Educating Parents

Why is this important?

“Indeed, studies show that parents who are knowledgeable about child development are better prepared to support their children’s development. On the other hand, parents with little knowledge are more likely to engage in negative parenting behaviors (e.g., abuse and neglect) that can have harmful long‐term effects on their children’s well-being” Child Trends

“Talking about how to parent might be one of the hardest parts of being a pediatrician.” The Pediatrician’s Most Awkward Task, The Atlantic

Minnesota, By the Numbers

• 145 hospitals and nine birthing centers equal only 154 facilities that require support.
• Seventy thousand births per year, on average.

Servicing the Market

The goal is to meet with all new parents in the state. It is possible to do that at hospitals and birthing centers in an economical way.
Hospital volunteer, already in place, would be trained to meet with the family. This would allow for a near 100% market penetration.

Parental education includes:
• A ‘Parent Manual’, a best parenting practice.
• English Language Learners. Provide direction and instruction to resources that help teach their children to speak English. Potentially assisting the whole family in learning English.
• Listing of social services available.
Impoverished families can be transient, providing a contact point for those families would allow the state to continue to provide support to those children.
• Explanation of the nutritional needs of children.

Supporting the Hospitals Manage Children Mind & Body

Providing a turn-key program for hospitals is the goal of the program. Meetings with families would be done by hospitals volunteers, already in place.

Communication with hospital management and training of the hospital volunteers would be provided by field personnel dedicated to the program.

Each facility would be provided a cart that would be dedicated to the program. It would be used to store the materials necessary for the meeting with families. In essence, it becomes the address at each institution.
Including
• A computer tablet would be included to assist in explaining the program to families where English is the second language. Pre-recorded messages in many languages would be available from the website.
• Supporting material such as the Parent Manual and babies, the first book would be stored on it as well.

Surveying Families

Each family will be asked to take a short optional survey. Anonymity would be assured. The goal of the study would be two-fold:

1. Baseline information for families.
a. Demographics (Age, marital status, family size, education, etc.)
b. What are the family’s current reading habits (newspapers, magazines, books?)
c. Rating the service. Families that agree could be contacted at pre-determined intervals to provide feedback concerning their perception of the value of the program. An indirect measure of participation could include mailing families “next stage” books and requesting the return of the previous level books in a pre-paid envelope. The more that are returned, the higher the apparent participation.

2. Long-term evaluation.
Work with University Departments of Psychology and Education to develop protocols for the longitudinal study of the impact on the individuals involved. Ideally, participants could be tracked from birth to their school years.