Success By 6 and Help Me Grow
By Cori Gadansky
Last week was a big one for Success By 6. After months of hard work, we announced that a new developmental screening tool is available for any parents in our region to use with their children who are ages birth to five. Click here to request an Ages & Stages Questionnaire for your child. This tool will help parents know if their children are on the right track for success. If children are developing typically parents will receive some basic parenting information from our Born Learning material and other community resources. If there are indications that a parent should seek further evaluation for their children we will make sure that families are connected to existing community services.
Providing parents with a tool to see how their children are doing and connecting them to existing community resources are two of the major components of Help Me Grow a system that was originally implemented statewide in Connecticut and is now being replicated by a handful of other communities across the country.
Metro United Way Success By 6 was selected as one of only five replication sites for Help Me Grow. Last week also marked the visit of the Technical Assistance team from Connecticut. Many community partners came together to learn from Connecticut and to consider our own local strengths and challenges in implementing this system.
Throughout the course of the visit the TA team spoke of the many parents that they connect with through their system. They talked about the single mom who calls to ask questions about services, unsure of where to turn because she has concerns about her child’s development. They spoke about immigrant families who are trying to adjust to a new culture and do the best for their children, but don’t know how to navigate through the human services system. They spoke of countless other families that they help across their state, across income levels, of different races and ethnicities, all with the common goal of helping their children succeed.
As the team shared this information, I was repeatedly struck by how fortunate I am to have such a strong support network. I have my family and my husband’s family in town. I have an amazing group of girlfriends to talk about “mom things” with and I have a circle of professional colleagues who are experts at this child development stuff. Yet sometimes I still feel lost and lonely as I try to be the best mom that I can to Luke. How would it feel to be in the role of mother without that support? Could I even do it? I know there are lots of moms and dads out there that do, but I just can’t begin to imagine how hard it is. If natural support groups of family, friends and colleagues don’t exist for some how can we help to create and connect parents to other supports?
What kind of support networks do you have? Is it one of family and friends? Have you found support from a church group of moms or the parents on your block? Are there programs and services that you and your family use? As we build our Help Me Grow system we will look to both formal and informal community resources for families. I know that there is a lot out there for families in this community that very much cares about children and youth.
Photo Credit: snorp
