A Glimpse into the Parent-Child Home Program at Kindering in Bellevue

A Glimpse into the Parent-Child Home Program at Kindering in Bellevue:
Via United Way of King County

Kindering, located on the Eastside, is a not-for-profit neurodevelopmental center that has been providing comprehensive services for children with special needs and their families since 1962.  On Friday, March 2^nd, I visited Kindering’s weekly Parent-Child Home Program’s (PCHP) staff meeting to see first-hand how they use the grant received from United Way of King County to provide this great service to qualified families in their community.  The Parent-Child Home Program is a proven early literacy, school readiness and parenting program that encourages verbal interaction and educational play between parents and their preschool children in families that have had limited exposure to educational opportunities and activities.  While there, I got to meet their home visitors Judith and Alma and right away, I was able to see how very dedicated they both are to their work.  They  eagerly shared with me some of their experiences working with the immigrant/refugee families (most of whom are Spanish-speaking and of Mexican descent) in Bellevue and Redmond.  Recently, Alma had this experience with a family:

“Alma works with a family whom week after week the father has been sitting off to the side of the room observing during every visit. He is typically quiet while the mom participates with her daughter. Two weeks ago, when mom was in the kitchen as Alma arrived, she invited dad to come over and help review the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Dad seemed apprehensive at first, but then came alive while taking the lead to read to his daughter.”

In addition to parents who are sometimes reluctant to participate in the visits initially, there are times when the home visitors have to actually overcome objections from family members.  One such time was when a father did not want his son to play with a doll that was the selected toy for that week’s PCHP visit. Because the home visitors who are hired for the Parent-Child Home Program are either from or a part of the same communities of the families that they serve, this particular home visitor understood the cultural reasons why the father felt that way and was able to couple that knowledge with the use of appropriate tactics that she learned during the PCHP home visitor training she received from the start of the program and each week during the staff meeting, to help the father understand the purpose for that toy. One of the benefits of this toy that the home visitor explained is it helps children learn their body parts. The father was able to understand and allowed his son to receive and learn from the toy that week.

In addition to providing PCHP to the families in their community, the PCHP Coordinator and Home Visitors help to connect families with additional resources such as connecting them to the local free tax preparation site for low income families (provided by United Way of King County) located conveniently at the Crossroads Shopping Center in the Bellevue, Washington community as well as providing them with baby and children’s clothing and items through a partnership with Eastside Baby Corner.  The home visitors at Kindering are so dedicated to providing exemplary service to their families that they didn’t just stop at helping them receive additional resources in the community, they also created a Parent-Child Home Program newsletter to help the families stay informed about other programs offered at Kindering, plan for any upcoming events that their family may want to attend and to share pictures and stories from other families like them who are receiving PCHP.  The newsletter is available to families in both English and Spanish.

I learned so much more than I would have ever imagined I would during my 90 minute visit with the Kindering PCHP staff!  It was great to be able to come back to my office full of information and stories to share with my team!  I enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone on the PCHP staff at Kindering, being able to learn about the program while playing with Play Dough (which the staff was preparing for the next week’s toy being offered to families) made it a very enjoyable visit indeed!