Waterville, Maine – KVCAP’s Maine Families Home Visiting Program earned a prestigious endorsement by Parents as Teachers national center as a Blue Ribbon Affiliate, making it one of the top performing early education and home visiting affiliates within the international Parents as Teachers network. The official designation was made on October 1, 2017.
Parents as Teachers promotes the optimal early development, learning and health of children by supporting and engaging their parents and caregivers. The Parents as Teachers Evidence-Based Model is the comprehensive home-visiting, parent education model used by Parents as Teachers Affiliates
Being named a Blue Ribbon Affiliate affirms that the KVCAP Maine Families program is a high-quality member of the home visitation and parent education field, implementing the evidence-based Parents as Teachers model with fidelity.Families in Kennebec and Somerset counties are positively impacted by the services delivered by this program, which include home visits, group connections, child screening and connections to community resources, and equipping parents with knowledge and resources to prepare their children for a stronger start in life and greater success in school.
To earn this recognition, over the past year KVCAP’s Maine Families staff completed the intensive Quality Endorsement and Improvement process through the Parents as Teachers national center. They demonstrated that their program meets all of the Parents as Teachers Essential Requirements and at least 75 percent of the Parents as Teachers Quality Standards – KVCAP’s program meet 92 percent of the standards.
Among KVCAP’s greatest strengths identified by the national office are its well-developed infrastructure, and its capable and dedicated staff members who provide valuable services to families.
KVCAP’s Maine Families program began as a Healthy Families America program but transitioned to Parents as Teachers in 2006. As part of the statewide home visiting program, KVCAP’s home visitors serve families with children prenatally to age three in Kennebec and Somerset counties. Last year 293 families were connected to a home visitor, with 2,759 home visits completed.
The Quality Endorsement and Improvement Process is designed to help ensure and recognize quality implementation of the Parents as Teachers model, which is used in more than 1,300 organizations including schools, family resource centers, social service agencies, housing authorities, churches, and healthcare systems.
For more information, please contact Lanelle Freeman at 859-1577 or lanellef@kvcap.org.
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About Parents as Teachers
Parents as Teachers is an international, non-profit organization that promotes optimal early development, learning and health of young children. Parents as Teachers provides an evidence-based home visiting model and is a center for innovation in promising practices. Parents as Teachers designs and develops quality research-based and evidence-informed curricula and trainings for early childhood family support professionals.
We support evidence based model implementation by our local partners through professional development, implementation support, continuous quality improvement and a quality endorsement process. We facilitate data collection, analysis, evaluation and research to deepen and demonstrate our impact in communities. Lastly, we advocate for children and families at the state and federal level through community engagement. For more information, visit www.ParentsAsTeachers.org.