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Overview
FAQ
Critical Elements
Newsroom
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Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have:
But of the best leaders
When their task is accomplished
Their work is done
The people all remark
“We have done it ourselves.”
-Lao Tzo 2000 Chinese Proverb
Early nurturing relationships are the foundation for life-long healthy development.
"Somebody's got to be crazy about that kid. That's number one, first, last, and always." Urie Bronfenbrenner
Infant Mental Health: HFA embraces the Infant Mental Health approach, knowing that babies and young children thrive when they are properly cared for and nurtured by adults. Responsive relationships with consistent primary caregivers help build positive attachments that in turn, support healthy social-emotional development. These relationships form the foundation of mental health for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. In order for children to grow into loving, nurturing adults it is essential for them to have the following:
- To experience, regulate, and express emotions
- To form close and secure interpersonal relationships
- To explore the environment and learn
"A society that values its children must cherish its parents" John Bowlby
Strength-based: HFA is grounded in a strength-based philosophy believing that all parents have strengths and resources for their own empowerment. Traditional program models concentrate on deficit based approaches, ignoring the strengths and experiences of the parents. In the strengths-based approach the focus is on the individual not the content. Drawing on appreciative inquiry, strengths based methodologies do not ignore problems. Instead they shift the frame of reference to define the issues. By focusing on what is working well, informed successful strategies support adaptive growth in families. It operates on the following key values:
- Parents are active participants in the helping process
- All parents have strengths – often untapped or unrecognized
- Strengths foster motivation for growth
- Strengths are internal and environmental
Actively involve all family members who will have a role in the child's development.
Family-Centered: HFA's central principle is one of family-centeredness. HFA focuses on the needs and welfare of children within the context of their families and communities. Family-centered practice recognizes the strengths of family relationships and builds on these strengths to achieve optimal outcomes. Family is defined broadly to include birth, blended, kinship, and foster and adoptive families. The best place for children to grow up is in families. It is based on the following core values:
- The best place for children to grow up is in families.
- Providing services that engage, involves, strengthens, and supports families is the most effective approach to ensuring children's safety, permanency, and well-being.
"The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears" Minquass Proverb
Culturally Sensitive: HFA services should be culturally sensitive such that staff understands, acknowledges and respects cultural difference among families. Staff and materials used should reflect the cultural, language, geographic, racial, and ethnic diversity of the population served. Young children grow up imbedded in the physical and social mores of their families’ homes. They grow and develop physically, cognitively, and emotionally within the context of human interactions with family. Culture affords meaning to everyday occurrences, to each interaction with another human being and to every personal event. Cultural competence must be integrated into the very core of all the program’s activities.
- Family needs, health beliefs, coping mechanisms and child rearing practices vary by population; thus, interventions should reflect this variation;
- Failure to value diversity in its many forms (e.g., cultural, language, racial, geographic and ethnic) may restrict a home visitor's ability to establish quality relationships with families; and
- A home visitor's failure to establish strong relationships with families based on mutual respect and understanding will limit the opportunity for providers and families to work together.
"It is not possible to work on behalf of human beings... without having powerful feelings aroused in yourself... 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto others.' " Jeree Pawl
Parallel Process: A key component to delivering HFA services in a family’s home is the home visitor's ability to develop a nurturing relationship with the family. This healthy relationship creates a safe environment where a family can learn and grow. In essence, this safety in the relationship can be therapeutic, in and of itself. When staff treat parents with respect and demonstrate that they value the relationship with them, the parents will in turn be more likely to show respect for and value their children.
"Learning is incidental because we learn when learning is not our primary intention, vicarious because we learn from what someone else does, and collaborative because we learn through others helping us to achieve our own ends." Frank Smith
Reflective Practice: HFA believes in the necessity of reflective practice as a continuous process that involves attention to all relationships, including the relationship between the infant and the parent, the parent and the home visitor, and the home visitor with the supervisor. Reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering one's own experiences in applying knowledge to practice. At the same time it involves being supported in supervision by attending to the emotional content of the work and how reactions to this content may impact outcomes. The act of reflection is seen as a way of promoting the development of autonomous, qualified and self-directed professionals. Engaging in reflective practice is associated with the improvement of the quality of care, stimulating personal and professional growth and closing the gap between theory and practice (Jasper, 2003).
For a two-page downloadable flyer called Healthy Families America Program Facts and Features, click here.
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