Supporting Parents in the Health Process
By Frankie Hoover Gibson, Parent Involvement Program Specialist, Head Start Bureau
Head Start staff play a vital role during the enrollment process by discussing with parents the importance of health care for the entire family. From the start, staff learn about the parents' attitudes and health practices and help them develop health-related goals to be addressed during the family's Head Start experience. The new Early Head Start Initiative opens up even greater opportunities to support families in taking responsibility for their health care at the earliest possible time.During the initial contact, Head Start staff identify those families which understand the importance of an ongoing, preventive approach; those families with some idea of the value of this approach but who lack the resources or a specific plan to follow; and those families who need to know the necessary steps to take to support their children's healthy development and good health.
Lucia Nizhquero, a former Head Start parent and current home visitor in Washington, DC, is one of many involved parents who emphasizes the value of Head Start staff in disseminating critical information to families. According to her, ongoing staff communication and availability are key to helping parents learn to problem solve.
Head Start staff support parents in taking responsibility for their families' good health in specific and concrete ways. For example, reviewing immunizations (shots) is an important topic to address at the outset. Developing and updating a record book of vital family information is also a productive activity for one parent or a small group. The record book can be a simple few pages for recording immunizations only or it can be expanded to record other data, such as birth facts, health care visits, upcoming appointments, school records, community agency contacts (i.e., libraries, transportation, welfare), and emergency procedures. (See the resources section for places to obtain record books.)
These and related activities can help parents take control of other aspects of health care which affect their families, such as identifying local options, making appointments, verifying methods of payment, securing transportation, carrying information to appointments, and keeping records of health information in safe, easily accessible places.
One of Head Start staffs objectives is to encourage parents to do as much of the actual work as they are ready to do. And parents who learn to manage their families' health care successfully are capable of applying these skills to other areas of their lives and their children's lives.
These parents can serve as resources for new parents and for the program through membership on the Health Advisory Committee and by working on other health projects. Additionally, these experienced parents can help build positive one-on-one relationships and promote proactive behavior modeling among others while they also gain deserved recognition.
With Head Start staff listening to parents describe the health systems and services they already have in place, they can build on that base together to further enhance the lives of Head Start children, Head Start families, and the program itself.
AnnouncementJames A. Harrel was appointed the new Deputy Commissioner for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families on April 1,1996. He succeeds Joseph Mottola who retired in March.
Mr. Harrell has a broad back ground in health and human services policy and a deep commitment to children and family issues dating back to the early 1970's when he worked as an advocate for child care, child development, and Head Start programs. He served as a program analyst for the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1975, and as Director of NCCAN from 1980 to 1983 before moving to the Public Health Service.
Since then, he has served in leader ship positions in public health with a focus on health promotion and disease prevention and an emphasis on crossing programmatic boundaries to support the health of families and children. He has also served as chair of the Public Health Steering Committee for Healthy People 2000, which developed and implemented an outcome-based report card on the nation's health.
The Head Start Bureau welcomes Jim to this important position.