Parenting education and support services are based on a comprehensive curriculum that is culturally sensitive and applicable for the participant(s) receiving the service. The curriculum content has a prevention-based focus to reduce factors that are associated with placing children at health, social, or behavioral risk.
Parenting support and education provides comprehensive information and education related to the care of the newborn, infant, and child. This service includes information on normal growth and development, anticipatory guidance, changes in family dynamics, attachment behaviors, nutrition, resource management, safety, child injury prevention, immunizations, and child abuse prevention.
Our curriculum’s include:
- International Childbirth Education Association (ICEA) Postnatal Educator
The International Childbirth Education Association (ICEA) as a professional organization supports educators and other health care providers who believe in freedom of choice based on knowledge of alternatives in family-centered maternity and newborn care.
ICEA’s goals are to provide:
- Support for childbirth, postnatal, and perinatal fitness educators, and doulas
- Professional certification programs
- Training and continuing education programs
- Quality educational resources
ICEA encourages continuing education through local workshops, self-education, team teaching or a combination of these methods. ICEA believes that a certification program which verifies the acquisition of knowledge and skill will maintain the autonomy of the individual educator, thus ensuring the continuation of effective parent education programs.
- Florida State University: Partners for a Healthy Baby for Home Visitors
Partners for a Healthy Baby is a curriculum developed at Florida State University for educating low income families. The curriculum is unique in that it addresses issues of child health and development within the context of the multifaceted needs of expectant and parenting families. The research-based content in each book supports the home visitor’s ability to systematically plan home visits and address key topics that are essential in achieving both family and program outcomes.
Each book in the five-volume series — Before Baby Arrives, Baby’s First Six Months, Baby’s Months 7-12, Baby’s Months 13-18, Toddler’s Months 19-36 has a Research Basis, a User’s Guide, an Overview of Topics, and a set of full-color handouts for the home visitor to use when planning their visits.
Selection Criteria
Partners for a Healthy Baby is a research-based, practice-informed curriculum that has been used in several evidence-based programs that have achieved positive outcomes as documented in numerous studies. Findings include: decreased incidence of low birth weight; fewer small for gestational age babies; fewer repeat pregnancies; reduced rates of physical abuse and neglect; increased rates of up-to-date immunizations and enrollment in a medical home; significantly greater likelihood mothers will read to their children; improved child development and increased maternal responsiveness of adolescent mothers.
Parents as Teachers is an approved home visiting model meeting the evidence-based criteria of the Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting program (MIECHV) and considered a promising approach for the Tribal Home Visiting Grantee.
- Touchpoints Individual Level Training
The Brazelton Touchpoints Individual Level Training Program is a three-day seminar designed for individual health care, early education, child care, and social service providers who want to incorporate elements of the Brazelton Touchpoints approach into their practice setting.
The Touchpoints approach helps professionals engage around key points in the development of young children. By helping parents identify and expect bursts and regressions in child behavior (the Touchpoints) professionals can reduce parental frustration and self-doubt while fostering parenting skills and the parents enjoyment of their child. In the process, the bond between the provider and the family is strengthened.
- Healthy Steps Training Institute**
The three-day Healthy Steps Training Institute includes interactive strategies and case-based problem solving and discusses scientific data and clinical application of the following topics:
Behavior and brain development in the first three years; Cognitive, language, social, and emotional learning; Use of tools to gauge child development; The importance of relationships between mothers, fathers, and children, and between families and the practice; Parental health habits that are risk factors for child development; and Implementation strategies for office visits, practice management, and community networking.
The Healthy Steps Training Team is based at the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and is made up of is made up of pediatricians, pediatric nurse practitioners, and child development specialists from the staff at Boston University School of Medicine.
SAMHSA (LAUNCH grants) and HHS (MIECHV grants) have both designated Healthy Steps for Young Children as an approved evidence-based practice for service delivery grants to their agencies.
Ages and Stages is a curriculum for training how to conduct scientifically based assessments to identify potential developmental delays in children. This will facilitate referral and early intervention. It provides training on how to conduct in-depth assessments throughout childhood that help to determine a child’s current level of functioning in five domains. In addition to identifying individual children at risk for intervention it can be used to evaluate progress over time, as well as program planning.
Selection Criterion
Ages and Stages is an evidence based curriculum. [Selecting Developmental Surveillance and Screening Tools by Dennis Drotar, et al in PEDIATRICS IN REVIEW Vol. 29 (10) October 1, 2008 pp. e52 -e58].
- LearningGames Curriculum Training**
Based on 30 years of research LearningGames, The Abecedarian Curriculum consists of activities to help parents or caregivers enhance child development from birth to 60 months. Each game is on an individual sheet and is illustrated with full-color photographs. A simple explanation of the game is given on the front of the page. On the back of the page there is a more detailed description of the game including different ways to play it, what to expect from the child, and why it is important.
- Child Passenger Safety Technician**
The National Child Passenger Safety Certification Training Program (CPS certification program) certifies people as child passenger safety technicians and instructors. Since the CPS certification program began in 1997, more than 129,000 people have successfully completed the CPS Certification Course, including 36,000 currently certified CPS technicians. Many technicians are trained health and safety professionals, others are parents, and some are volunteers. They all have one thing in common: they care deeply about kids and want to make sure they’re safe.
CPS technicians and instructors put their knowledge to work by conducting child safety seat checks, where parents and caregivers receive hands-on assistance for proper use of child restraint systems and safety belts. These dedicated technicians offer education, support and guidance in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
The U.S. CPS certification program is widely considered to be the gold standard across the globe. Recent Certification courses have been offered in Canada, Israel, Italy, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Conscious Discipline is a comprehensive social-emotional learning program based on current brain research.
It is the only program that utilizes everyday events as the curriculum, addresses the adult’s emotional intelligence as well as the child’s, and integrates social-emotional learning. Conscious Discipline empowers adults to consciously respond to daily conflict, transforming it into an opportunity to teach critical life skills to children.
Conscious Discipline is evidence-based, and was named as a national model for character education by the Florida State Legislature.
- Certified Educator of Infant Massage**
The Infant Massage USA(R) educator training is an evidence-based comprehensive 4-day training course. The Certified Educator of Infant Massage (CEIM) course covers all aspects of instructing parents on infant massage as well as supporting and loving their babies through nurturing touch.
The training curriculum covers:
- Massage techniques and how to adapt these skills as infants develop
- Communication, teaching, group facilitation and lesson planning skills
- Effects and benefits of infant massage
- Bonding and the relationship between massage and bonding
- Infant and child development in relationship to massage
- Infant cues, crying and behavioral states
- Massage for special situations (colic, babies born prematurely or with other additional needs, etc.)
- Infant handling and positioning
- Understanding, supporting and valuing parents
- Touch research
- Safety guidelines for the use of oil
- Home Safety (Injury Free Coalition)**
This curriculum was developed by the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, one of the country’s fastest growing and most effective injury prevention programs. The three goals of the curriculum are for participants to: understand the burden of child injury, gain knowledge about age-appropriate injury risks and their prevention, and to learn how to apply child safety standards within the home visiting setting. This training includes hands-on activities aboard the Injury Free Mobile.
- Using American Sign Language (ASL) for enhancing children’s communication and literacy **
In this one-day training, participants learn the research-based benefits of using American Sign Language (ASL) with babies and young children. Benefits include social, communication and educational/literacy. Participants learn basic signs that are appropriate to teach parents with babies. A Sign with Your Baby Educator’s Toolkit is provided to participants of this training. The toolkit includes a training Sign with Your Baby DVD, Sign with Your Baby quick reference guide, Sign with Your Baby book by Dr. Joseph Garcia, and American Sign Language Flash Cards Sets by Sign2Me.
**Trainings/Curricula in italics are specialized trainings. Healthy Start coding can be done only for information covered within the specific topic.
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Education | Training
The Healthy Start Coalition of Miami-Dade (HSCMD) is committed to providing professional trainings and certification courses in the field of maternal, infant and child health. These include: Florida Outreach Childbirth Education Program (FOCEP), Partners for a Healthy Baby for Home Visitors, 18-20 Hour Breastfeeding Educator Certification Training, Interconception Care Education, and Smoking Cessation and Reduction in Pregnancy Treatment (SCRIPT) Program. In addition, a variety of specialized trainings are offered including: Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST) Certification, Motivational Interviewing, Infant Massage Educator Certification Training and many more.
