The Thirty Million Words Project falls in line with a relatively new idea in low-income child intervention programs: the idea that school-based intervention may be too late. The most effective interventions for children in poverty may occur much earlier, perhaps even before birth. Cognitive development gap trends have been identified in poor babies as young as nine months old, and that gap only increases with age. Home visiting interventions build relationships with the entire family and may be the key to preventing poverty’s devastating effects on a child’s development.
Indiana has several local home visiting programs for low-income families including the Nurse Family Partnership, Parents as Teachers and Healthy Families Indiana. The Nurse Family Partnership, part of Goodwill Industries, is an evidence-based community health program that partners vulnerable mothers with a registered nurse early in a pregnancy and provides ongoing nurse home visits that continue through the child’s second birthday. Parents as Teachers is a national program provided by several nonprofits across Indiana, that provides personalized home visits by a certified Parent Educator, play groups, parent meetings, early developmental screenings, and a referral network for parents. Healthy Families Indiana is a voluntary home visitation program that provides a variety of services to at risk families of children under 5, including child development evaluation, access to health care and parent education.
Transform Consulting Group can help your organization use the latest research like that from the Thirty Million Words Project to help identify trends and make recommendations to maximize the impact of your work. Yogi Berra stated “If you don’t know where you are going, how are you gonna know when you get there?” Contact us today and we’ll help you get there.
