LYNN — The Lynn Public Schools ParentChild+ Program is seeking new families to enroll in its at-home school readiness program to help build and facilitate literacy and communication skills between parents and their children.
Entering its 21st year, this evidence-based program preempts the achievement gap by providing young children and their parents with learning tools and skills.
“What we provide isn’t just early literacy, it is early opportunity,” the program said. “For families living in underserved communities, we are a first step on the ladder to success. Their personal booster club.”
Families can enroll in the program with children as young as 16 months old, and will receive a 30-minute home visit twice a week for 92 weeks from an early-learning specialist who provides free books and toys to work on engagement strategies.
The specialists monitor strategies to teach the parents how to get the kids engaged with their social and emotional skills and to be responsive.
They work to provide high-quality learning tools and guidance to stimulate parent-child interaction; develop language, early literacy, social-emotional skills; and build school readiness.
This nationwide program targets under-resourced families, immigrants, homeless families, and non-English speaking families to support healthy development and educational success.
Site coordinator Kathy Westin said they have a lot of 4-year-olds who didn’t get into pre-kindergarten last year, so they participated in the program for one year to prepare them for school.
“It’s nice to see an 18-month old, whose parents say doesn’t like books, end up loving books in the end,” Westin said. “It’s nice to see changes (like this).”
Westin said she loves seeing the parents witness changes like the latter, as well as when the children grow a love for learning about colors, playing properly, and engaging with their parents.
The program has ongoing enrollment and tries to serve as many families as possible.
As of now, Westin said they are working on getting the program up and running again after COVID-19 forced it to be fully remote.
There are still remote options for families who don’t want in-person visits.
With funding from the Coordinated Family and Community Engagement Grant, the program can serve 35 families; they are currently working with 17, and say they are looking for more.
For more information, visit www.parentchildplus.org, call at 516-883-7480, or email [email protected]