Best Starts for Kids and United Way of King County are excited to announce a new partnership that will support capacity in communities and expand services to more children and families.
Heaven, who is three years old, works on a puzzle with her dad, Wesley. As they play with the puzzle, Wesley actively asks questions and engages in conversation and interaction with Heaven, a skill he learned through participation in the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) that supports bonding and brain development.
Wesley was introduced to PCHP at a meeting at his apartment complex at Passage Point, a YWCA housing program for parents recently incarcerated and reunified with their children. A single father, Wesley was an eager PCHP participant, knowing he faced challenges after being separated from his daughter. Reunification meant the opportunity to rebuild his relationship with Heaven.
A single father, Wesley can feel weighed down by worry and stress as he juggles school, starts a new job and provides for their basic needs. Upon starting PCHP, Wesley shared that “My goal right now is to make it as easy as possible for when she does go to school [so] that she can adapt and keep up with the other kids.”
Upon completing PCHP, Wesley reflected:
She starts preschool in September so I know that she’s ready for preschool…and I can visualize how she might act in school…I can see that she’s going to cope with that situation, and that’s a little stress off me because starting a new job, stuff like that, I worry about things like that as a parent…Now it’s comforting, knowing she can go into a classroom and she can learn and she can do well…
The Parent-Child Home Program supports parents of two and three year olds through educational play that helps caregivers develop their children’s cognitive and social-emotional skills. Through modeling behaviors, culturally matched home visitors support parents in learning how to stimulate their child’s ongoing learning in their own home. The emphasis on nurturing the parent-child relationship is critical to the social-emotional development of the child and the social support that Wesley received through PCHP was invaluable to his relationship with Heaven.
Best Starts for Kids and United Way of King County Partnership
Since 2010, United Way of King County (UWKC) has invested in growing the PCHP program, with a focus on expanding services for communities of color and refugee and immigrant families in King County. UWKC has partnered with Thrive Washington, Department of Early Learning, and the City of Seattle to provide essential infrastructure and support to community-based organizations implementing PCHP—and helped to increase the number of children and families served from 160 to nearly 1200.
BSK is proud to announce that we will help to support and build on the vital work of United Way and their partners—community-based organizations, Thrive Washington, and City of Seattle—providing a multi-million dollar investment to support capacity in communities and to expand PCHP to more children and families.
Upcoming Opportunities
UWKC will host information sessions on implementing the Parent-Child Home Program model. Please click HERE to register for the following sessions
PCHP Information Sessions
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
1:00pm-2:30pm
Alumni Room, Shoreline Conference Center
18560 1st Ave NE, Shoreline, WA, 98155
Friday, July 14, 2017
10:00am-11:30am
Mill Creek Room, Kent Commons
525 Fourth Ave N, Kent, WA 98032
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
9:00am-10:30am
2100 Building
2100 24th Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98144
In summer, UWKC will partner with King County to conduct an open Request for Proposals to expand PCHP services. Investments will be prioritized in alignment with community need, resource availability, and the equity and social justice values of BSK.