Polk County Decategorization

Parenting/Support Services for Families

 

Parenting/Support Services for Families Sort by Beginning Dates of Services

 

Parent Education - Attachment and Trauma Workshop by Blank Children's Star Center

Please Contact the Blank Children's STAR Center if registration is full at 515-241-4311 OR Renae.Jones@unitypoint.org.

We are proud to announce our new workshop series sponsored by the Blank Children's STAR Center's  Foster Care Clinic. This is a free workshop for any type of parenting - birth parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, or step-parents. We will be having a workshop four times a year. The dates for this year are listed below:

  • Friday May 4, 2018
  • Friday July 6, 2018
  • Friday October 5, 2018
     

Agenda

Registration at 8:30 AM

Workshop: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM (Lunch is NOT provided)

  • Learning Objectives 

Integrative Parenting is a parenting course for parents to learn:

  • Identifying the impact of past trauma on the parent-child relationship
  • Identify the root of their children's misbehaviors
  • Learning effective methods to calm reactive and misbehaving children
  • Healing the hurt child and the attachment relationship through attunement, nurturing messages, and comforting touch
  • Managing behaviors in a way that is helpful and not harmful to the relationship
  • Strengthening the parent-child bond
  • Understanding their child's behavior
  • Effective parenting techniques
  • Importance of self-care

The Integrative Parenting workshop is a one day workshop that is designed to assist parents. This is a FREE workshop, however, attendance for the full day is REQUIRED. A certificate of attendance will be awarded at the end of the training. Child care is NOT available.

  • Free Webinars on Early Speech, Language, and Hearing Development

May is Better Hearing and Speech Month!  In celebration, the Office of Head Start’s Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO) Initiative is joining the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) to host a coffee break webinar series to celebrate this year’s theme “Communication for All.”  Throughout the month of May, ASHA partners with national and local stakeholders to engage in a multifaceted public education campaign to raise awareness about the critical need to intervene early when young children are identified with communication disorders.

The Coffee Break Webinars will focus on raising awareness about the importance of frequent hearing screenings, language development, and family engagement.   The webinars will feature speakers that receive funding for various projects through grants and cooperative agreements from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the Administration for Children and Families.

There is no pre-registration to join the webinars.  Click on the links below when you are ready to join.

 ·    Monday, May 7, 2018, 2:00-2:15 p.m. EDT

What You Need to Know About Quality Hearing Screening for Children Birth to Five Years of Age

Will Eiserman, Early Childhood Hearing Outreach (ECHO) Initiative, http://infanthearing.org/earlychildhood/

Click here to join the webinar: https://ncham.adobeconnect.com/bhsm/

·    Thursday, May 10, 2018, 2:00 – 2:15 p.m. EDT

Family Engagement: Living It Out in the Real World

Janet DesGeorges, Co-founder and Executive Director of Hands & Voices, www.handsandvoices.org

Click here to join the webinar: https://ncham.adobeconnect.com/bhsm/

 

·     Monday, May 14, 2018, 2:00 – 2:15 p.m. EDT

Unplug and Engage: Creating Language Rich Everyday Routines at Home

Juliann Woods, Ph.D., Professor and Researcher at Florida State University School of Communication Science and Disorders,http://firstwordsproject.com

Click here to join the webinar: https://ncham.adobeconnect.com/bhsm/

·    Thursday, May 17, 2017, 2:00 – 2:15 p.m. EDT

Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Strategies to Promote Children’s Language Development

Rosa Milagros Santos, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Special Education the University of Illinois,https://provost.illinois.edu/staff-directory/santos-rosa-milagros/

Click here to join the webinar:  https://ncham.adobeconnect.com/bhsm/

Art for Peace Group

Limited space available for participants! Group meets 1st Monday of each month at Healing Art Counseling in Windsor Heights. Participants must pre-register.

For more info, please email: rabram@healingartcounseling.com

Fatherhood Classes: Now Available at Evelyn K. Davis Center.

A Facilitated, Peer Driven, Small Group format that will cover discipline, communication, formative relationships, father-mother partnership, physical and emotional development and social modeling. Meals and Instructional Materials Provided. Please see here to learn more.

Sessions held on:

  • Mondays: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
  • Tuesdays: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
  • Thursdays: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC)

is sharing a series of authoritative articles for parents and for people who work with parents.

Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa

Parents, not sure where to begin on your back to school list? Click HERE to see the health screening and immunization guidelines for Baclk to School Readiness. It includes Visiting Nurse Services as a referral for those needing help connecting to health coverage or locating a doctor or dentist!

DHS Child Care Assistance Program Changes

  • Changes will become effective July 1st!
  • What is the Child Care Assistance Program?  Child Care Assistance (CCA) is a program available to the children of income-eligible parents who are absent for a portion of the day due to employment or participation in academic or vocational training or PROMISE JOBS activities.  Assistance may also be available for a limited period of time to the children of a parent looking for employment.
  • What are the changes?  The changes include:
    • Moving from a 6-month to a 12-month certification period
    • Allowing for temporary changes in work, education and training activities
    • Allowing more time for job search activities for families currently receiving Child Care Assistance
    • The new Child Care Assistance Plus (CCA Plus)  Program
    • A higher payment rate for QRS Level 5 child care providers

See more detail HERE. Parents may access the video using the following link HERE.

FTDM/YTDM Questions/Responses

For facilitators of FTDM/YTDM - the latest QA document!

Addressing Early Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems, Natural Resources

 According to recent reports (see below), more than 10% of young children have clinically significant mental health problems, but most receive no interventions for their disorder. Although often not recognized, young children experience mental health problems at rates similar to older children.

Improved access to care, more research identifying alternative models, adequate payment for providers, and improved education on evidence-based interventions are among the recommendations in the November 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement and technical report Addressing Early Childhood Emotional and Behavioral Problems. The policy is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-3023 and the technical report at http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-3025; both will be published in the December issue of Pediatrics.

Early intervention and evidence-based family-focused therapies are key to helping young children with emotional and behavioral problems. The policy summarizes empirically supported approaches to mental health care for young children, describes barriers to interventions and proposes recommendations to enhance care.

Early Childhood Toolkit Available

A new resource worth sharing! At long last the National Head Start Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement has released a compilation of fifteen high quality tools fo use in tracking family progress toward their goals and the efforts of early care and education staff to help families advance toward those goals. This document is laid out nicely in regards to free tools vs. tools with a cost and offers links to the tools as well as instructions on interpretation. The .pdf is available at this link.

Interesting article & resources to read

  • 100 Tricks To Help You De-Stress - Huffpost
  • Are You a Mom with ADHD, Raising a Child with ADHD? - ADDitude
  • 5 Kid-Friendly Yoga Poses To Help Your Child Avoid A Meltdown - mbgmovement
  • The Difference Between Tantrums and Sensory Meltdowns - Understood
  • How To Prevent Sibling Fighting - Aha! Parenting.com

Parenting resources

  • Tips on Helping Your Child Build Relationships - Click HERE
  • 10 Resources to Help Kids Handle Negative Emotions - Click HERE
  • The Roots of STEM Success: Changing Early Learning Experiences to Build Lifelong Thinking Skills - Click HERE
  • How to talk to kids about racism: An age-by-age guide Click HERE
  • PICTURE BOOKS THAT TEACH KIDS TO COMBAT RACISM Click HERE
  • Seven Research-Based Ways that Families Promote Early Literacy Click HERE

 An infographic illustrating the seven evidence-based practices in English  and in Spanish