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Part 2: Home-Based Programs
Early Head Start Program Profile
Mid-Iowa Community Action, Inc. Early Head Start
Marshalltown, Iowa
October 28-30, 1997
Mid-Iowa Community Action, Inc., a 24-year-old community-based organization that provides services to low-income families, operates an Early Head Start program for 75 families in five rural counties in central Iowa. The program serves primarily white families, many of whom are two-parent families. The program provides child development services in weekly home visits and family development services in biweekly home visits. The program also holds monthly parent meetings in each county. The child development services focus on strengthening parents' skills and abilities as their children's first teachers.
OVERVIEW
Mid-Iowa Community Action, Inc. (MICA) operates an Early Head Start (EHS) program in five rural counties in central Iowa. MICA is a community-based organization and Head Start grantee that has been serving low-income community members since 1974. The EHS program builds on MICA's experiences operating a Comprehensive Child Development Program (CCDP). The EHS program benefits from the resource sharing and collaboration among MICA staff members who serve families through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Head Start, and many other programs that MICA administers.
MICA serves families in Hardin, Marshall, Poweshiek, Story, and Tama counties. MICA's main office is in Marshall County. Staff members work out of satellite offices in each of the counties.
Community Context. Although each of the five counties has distinguishing features that make working with families and community service providers unique, they are all rural and share many similar needs and resources. One of the biggest challenges faced by the community is the isolation families may experience because they often live quite far from one another. Reliable transportation is necessary in this rural area, but often families cannot afford to maintain their automobiles. Despite the physical isolation that may occur, however, many people are active in their public schools, churches, and community organizations, and have a strong sense of community and support.
Program Model. MICA's EHS is a home-based program. Each family receives weekly home visits from a child development specialist, who provides child development services and parent education in many areas, including nutrition. Twice a month a family development specialist visits each family to provide family development services. In its CCDP program, MICA also provided family and child development services. Its focus in EHS during the past year has been on enhancing the child development services for infants and toddlers. MICA has also been working with local child care resource and referral agencies to locate child care for EHS families and to build infant care networks.
Families. The MICA EHS program serves mostly white families, but one-fifth belong to other racial/ethnic groups. Nearly half of the families include two parents. Approximately one-fourth of mothers were pregnant when they enrolled in the program. About one-third of the families were receiving welfare cash assistance when they enrolled.
Staffing. MICA has a strong staff structure to support the work of six child development specialists, six family development specialists, and five county team leaders. All MICA EHS staff members also provide Head Start services. Each county team leader supervises staff members and serves as a key link to the MICA central office staff. Team leaders in the two smaller counties also deliver family development services for the families in their caseloads.
These staff members receive support from nine coordinators and specialists who work directly with families as needed and work with other staff members to plan and coordinate family services. Those staff members include the family health services and disabilities coordinator, the nutrition coordinator, the parent involvement coordinator, the family practice coordinator, the home-based specialist, and the adult education/employment coordinator. The program's information systems coordinator maintains the program's management information system. The family services grants management coordinator and the accountant monitor the program's fiscal activities. The early childhood education coordinator oversees the delivery of child development and parent education services by providing support and feedback to the staff, reviewing lesson plans, and planning staff training. The program director provides overall leadership to the staff and, together with the early childhood education coordinator, creates and maintains a strong network of community collaborations.
RECRUITMENT AND ENROLLMENT
Program Eligibility. The MICA EHS program serves families that live in the five counties and meet the eligibility requirements for EHS (have income below the poverty level and have a child under 3).
Recruiting Strategies. Staff members use multiple strategies to recruit families, including making announcements on the local radio stations in each community, distributing flyers, canvassing door-to-door, contacting potential participants from lists of WIC participants, talking to family members who visit county offices to apply for MICA's Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, and seeking referrals from maternal and child health clinics in each county. In collaboration with the maternal and child health clinics, MICA conducts a yearly Head Start roundup, where Head Start families meet staff members and obtain physical examinations and wellness checks for their children. At the roundup, staff members speak with expectant mothers about participating in EHS. Staff members reported that using the WIC participant lists is the most effective way to recruit families into EHS.
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MICA serves families living in Hardin, Marshall, Poweshiek, Story, and Tama counties in central Iowa. MICA's service area is approximately 3,000 square miles, and the population of the five counties ranges from about 18,000 in Tama to 75,000 in Story. Each county has different characteristics; however, they share many features. Central Iowa's economy is based in agriculture, with thousands of farms that produce corn, soybeans, and other crops. The five counties also have many hog farms and dairies and two meat processing plants. Many people in the five counties, however, no longer have occupations directly related to agricultural production. One of the major employers, a firm that manufactures heating and cooling systems, is located in Marshalltown. Many low-skilled adults work in the growing retail sales market, which does not pay well. Iowa State University at Ames, in Story County, and Grinnell College, in Poweshiek County, provide additional employment opportunities and cultural diversity for a community that is mostly white. Since the meat packaging plants opened a few years ago, many Spanish-speaking families have moved to the area from Mexico. The unemployment rate in the area is about four percent. The cost of living is low, with the average income approximately $20,000. More than 75 percent of the adults who live in the five counties are high school graduates, and more than 11 percent completed college degrees. Parents emphasized that, although there are many jobs available, without more education they would not be able to compete for positions that require technical skills. The communities have some problems that urban areas tend to have. Community leaders and parents are concerned about increases in gang activity, teen pregnancy, and drug use in the community. Local service providers reported that, although many services are available, the medical care available does not begin to meet families' needs, and child care and transportation services are limited. Community service providers are coming together to address these needs, which are growing in importance as families approach time limits for receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance. Because of MICA's long history of service to the community and its administration of many of the programs that serve low-income families, staff members participate in and lead many of the community collaboration groups in the five counties. Collaboration takes place at many levels, from sharing referrals and networking to coordinate services for individual families, to joint service planning for improving the quality of child care available in the community. |
Enrollment. The MICA EHS program is funded to serve 75 families, all of whom participate in the EHS evaluation research. The program reached full enrollment in October 1996. At the time of the site visit, 64 families were enrolled, and the program was continuing to recruit families to fill openings. Twenty-nine families had left the program because they moved, their child died, or they refused to participate in program activities.
The families served by the program are primarily white, but in some counties families are more diverse. For example, a few families in Story County, whose members are attending Iowa State University in Ames, are from other countries. In some of the counties the number of Hispanic families in the community is increasing. Overall, about 10 percent of families include parents who are graduate students at Iowa State University. Enrolled families bring a variety of strengths to the program. Many of the parents are highly motivated to succeed in their jobs, most have supportive extended families nearby, and most want to learn more about how to help their children develop. Families have a range of needs, including transportation, jobs with good wages, education and training, and affordable child care.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Home Visits. The MICA EHS program provides child development services to families in weekly home visits by child development specialists, who have caseloads of up to 13 families. The typical home visit lasts about 90 minutes. Visits are scheduled at times when both parents can be present. The child development specialist may also be accompanied by the family development specialist if the family wants to work on family issues that involve the child. During each visit, the child development specialist guides the parent, as the parent engages the child in an activity that may involve other family members. Child development specialists are required to have a bachelor's degree in child development or early childhood education.
| MICA EHS staff members believe that their program will improve child development outcomes by strengthening parents' skills and abilities as their children's first teachers. The program's approach to child development services is to work with parents on improving parenting skills, conduct activities that will allow parents to see the different skills and abilities their children have, improve children's prenatal environment by helping pregnant mothers meet their health needs and goals, work with families to improve child health and nutrition, and refer families to high-quality child care. |
Child development specialists develop activity plans using the Ages and Stages Questionnaires assessments and activity guides, as well as other curricula, such as WestEd's Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers. Often, the child development specialist brings along simple toys or household materials that he or she can use during the parent-child activities. The child development specialist also teaches the parents to use common things in the home, such as plastic containers, as toys, and he or she teaches them ways to enrich the child's home environment. The child development specialist talks to the parents about child development issues that are relevant to the activity and addresses the parents' questions. Each visit ends with a discussion of plans for the next visit. The child development specialist sometimes leaves a ball or a simple toy with the family to use during the week. Child development specialists encourage parents to jot down the questions that come up between visits. If the child development specialist does not have the answer, he or she will research the question and find appropriate materials to share with the parents.
Child Care Services. Because central Iowa is so rural, families who need child care face unique challenges. Very few child care centers operate in the five-county area. Program staff reported that there are not enough registered, high-quality family child care providers to meet the increasing demand for those services.
MICA has made arrangements with two local child care resource and referral agencies to help EHS families find registered family child care providers who have received an eight-week training, called Child Net. All family child care providers must have child-staff ratios of four to one and must care for no more than eight children. If an EHS family wants to use a family child care provider who has not received the Child Net training, the child care resource and referral agency enrolls the provider in the training. The program does not pay for child care for EHS families. The child care resource and referral agencies help families obtain child care subsidies. Approximately 42 percent of program families were using child care services, and most of those were using full-time care. The majority of EHS families that need child care use family child care providers or their children are cared for by a relative.
Story County's child care resource and referral agency has developed an infant care network of family child care providers. If providers choose to participate, they receive child care equipment, training, referrals, and consultation services from the resource and referral agency. The EHS program is collaborating with Story's child care resource and referral agency to use the infant care network as a source of referrals for EHS families. Staff members plan to have EHS child development specialists conduct monthly consultations at the homes of child care providers in the infant care network who are serving EHS children, to reduce the duplication of services for the child care resource and referral agency staff. The early childhood education coordinator hopes to work with the child care resource and referral agencies to create similar programs in the other four counties.
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At the time of the site visit, more than 40 percent of EHS families needed child care. Most of them were relying on family child care providers or relatives to care for their children. The availability and quality of infant and toddler child care have been identified as concerns in central Iowa, and new collaborative groups have formed to address these issues. Very few child care centers exist, and the number of spaces in family child care homes is insufficient to meet all child care needs. Community norms may be a barrier to developing additional child care services, because many people feel that parents or close relatives should care for very young children. Concerns about child care quality focus on the low standards required by Iowa's family child care registration procedures for child-adult ratios and the low reimbursement rates available for centers and child care homes. Community collaborations with the two child care resource and referral agencies have resulted in agreements to support an infant care network of family child care providers in Story County and plans to develop similar networks in the other four counties. The first one, in Story County, supports family child care providers as they begin their child care businesses and provides consultation and assistance in meeting quality standards. MICA's early childhood education coordinator is working with the collaborative partners on developing the infant care networks. To facilitate collaboration, the early childhood education coordinator serves on the board of directors for one of the two child care resource and referral agencies that serve MICA's five-county area. |
Child Development Assessments. The child development specialists conduct formal assessments of families' progress towards early childhood education and parenting goals at 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, 20, 24, 30, and 36 months, using the Ages and Stages Questionnaires. The assessments involve a combination of asking the parents what they have seen the child do and directly observing the child doing something in each activity area. The results of the assessments serve as the anchor for planning home visits and alert staff and family members to any areas of concern.
Health Services. MICA's health and family services/disabilities coordinator conducts an initial visit with each family to obtain a detailed health history of the focus child and other family members participating in the program, to determine whether the family has a medical home, and to set health goals for the child and the parents. If family members do not have a medical home, the coordinator refers them to the local Maternal Child Health (MCH) clinic, which offers health care on a sliding-fee-scale basis. Each county has several MCH clinics that serve children and young adults through age 21, as well as adults, who use vouchers to pay for services.
At the time of the site visit, the program had just hired an additional part-time nurse, who will track children's receipt of immunizations and conduct one or two home visits per year with each family. She will also conduct initial health visits with all new EHS families. The health staff and the WIC nutrition coordinator provide health-related training for the child and family development staff and serve as a resource for staff and family members.
The MICA service area has few health professionals, and often they do not accept new Medicaid clients. Dental screenings are available at the MCH clinics, but there are no dentists who serve Medicaid clients in the area. The health services advisory council hopes to attract more health professionals to the five-county area by actively recruiting.
Services for Children with Disabilities. If EHS staff members discover child health problems or disabilities, they refer families to their Area Education Agency (AEA; the local Part C provider) for further evaluation. A 25 percent delay in one functional area is required to qualify for early intervention services. The program collaborates closely with the Part C providers (a staff member from one of the AEAs serves on MICA's health services advisory council, and they also meet monthly with MICA staff members outside of the council meeting). At the time of the site visit, eight children had suspected or diagnosed disabilities, all had been referred for evaluation, and two qualified to receive AEA services.
Transitions. At the time of the site visit, the program was in the process of developing plans for how it will work with families when their children turn 3 years old and transition out of EHS.
FAMILY DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Needs Assessment and Service Planning. Following a comprehensive assessment of needs in 12 life areas--such as shelter, employment, adult education, and transportation--family development specialists visit families at home every two weeks for 90 minutes to support them as they work toward their goals and help them access available community resources. (Visits may be more frequent for teen parents or for families experiencing a crisis.) Family development specialists work with families to complete monthly status reports on the goals each family chooses to work on. From these reports, the family development specialists work with families to develop plans for meeting their objectives. At the time of the site visit, the staff was piloting a family development partnership agreement that, if successful, would be used with all families by early 1998.
Home Visits. The MICA EHS program provides family development services in biweekly home visits. Family development specialists, who are required to have a bachelor's degree in a human resources or family development field or equivalent experience, have caseloads of 18 families. They are knowledgeable about the family development services available to parents in all life areas, from adult education and employment to emergency assistance, and help families obtain needed services.
| MICA's approach to family development is to build rapport with families and to work with them on assessing and improving their status in 12 major life areas. The MICA staff provides support for families that want to work on moving beyond safety to health and well-being in all life areas. Staff members serve as resources for families. The families are asked to do as much as they can for themselves using the skills MICA staff members cultivate, such as accessing community resources, developing and using families' social networks, and meeting education and training goals. |
Education and Employment Services. MICA's adult education/employment coordinator works with EHS staff members and families to help families meet their education and employment goals. MICA views families as lifetime learners, and staff members foster this belief in their families. The adult education/employment coordinator has conducted staff in-service training on job search strategies, the latest technology available to conduct job searches, and adult education.
MICA has close ties to the local community college, and staff members have been working with local businesses to offer adult education and General Educational Development (GED) classes for families at their work site. The adult education/ employment coordinator is certified to conduct the preassessments for the GED. GED services are free for adults, and public funding for community college tuition is available to low-income adults.
The adult education/employment coordinator has arranged computer classes for parents in the MICA county offices. At the time of the site visit, 13 parents were enrolled in these computer classes.
MICA also helps families access the services available at their local work force development center and adult education center. Staff members have developed close relationships with the agencies that work with EHS families participating in Iowa's welfare reform initiative, Promise Jobs, which allows for six months of training and covers child care costs for participants. MICA is funded to serve as a training site for Promise Jobs participants, and it offers training in carpentry, electrical wiring, and other trades. In the past year, the adult education/employment coordinator worked closely with community leaders to improve economic development opportunities and to create jobs in the region.
At the time of the site visit, 46 percent of EHS families were employed. In addition to increasing the number of parents who are employed, the program aims to help families prepare for jobs with higher wages and opportunities for career growth.
Health Services. MICA has pooled EHS and Head Start funds for mental health services and has contracted with another agency to conduct two parent meetings on mental health issues in each county annually, to conduct home visits with families as needed, and to conduct monthly meetings with staff members from each county to provide support and answer questions about individual family issues. At the time of the site visit, however, the mental health group did not have a person on staff with expertise in infant mental health. The program has plans to locate an infant mental health consultant in the coming year.
Other Services. Family development staff members help families access emergency services, such as food, emergency funds, and homeless shelters. Available emergency services vary, but each county offers some support for families in extreme need.
Families in rural Iowa need reliable transportation. In most of the counties, families do not have access to convenient public transportation. Most EHS families have cars, but they are often unreliable. Family development staff members work with families to arrange transportation and create a backup plan for transportation when cars break down.
Father Involvement. The program includes fathers in all aspects of the program. Home visits are scheduled at times when fathers can participate, and they are invited to all program meetings and events. Fathers in the program are very vocal about wanting to be seen as full participants in the lives of their children. Staff members reported that it takes extra effort on their part to speak to fathers directly and to include them, but they enjoy working with fathers. At the time of the site visit, the family involvement coordinator (a man) was helping staff members work with fathers.
Parent Involvement in the Program. Parents have opportunities for developing their social networks and leadership skills by serving on the EHS policy council. The parent involvement coordinator is responsible for facilitating the policy council, which is a joint EHS and Head Start council. The policy council includes one parent representative and one alternate from each county (Marshall County has two representatives and two alternates). The EHS parents in each county elect their policy council representatives and alternates. At the council meetings, parents and staff members share information about county activities, review staff hiring decisions, discuss any concerns about program services, and provide input into program plans.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT CORNERSTONE
Training. MICA views itself as a learning organization and requires staff members to grow and develop in their positions. All staff members receive intensive EHS orientation and training. Family and child development specialists at MICA are required to complete a nine-day certification program, which covers topics such as needs assessment, strengths-based planning, and supporting families. In addition, EHS staff members attend monthly in-service training sessions and case conferences, and they periodically have opportunities to participate in national conferences and training. Staff members have also received training in cultural awareness to help them work with the increasing number of Spanish-speaking families in the area.
The program director reported that staff training needs for the coming year are diverse, and include such topics as the implications of welfare reform, teaching strategies, and mental health issues. The program director has encouraged staff members to invite county-level welfare officials to provide briefings and updates on recent changes. Child development specialists require new strategies for teaching children and parents. Staff members are enthusiastic about incorporating new knowledge about early brain development into how they work with the EHS children. The family development specialists find that some families have very severe mental health needs, and staff members require more training in this area.
In the past year, MICA's Head Start Staff Development Center, which used to coordinate training efforts, was closed. The program director plans to hire a career development coordinator to interview all staff members and develop two-year training plans for each staff member. The career development coordinator will plan in-service training, conduct individual training as needed, and represent EHS on MICA's in-service planning committee.
Support and Supervision. County team leaders, the home-based specialist, and the family practice coordinator provide support and supervision for the child and family development specialists. In addition to being available for consultation as needed, the coordinators meet with specialists for family staffings, which are conducted between 2 and 12 times per year for each family (the frequency depends on the number of families in the county--smaller counties review more frequently than larger counties). The team leaders and coordinators also review monthly status reports and lesson plans and follow up to address any issues identified. Each coordinator accompanies each specialist on a home visit at least four times a year to observe and provide feedback.
Staff members complete personal development plans quarterly. During this process, which takes considerable time, staff members identify their goals, determine how much time they want to spend working toward each goal, and negotiate with their supervisor for time to work on their goals. Each staff member's quarterly personal development plans and the progress made on them feed into his or her annual evaluation.
Staff Turnover. Fewer than 10 percent of MICA staff members leave the organization each year. In the past year MICA moved to having one team leader for each county. Four new county team leaders were named, two of whom were new to the organization, and two of whom were family development specialists. Three child development specialists left MICA in the past year because they moved or took other positions. At the time of the site visit all had been replaced, and the program was fully staffed.
COMMUNITY BUILDING CORNERSTONE
Program Collaborations. Through its long history of operating programs for low-income families in the five-county area, MICA has developed close relationships with most of the other local community service providers and with government agency staff members. These relationships facilitate service coordination. However, barriers to seamless service delivery still exist, and MICA is working to overcome them. MICA has entered into five formal and two informal collaborative agreements with other community service providers to ensure that EHS families will have quality services available to them in all areas.
MICA staff members highlighted a number of their collaborations as being particularly important for them and for the EHS families. The mental health consultants have provided outstanding services to families and to the staff. The two Part C providers are key community collaborators, facilitating a strong, seamless web of services for children with disabilities. Collaborations between employment and training community service providers and MICA staff members ensure that families have access to high-quality skills assessment, training, and employment services.
Program staff members and the health services advisory council members were concerned that medical professionals may not be identifying children with disabilities early enough. Therefore, they developed a presentation for medical professionals about early intervention. The health services and disabilities coordinator worked with the health services advisory council to create useful materials and an engaging presentation, which has been conducted in a number of doctors' offices.
Interagency Collaboration. In addition to these program collaborations, MICA staff members participate in community collaborative groups, such as the interagency coordinating council for children with disabilities.
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Welfare reform is generally viewed as a positive change by service providers, the MICA staff, and many families. In Iowa, welfare reform began when the federal government approved a welfare reform waiver in 1996. Since then, Iowans who need assistance have participated in the Family Investment Program, which requires unmarried parents under 18 to live with a parent or guardian, requires all participants to name the other parent of their child and arrange child support, and requires all families to complete a family investment agreement and to participate in the work and training program called Promise Jobs. Only parents of children under 12 weeks of age are exempt from Promise Jobs. Promise Jobs provides training and job search assistance, child care assistance, and other services for a period of six months. Iowa families are limited to receiving welfare for five years over their lifetime, and after two years of welfare receipt they are required to work. Transitional child care assistance is available for 24 months. Approximately one-third of EHS families were receiving cash assistance when then enrolled in the program. MICA staff members reported that the new work requirements and welfare time limits have provided strong motivation for families to take advantage of the EHS program's support. Families find the work they do with their family development specialists indispensable as they attempt to meet the welfare reform requirements. MICA staff members also reported that they often visit parents in the evening and on weekends because so many families are working or participating in training or education activities. Staff members are concerned that the welfare reform requirements and an average of six home visits per month from the MICA staff may be too much of a burden on families. Over the next year, staff members will assess whether they should reduce the number of family development specialist visits. |
Community Building Among Parents. The small size of school districts and the strong participation in local churches in central Iowa foster a sense of community among families. The MICA EHS program strives to build on this overall sense of community and encourages the development of relationships among EHS program families so that they will have a network of support available in times of crisis. Family development specialists assist families in social networking and building relationships with their own and other families, their schools, child care providers, church groups, and other resource providers.
To encourage socialization, the program convenes monthly parent meetings in local community centers or church basements in each county. The meetings include a meal or snack and a group activity. In some counties, EHS parents meet jointly with Head Start parents or parents participating in other MICA programs. Approximately one-third of the families attend parent meetings regularly. Staff members reported that the family and child development specialists set the agenda for the parent meetings based on input from parents during home visits.
MICA's parent involvement coordinator works with the rest of the staff to promote parent participation in these meetings and in other community activities that MICA sponsors, such as outings to local orchards, picnics, and pool parties. Staff members use the parent meetings as an opportunity to introduce families to other MICA staff members they may work with in the future, such as the home-based specialist or the family health services and disabilities coordinator.
Each county also has a newsletter, which advertises county-level activities, includes articles by parents and staff members, and presents educational materials for parents. Family and staff members look forward to each county's annual family celebration, which last year was a carnival that included games for the children and parents who dressed up as cartoon characters.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND LOCAL RESEARCH
Early Program Support. In the past year, the EHS staff used the regional Head Start staff development center operated by MICA as their main source of training and technical assistance. Because they had access to this facility, they did not require consultation from their Technical Assistance Support Center or their Regional Access Project. The program also received support from its federal project officer and Zero to Three consultants.
Continuous Program Improvement. The MICA EHS director's approach to continuous program improvement is to collect information from all available sources, including the program's local research partner (a team of researchers from Iowa State University's Department of Human Development and Family Studies), staff members from Grinnell College who conducted an ethnographic study of MICA's organizational structure and procedures, a MICA staff member who serves as a continuous improvement resource, the EHS staff, and the EHS/Head Start policy council. Staff members meet quarterly to work on continuous improvement and to collaborate with their local research partners.
Local Research. The local researchers, who have developed and used instruments for evaluating home visiting services, are focusing their research on identifying the specific home-based intervention strategies that are related to positive child development and parent well-being. The local researchers regularly observe the family and child development specialists on home visits to document the content and quality of the services families have received during home visits. The local researchers have worked with program staff members to modify a home visit observation coding system the researchers used in other studies. Depending on family preference, the visits are either coded live or videotaped for subsequent coding. Approximately two visits per month are observed or videotaped as part of the local research project.
PROGRAM SUMMARY
The MICA EHS program provides child and family development services to families primarily in home visits. At the time of the site visit, staff members had been working to enhance the program's child development services. They had been working with a child care resource and referral agency in one county to develop an infant care network of family child care providers, and hoped to work with child care resource and referral agencies in the other counties to develop similar networks. At the time of the site visit, EHS child development specialists were planning to conduct monthly consultations at the homes of child care providers in the infant care network. In addition, at the time of the site visit, the program had just hired a nurse to meet with families when they enroll, track children's receipt of immunizations, and visit families at home once or twice per year.
PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Kathie Readout
Mid-Iowa Community Action
1001 South 18th Avenue
Marshalltown, IA 50158
Mary Pepper
Mid-Iowa Community Action
1001 South 18th Avenue
Marshalltown, IA 50158
LOCAL RESEARCHERS
Susan McBride
Iowa State University
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
101 Child Development Building
Ames, IA 50011-1030
Carla Peterson
Iowa State University
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
101 Child Development Building
Ames, IA 50011-1030
Sarah French Howard
Iowa State University
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
101 Child Development Building
Ames, IA 50011-1030
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