. Parents engage in more language- and literacy-promoting behaviors with their children. Families with very low income will be more likely to read aloud to their children and to tell stories, say nursery rhymes, and sing with their child. Families who participate in Parents as Teachers have fewer documented cases of abuse and neglect. Parents as Teachers children score higher on school readiness tests and on standardized measures of reading, math, and language in the elementary grades. |
The Parents as Teachers program is an international parent education and family support program that serves families from pregnancy until their child enters kindergarten. The program is designed to enhance child development and school achievement through parent education accessible to all families. Recognizing that all families can benefit from support, Parents as Teachers families come in all configurations, from all socio-economic levels, and from rural, urban and suburban communities. The program is adaptable to fit community needs.
The Parents as Teachers Born to Learn model is unique in that it incorporates a home visiting component that has demonstrated positive results, utilizes a research-based curriculum for home visiting that promotes optimal child development and positive parent-child relationships and; delivers developmental, hearing, and vision screenings that can result in early identification of delays or health issues. The goals of the program are to increase parent knowledge of early childhood development and improve parenting practices; provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues; prevent child abuse and neglect; increase children’s school readiness and school success. To achieve these goals, the Parents as Teachers Born to Learn™ model provides four core service delivery components:
- Personal Visits
- Group Meetings
- Developmental, Hearing, and Vision Screenings
- Resource and Referral Network
Currently, Parents as Teachers at the Children's Consortium is an Early Head Start (EHS) program. Early Head Start is a federally funded community-based program for low-income families with infants and toddlers and pregnant women. Its mission is simple:
- to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women,
- to enhance the development of very young children, and
- to promote healthy family functioning.
