September Is Infant Mortality Awareness Month

For more info on Infant Mortality Awareness Month please visit the OCFS website here.  For info on Healthy Families New York visit this link.

Professional Development Opportunities

Interested in continuing to grow as a parenting educator?  Here are two ideas....

For parent educators on Long Island and in the metro area, check out the Parenting Institute at Adelphi University, Garden City, offering a variety of advanced level courses and workshops for professionals as well as programs for parents.  Currently promoting their Post Masters Training Program in Parent Education and Parent Guidance: this certificate program is an intensive training program designed for parent educators and/or clinicians who work with parents. Its goal is to promote a deepened understanding of the theories, values and principles that inform this work. Details at: http://www.adelphi.edu/parentinginstitute/

For parent educators in central New York a two day facilitator training for PS: It Works! / Personal – Professional Communication Skills is being offered Tuesday, October 30, 2012 and Wednesday, October 31, 2012 from 9 am to 4:30 pm at Cornell Cooperative Extension-Tompkins Education Center, 615 Willow Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850.  This training will help prepare professionals to use and reinforce five core communications skills with their clients, to use daily in their own personal and professional lives, to conduct the Parenting Skills Workshop Series and Parenting Skills for Literacy Series, and to make referrals to those workshops. Past participants include: parenting educators, DSS personnel, social workers, teachers, child care providers, mental health professionals, alcohol & drug rehab counselors, coaches and others who work with people! The $150 registration fee covers the 2 day training, lunch, snack, plus a Parenting Skills Workshop Series manual. Preregistration is required. For more information visit:

http://ccetompkins.org/sites/all/files/63/2012-ps-it-works-brochure.pdf

2012 PARENTING EDUCATION PROGRAM GRANTS

NYSPEP awarded 12 grants ranging from $1000 to $3000 to increase access to evidence-based parenting education programs, thanks to a grant from the NYS Office of Mental Health. Awardees were selected from 96 applications from across the state.  

• Brooklyn Public Library, First Five Years Program: Weekend Preschool Storytime and Ready, Set, Kindergarten: To translate print materials and develop web-based videos in Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Russian.
• Commission on Economic Opportunity, Troy, Fatherhood Initiative, ACT:Parents Raising Safe Kids for Head Start fathers and incarcerated fathers: For program handbooks, child care, refreshments, transportation (bus passes), follow-up sessions, marketing (flyers).
• Community Action Organization of Erie County, Inc., Parents Forever- Parent Education Program, Incredible Years for parents, grandparents, caregivers: child care (stipends), transportation (bus tokens), also marketing to the community.
• EAC Long Island Parenting Institute, Common Sense Parenting: parent scholarships (curriculum cost), added classes (3 more sessions), transportation.
• Family Service League, Huntington, Parent to Parent program, Common Sense Parenting: parent stipends for transportation, child care and program supplies; follow-up sessions, completion celebration refreshments.
• Mental Health Association in Ulster Co. Education and Advocacy Department, WRAP (Wellness Recovery Acton Plan) for parents and children: facilitator training, lunch and snacks (day-long sessions), program supplies, transportation (bus tokens, gas reimbursement).
• Mohawk Valley Community Action Agency, Inc., Utica, Nurturing Parenting for Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers: program supplies (two additional sessions), family dinner, child care, transportation.
• North Country Prenatal/Perinatal Council, Inc., Watertown, for Gouverneur Activity & Learning Center Nurturing Parent program: parent stipends (isolated, rural, high unemployment), transportation, program supplies, child care, added session.
• Parsons Child and Family Center, Albany, Families United Network/Child Guidance 4Rs and 2Ss for Strengthening Families: transportation, program supplies, dinner for families (per evening sessions, work schedules)
• P.E.A.C.E. Inc. Syracuse,  County South FRC, Food for the Parent's Soul, three more 9-month programs: child care (on site), light meal for parents and children (increases attendance, comfort and socialization)
• Pro Action of Steuben and Yates, Inc., Bath, Family Enrichment Collaborative, 24/7 Dad fatherhood series, male facilitators compensation, program curriculum, transportation support, child care.
•  YES Community Counseling Center, Massapequa, Parents and Children Engaged (P.A.C.E.), Active Parenting curriculum w/added parent-child activities: facilitator training, transportation (prepaid gas cards), child care (Girl Scouts partnership), program supplies, marketing (PTA, schools, chamber of commerce partners).

STEPPING UP FOR KIDS

The new KIDS COUNT report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, STEPPING UP FOR KIDS, highlights the importance of kinship care and outlines how state governments and communities can help these relatives.  Nationally, there are 2.7 million children cared for by extended family members and close family friends.  In New York, about 153,000 children are living in this type of household, which represents about 3 percent of all children 18 years and younger in the state. For more information, view the national report, Stepping Up for Kids <http://bit.ly/JgZbt7> and a New York state brief, Kinship Children in New York State <http://bit.ly/K7S1bR> . A New York State Quick Fact Sheet <http://bit.ly/JPZWfw> is also available.

Dads Take Your Child to School New York Informational Webinar

Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Time: 3:00-4:30pm
Participants: This webinar is designed to introduce new organizations, schools and Head Start programs to the event, and to welcome back those that have participated in previous years.
Webinar Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/292889609
This webinar is hosted thanks to the New York State Community Action Association.

Last year, over 200 schools and Head Starts across New York State, numerous community and statewide partners, and over 9,000 dads participated in this event. Throughout educational institutions from Niagara Falls to New York City, father involvement is growing around New York. To read more about what happened last year, you can download the 2011 DTYCTS Annual Report <https://sites.google.com/site/dtyctsny/press> . As well, you can see newsclips and videos <https://sites.google.com/site/dtyctsny/press>  from last year, and last year’s map of participating sites <https://sites.google.com/site/dtyctsny/maps/2011-participating-sites> .

Dads Take Your Child to School 2012 will take place statewide on Thursday, September 20, 2012.
 

NYSPEP Presents "The Environment of Childhood Poverty" with Gary Evans

REGISTER NOW

We know that poverty is bad for children and families, but why? This lecture will suggest that part of the answer to this question is poor children face a bewildering array of multiple risk factors that frequently converge on the same subset of families. Social and physical risks converge to exacerbate stress. Data on risk exposure, its consequences, and some ideas about what we might do about it will be discussed. 

Professor Evans is an environmental and developmental psychologist interested in how the physical environment affects human health and well being among children. His specific areas of expertise include children's environments, the environment of childhood poverty, cumulative risk and child development, environmental stressors, and the development of children's environmental attitudes and behaviors.

Afternoon Workshop:

Addressing the Environment of Poverty through the Lens of the Protective Factors

This workshop will include the background information on the Strengthening Families approach with an introduction to the protective factors, sharing some program strategies for implementation, and introduce the Protective Factor Survey (PFS).

Special Presentation Following the Semiannual Meeting:

Parenting Educator Credential Orientation will take place from 3:00-5:00PM. The orientation is free and open to the public. All registered attendees are invited to stay.

Learn the Signs. Act Early. The Importance of Developmental Screening

April 19, 2012 - 9:00am - 10:00am ET

Judith Lucas, MD
Pediatrician, Behavioral Health
at Albany Medical Center

Donna M. Noyes, PhD
Associate Director for Clinical Policy,
and Senior Project Director for the
New York Early Intervention System,
Bureau of Early Intervention

This broadcast will incorporate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Learn the Signs. Act Early. (LTSAE) messages as well as NYS specific resources to increase awareness about LTSAE and importance of understanding developmental milestones and making appropriate and timely referrals when there is a concern.

The broadcast will also highlight resources in New York State. Parents and professionals tend to frame healthy development of children in terms of height, weight, and language acquisition. Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended universal screening for development and for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) since 2006, the majority of children are not being screened by standardized screening tools. In addition to screening, when a concern is raised, parents and professionals are not aware of the importance of early intervention or the availability of resources.

The broadcast will highlight information about ASD and general developmental screening, including many free resources available for parents to better understand their child’s development through the age of five years old, as well as materials to help parents talk with their child’s health care provider about any concerns. For professionals, the broadcast will highlight the importance of routine developmental screening and resources for them and parents with whom they work.

Registration
To register for this FREE webcast, log on to:
www.phlive.org