If you want to help, the Scottdale program needs:
Diapers, socks, coats for up to size 6, gloves, underwear to size 6, cash donations. For more about the center or to arrange donations, visit www.scottdale.org or call 404-294-8362.
More information: DeKalb County is one of just seven counties in Georgia competitively selected to receive the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) grant. The county partners with three community sites to provide services to families. They are Refugee Family Services, Scottdale Child Development & Family Resource Center and Partnership for Community Action — Early Head Start. The program in DeKalb County will serve 75 families this year in central DeKalb communities and another 750 families in the county as a whole by providing resources and referrals for pregnant women and/or families with children up to age 5, according to DeKalb County government.
Nationally, there are about 2,100 Parents as Teachers Programs, about 31 affiliate programs operate in Georgia. They include ones in Athens, Roswell, Clarkston, Atlanta, Newnan, Stone Mountain, Dahlonega, Conyers and Marietta. A program location finder is available at www.parentsasteachers.org.
Ms. Tregra has just walked into their apartment and 3-year-old twins Kiejuan and Makenzie Davis can hardly contain their excitement.
“Say hello to Ms. Tregra,” their mother, Marquita Davis, tells them.
They eagerly comply, though the same can’t be said for baby sister Makayla. Her attention for the moment is focused on a last bit of unfinished banana from breakfast.
But fairly quickly, 1-year-old Makayla will also get with the program. Tregra Benjamin is a regular visitor in the home. She works in the Parents as Teachers program at the Scottdale Child Development and Family Resource Center just outside Decatur.
She’s part of a team of trained experts from the center who educate parents, such as Davis, on how to become the first and potentially most influential teachers in their children’s lives.
Staff from the center makes monthly in-home visits to about 100 low-income families each year. They offer support for the entire family, but their main objective is to see that children in the home up to age 4 are learning what they need to be ready for school.
“If they are behind when they get to school, they have to struggle to catch up,” said Maryum Lewis, the center’s executive director.
The program is mainly designed to enhance child development and student achievement through parent education, Lewis said.
“It’s not a substitute for pre-k,” she said.
On this particular morning, Benjamin has brought an armful of items into the Davis home, including an empty cereal box and a plastic container the size of an oversized shoe box. Inside the plastic “sensory box” are several varieties of dried beans and an assortment of brightly colored toy dinosaurs, frogs and letters of the alphabet.
Davis needs to stretch husband Kiejuan Sr.’s paycheck as far as possible and Benjamin shows her how cereal boxes can be converted into puzzles with a little imagination and a pair of scissors. Everyone cheers, claps and shouts “good job” when the twins put together their part of the puzzle. All three children are intrigued, sorting out the toy animals and scooping up the beans.
Benjamin tells Davis that just letting baby Makayla scoop up the dried beans will help strengthen Makayla’s tiny wrists and make it easier when it’s time to teach her skills, such as pulling up her own pants. After each activity, Benjamin hands Davis a sheet of paper that shows the task’s appropriate age range, how it helps a child’s development and how she can repeat it with her children at other times. Davis places each sheet into a neatly kept binder already thick from prior visits.
At these in-home visits, staff members from the center talk privately with parents about other concerns, everything from family financial pressures to nutrition and the need for new socks or more diapers.
Because of the teachers’ training and expertise, these home visits can also bring attention to early signs of developmental delays. The center staff then makes the necessary referrals, with the goal of getting the child back on track for his or her age group, Lewis said.
About two years ago, a woman came to the center looking for help after escaping a domestic situation where both she and her two children had been abused. The staff was able to get the family an apartment and help the woman get on her feet, said Carlotta Bradshaw, program manager for the center’s Parents as Teachers program.
They kept track of her for six months and at last reports, the woman had begun her own business, Bradshaw said.
Parents as Teachers is an international program and is funded at the center through a federal grant funneled through the state and DeKalb County government.
A study from 2011-12 found that the Scottdale center’s program was meeting or exceeding most of its goals for helping children and families. A majority of parents who went through the program improved their parenting skills and more than half attended at least three of the center’s other events, including workshops aimed at increasing the parents’ involvement with their children and other parents, researchers reported.
At the Davises’ apartment, the sun room has been converted into a classroom and its walls are covered with letters, numbers and other teaching tools. Eager students Kiejuan and Makenzie can’t wait to get their mother’s permission to take seats in the two pint-size school desks that were Christmas gifts last year.
Davis is excited that today the classroom’s library is growing. Benjamin brings the family a book each time she comes, thanks to donations from the Junior League.
Davis is even more happy when Benjamin says that a recent assessment shows the twins have mastered skills above their age level and are “in the advanced category.”
“They’re doing really well,” Benjamin said.
About the Author
