Parents are a child’s first and most important teacher, shaping early experiences and values and laying the foundation for the child’s future success. A new initiative from the Edna Martin Christian Center aims to support parents in making a positive impact in the critical early years.
The Parents as Teachers® program is an evidence-based early childhood home visiting program that serves families with children prenatally through kindergarten. Edna Martin Christian Center, a community-focused organization supporting the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhoods on the near northeast side of Indianapolis, added the Parents as Teachers program to its slate of early childhood initiatives in 2024.
“We have three main areas of emphasis,” said Angielena Williams, EMCC director of early childhood special initiatives. “We focus on parent-child interaction, development-centered parenting and family well-being, and we do this by having certified parent educators go into the homes and walk alongside the family on their parenting journeys.”
Parent educators connect with families during regular home visits, focusing on child development and ensuring children are meeting milestones by using screening tools such as the Ages & Stages Questionnaire® (ASQ) and the ASQ social-emotional assessment (SEAM™). Parents are screened for signs of postnatal depression, and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)® tool is used to evaluate improvement in the child’s environment over time. This comprehensive set of screenings provides the parent educator with the data needed to refer children for early intervention or connect parents to support resources; close collaboration with agencies such as First Steps removes barriers that many families typically face in accessing care.
One unique aspect of the Parents as Teachers program is the opportunity for group connection. “Once a month, we invite our families to come out to socialize with other families. We feed them really well,” laughs Williams, “and provide activities for them to do with their children, focused on a different child developmental topic each time.”
Families join the program through referrals from partner organizations such as My Healthy Baby, are identified as candidates by EMCC’s family success team, or find out about the program through the team’s involvement at community events. “We also have a lot of our families share about the program with friends – we love the word-of-mouth referrals when a family has found the program to be valuable enough to share.”
Currently, the Parents as Teachers program includes four parent educators, each with a caseload of 15-20 families. The Early Years Initiative supported the addition of bilingual parent educators, helping to ensure culturally competent care for the growing population of Spanish-speaking families within EMCC’s service area. “We really believe in the value of continuity of care,” Williams said, “so whenever possible we try to have the same certified parent educator with the family throughout the continuum.”
Although the Parents as Teachers program is only a year old, the success stories of impacting learning and development continue to build. Williams shared the story of one family who was residing at Coburn Place, a shelter for women and children experiencing domestic violence. The family’s two-year-old wasn’t speaking much and was behind on developmental milestones when the family entered the Parents as Teachers program. Now, a year later, the family has moved out of the facility and into their own town home, the child is meeting all developmental milestones, has lots of words and has shown great strides in social-emotional skills as modeled by the parent educator. The mom is now part of EMCC’s Parent Advisory Board, using her experience to help shape the program’s future.
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