Our Family Services Department recently received the LOSOS Prize for Innovation through the Parents as Teachers Program! We are so excited that our Parents as Teachers (PAT) program was recognized for this prize!

The PAT program serves pregnant and parenting teens and families in our communities. The goal is to improve the quality of life for our families by empowering them to become better parents, raising healthy children and creating an environment where their children and parents can grow and reach their potential.

“Our PAT team is staffed by five committed Parent Educators who provide biweekly home visits, or more often if needed, to support the families we serve,” says our Family Program Specialist, Marisol Quezada.

Parent Educators help families learn about their child’s ongoing growth through periodic developmental screening, health assessments, and interactive activities that promote parent-child interaction and engagement. 95% of program participants have two or more risk factors with our goal of providing at a minimum of two visits per month.

“Our Parent Educators work with parents to stay in school or return to school to complete their high school education, graduate and then continue to technical training or higher education to create better opportunities for themselves and their families,” says Marisol.

The PAT program partners and collaborates with many local community providers such as schools, child development centers, medical providers, health departments, colleges, technical schools, and other service providers in order to support our families in meeting their needs and achieving their goals.

The innovative practice that the PAT program was recognized for is the implementation of the “PAT Passport.” The Passport concept promotes family engagement and the development of a card is issued to families at the time of enrollment. The card has a sign-off space, where every month parent educators will sign-off each visit or group activity that the family participates in. At the end of the year, the families that participated and completed each item on the passport, is provided with a prize as an incentive for participating.

There are several categories where they saw an increase in the program because of the implementation of the PAT Passport for the year 2019. The “Visit Frequency” category, which tracks visits per month, increased 17%! The “Group Connection Participation” category increased by 12%. We are excited that the Parents as Teachers program was at 100% caseload capacity during the program year. Parent Educators reports that is has improved their ability to schedule and maintain visits with families.

Our Family Services Department serves a caseload of 75 parents, 44 of which are teen parents. The PAT program collaborates closely with local schools to allow teens back in school or develop alternative school plans to allow teen families to complete their high school education and receive their diploma.

Our PAT program is honored to be selected as one of this year’s recipients for the LOSOS Prize for Innovation and is excited to share this recognition with our families and our community!