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Marshalltown families with preschool-aged children at home can take advantage of a new in-home program from Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA).
MICA Early Childhood Program Recruitment Specialist Anna Stromer said the program, Head Start Home Based, became available at the end of October.
Stromer said MICA requested the program to be implemented at the beginning of the year because of the big need in the community.
"There are families with no access to transportation," she said. "We see it a lot, just a lot of transportation barriers. This is a good way to have children participate in and receive education in their home. This is also good for parents who are not ready to send their child to a head start center or their child needs some extra support."
It is a program for a maximum of 10 children ages three to five who are not yet ready for preschool.
"We have a preschool development specialist come to their home once a week for 90 minutes," she said. "She starts with an assessment of where the child's development is at, and creates a customized plan. Focus is placed on academics, social-emotional skills, nutrition and child and parent interaction."
Stromer said the specialist prepares the child for preschool and also teaches the parents about development milestones and whether or not the child is meeting them on time. She said the specialist also works with the families on different identified goals.
"Maybe they have a goal of potty training, or a child is still using a pacifier at the age of 3, and they want to transition them from that, or they want help getting the child to read by preschool," Stromer said. "It is very geared toward what the family wants to work on. There will be less anxiety when it's time to begin head start."
Children enrolled will be able to interact with one another, and families will have the chance to meet when socializations are planned. Stromer said plans for the socialization are still being worked on.
"There may be different locations, such as the First Methodist Church, to allow children to interact with each other," she said. "Maybe it will be once or twice per month, but there will be different activities to do."
Thanks to a partnership with the Central Rivers Area Education Agency, Stromer said children can obtain more benefits.
"We work with speech therapy, behavior therapy," she said. "We are able to connect with the AEA for support."
Since October, there have been six children enrolled. Stromer said the program has been going good so far as they work to get more children involved.
"It is going well," she said. "I think it's an adjustment for everybody and a learning process."
Since the program is federally funded, Stromer said the income of the family is first taken into consideration. The primary children from families she said they would like are those below the 130 percent federal poverty line. She said they will accept families who fall in the 131 to 200 percent poverty level.
"But we will have a cap on how many of those are in the program," Stromer said. "We want to help the neediest families apply. One great way to determine that is if they receive WIC, SNAP or SSI."
She said families who wish to apply can contact her at 641-691-6258 or at anna.stromer@micaonline.org. Stromer is bilingual and will be able to communicate with Spanish-speaking families. MICA also has access to LanguageLine, which provides translation and interpretation of more than 290 languages.
"We really want to work with and accommodate their needs," she said. "Reach out. We will talk to the family and get an idea of their situation."
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Contact Lana Bradstream
at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or
lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.