California is keeping an eye on this education program in Merced County. Here’s why
When Ashira Chavez was just a baby, Miss Taylor made one of her bi-weekly visits to see her, bringing with her a new toy.
“She brought a soft box, and it had different colors around it,” remembers Ashira’s mother, Christina Shelton. “Then there was a hole, and there were different objects in it.”
Some were triangle-shaped, others were circles, Shelton said. Some were soft, some hard, and some made noises.
And that’s how Ashira learned about object permanence, Shelton recalled, which is the understanding that objects exist even when they cannot be seen or heard. Babies usually begin to grasp the concept between four and eight months, according to research.
Miss Taylor, or Taylor Frost, as she’s known outside of the Chavez family, is one of the nine caseworkers with Merced County’s Parents as Teachers program, aimed at reaching children under 5 and their parents and caregivers.
Ashira, now 2, along with her parents, have welcomed Miss Taylor into their homes for lessons on nutrition, behavior, and even potty training. Parents who have participated say they’ve become more patient with their children and have been able to meet family goals, such as job placement or getting a driver’s license to help their families live a better quality of life.
Parents as Teachers
In Merced County, 15.3% of children have a special healthcare need, according to the county’s 2019 assessment on early learning care needs. That’s slightly higher than the California average, which is 14.5%.
A 2016 assessment also found that 45% of children ages 3 to 5 are not enrolled in preschool or kindergarten, compared to 38.9% statewide.
Early childhood is an important time for development, according to Monica Adrian, who oversees early education at the Merced County Office of Education.
“In early years is when our brains are at our most vulnerable,” she said. “It’s when our stress response system is being established. Children, we’ve heard many times, are like sponges, and so these early experiences are building the foundation for all of their growth in the future, and we want to get it right from the start and not have to try to make repairs later in life.”
This is why the county has offered a home visit program for over a decade, using its own curriculum, according to Adrian.
The program started growing after getting more funding from the public health department and the state, Adrian said. Then in 2019, the county was one of 10 chosen for a grant that allowed it to offer services to children with special healthcare needs. Now the visitation program is run with the Parents as Teachers curriculum, a global evidence-based model that meets families where they are to provide education and resources.
“Parents that participate in these programs have reduced incidences of child abuse and neglect, and then the children themselves build skills, and they build more school readiness skills,” she said.
About 50 families are participating, but now that the program has three funding sources, Adrian said, it can serve any family in Merced County who could benefit.
The services are offered in English, Spanish, and Hmong so far. The program is only a third of the way full, and Adrian wants to welcome more families.
Caseworkers carry a caseload of up to 15 families each and visit their clients twice a month. During the pandemic, the home visits have turned virtual, Adrian noted.
She said she doesn’t believe the program lost any more families than they would have in a regular year because the county has given out hotspots and even conducts visits over the phone for those without internet access.
But she’d like to see a lower attrition rate, she said.
“Typically, a program will lose about 15% of its families, maybe because they get jobs or they move out of the area; sometimes there are families that it’s just not a time to fit something like this into their lives.
“Unfortunately, those are the families that we want to connect with more, but we try our best, we really work hard at building relationships, and so we’re thrilled that most of our families stay with us.”
Adrian said the state is watching Merced County to see, “is this something that’s going to be really beneficial, and could it be replicated in the future?”
“Everything we do, we have to report to somebody else who’s really looking to see how effective this is because home visiting programs are free to families, but they take quite a bit of public investment,” she said. “But the public investment is going to pay off in the long run.”
To track success, she said families have goals that they work towards, and they also complete a survey four times a year.
Merced County families benefit
Over 80% of participants in Merced County agreed or strongly agreed that they felt less stressed by participating in the home visits, according to the latest Parents as Teachers survey. Over 92% agreed or strongly agreed that the program increased their understanding of their child’s development.
Many families are referred to the program when they apply for social services, such as food stamps and cash assistance.
That’s how Samantha Jacquez found out about it.
The 22-year-old Los Banos woman said she was a little skeptical at first.
“It was interesting, but at the same time, it seems a little weird to get told how to be a parent,” she said.
But she thought she could benefit “just because I am a new mom, this is my first child, and I really just want to give my daughter the best education (and) just be the best mom I can to her.”
Jacquez, who lives with her parents and brother, said she used to struggle with patience. But now she feels an improvement while parenting her daughter, Layla, 2.
Parent educators give families the power to choose what their goals are, and that’s what makes the program special, Adrian said.
“There’s the difference — there are a lot of programs designed just for the child, but we go in order to help the parent, who will then help the child,” she said.
Jacquez has focused on everything from eating habits to potty training. She’s also asked and received information about outside resources, such as swimming lessons.
The biggest lesson she’s learned was “just to be really patient with my daughter — like nothing’s perfect,” she said, “nothing’s like as it seems on TV. You’re gonna make mistakes, but at the end of the day, that’s your child, and your child looks up to you, even when you’re making mistakes.”
Resources and hard work
Adrian describes the home visits as “non-judgmental.”
“Sometimes we’re a coach, sometimes we’re just, you know, a person that they can call up when things are going well, or things aren’t going so well,” she said.
“We observe them in activities with their children and comment on their parent behaviors, so we’re really trying to catch the parents being good.”
She said many are now enrolled in college or other education and have found employment. “Some of the families that we’re working with started off on cash aid and are no longer on cash aid,” she said.
Shelton recently needed help with paying her PG&E bill and enrolling Ashira in Head Start.
And she knew she could count on Miss Taylor to help.
“I texted her, and I asked, “‘can you help me with resources?’ She brought up two pages of resources and research. She wrote it down and dropped it off,” Shelton said.
Although the program gives families all the resources and information they need, Shelton said, it’s really up to the parents to succeed.
And it still takes hard work, she said.
“It’s like the extra hands of extra help,” she continued. “Especially because almost all of us are low-income. Me and Victor (Ashira’s dad), we work all the time, and we’re still low income, but they helped us get Ashira into an awesome daycare that got her into Head Start.”
Shelton said she never “imagined we could get what we got out of the program. It completely flipped this around, and it taught us things that we didn’t know, like how to talk to her and verbalize things. Whenever we were struggling with anything, the program was there for us, specifically, Miss Taylor was there for us.”
The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 5:00 AM.