Parent and Child Home Program

We visit Maya families who struggle to get by. Sometimes communication between a mother and infant are lower priorities. However, our goal is to help struggling Maya families with infant are. Our evidence-based program sends visitors to Maya homes twice weekly over a two year period to play and read with 18-48 month olds. We indirectly model great ways for parents to be able to verbally interact with their infants.

The Parent-Child Home Program is a research-proven home visiting model to prepare young
children for school success by increasing language and literacy skills, enhancing social emotional development, and strengthening the parent-child relationship. Three main focuses of the program are to:

1. To increase verbal and non-verbal interaction between the parent and child;
2. To develop and enhance positive child behaviors;
3. To promote and encourage early literacy skills.

The program is delivered exclusively in the homes of the participants. Our home visitors provide services to the Guatemalan Maya families twice –weekly over a two year period of time. Each week a gift of a book or educational toy is given to the family, creating a permanent home library for the family. During the visit, our Parental-Child Home visitors are involved in reading, play activities, quality verbal interaction, and developmentally-appropriate tasks. The Site Coordinator and the Home Visitor also connect families to other community services. Our goal is to help the Guatemala Maya families with two and three year olds who face multiple obstacles to educational and economic success. These risk factors are brought by such things as: the families living in poverty, being a single or teen age parent, having low parental education status, literacy, and families who are challenged by language barriers. Our Home Visitors share information about parenting skills and child development in ways that are respectful of families’ behaviors and cultural norms.