by Ashley Booker, KHI News Service
For first-time mothers, it can be difficult to learn the best practices to raise a child, especially when resources are scarce or mothers face mental illness or depression.
That’s where programs like Healthy Families Wyandotte play a vital role, according to Selia Moya, a supervisor with the program in Wyandotte County. Healthy Families Wyandotte and similar programs in southeast Kansas provide free in-home early childhood development and education services to at-risk first-time mothers.
Healthy Families Wyandotte workers visit families at their homes, helping parents understand a child’s behavior and development and making sure they are continuing baby wellness checkups.
“The best practice is to get them enrolled in these type of services from the start. For me, it’s difficult to change behaviors that already have been in practice — you find more resistance from families when you enroll them later,” Moya said, recalling her days as a home service worker.
Home visits preferably begin when a woman is pregnant, but children up to 12 weeks old can enroll and receive services until they are 3.
After that, Healthy Families Wyandotte connects the family to an Early Head Start or preschool program to ensure the children and their families have continued support.
Healthy Families Wyandotte and Early Head Start are both poised to receive additional funding from two recently announced federal grants, which start this month. One grant ends after a year and the other ends in September 2017.
The $10 million in grants will allow the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to administer home visits to more than 800 at-risk families with young children, up from the current total of about 470.
“It’s going to be really great for the families in Kansas, because we are going to enhance services for families,” said Aimee Rosenow, a spokeswoman for KDHE.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a total of $386 million in grants for state health departments, territories and nonprofit organizations in supporting programs like Healthy Families Wyandotte.
Across the country, the home visit programs have served about 115,000 parents and children, according to HHS. About 80 percent of those families had incomes at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $24,000 in annual income for a family of four.
Of the $10 million for Kansas, $9 million is part of a competitive grant that already serves Wyandotte County, plus Montgomery, Labette and Cherokee counties in southeast Kansas and will expand to include new services for nearby Wilson and Neosho counties.
In addition to receiving home visits, families will have access to programs like Parents as Teachers, Healthy Families and Early Head Start.
These Kansas counties have a larger percentage of at-risk families who can benefit from services for overall health, maternal health, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence and education, Rosenow said.
Home services already are being provided to 171 families, so the funding will expand services to improve child and maternal outcomes by helping more than 630 new families, Rosenow said. The grant also will provide additional training for home visitors.
Programs that serve Wyandotte and Montgomery counties will share $1 million from a separate grant to enhance home visits to families for one year.
Moya said the grant money will support Wyandotte County families already in the program and identify more families in need of services.
The funding is what “the community really needed,” Moya said, and will guarantee that services aren’t interrupted.
Currently, Healthy Families Wyandotte has two workers providing home visits to 25 families. The grant money will fund another home visitor, plus pay for an increase in current home visitors’ salary, continuing education and program expenses, Moya said.
She said when her program helps a caregiver who helps Kansas children, the education they receive will have a ripple effect for years to come.
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