Helping parents, to help kids

One nonprofit in Tulsa, Oklahoma -- the Community Action Project -- has flipped the script on preschool, reports Eric Westervelt for NPR. The idea behind its Career Advance program is that to help kids, you often must help their parents. The program strategically links low-income parents -- almost all women -- with education, career training in nursing and related healthcare fields, and Headstart services for their children. Participants must take a monthly seminar that includes resume-building, basic finances, and workplace etiquette, such as being on time, eye contact, firm handshakes, and basic hygiene. Tulsa organizers believe providing high-quality childcare along with intensive help for parents returning to school might prove the missing link in anti-poverty efforts. The program also includes career coaches, who in a different socioeconomic context could be called life coaches. More than a quarter of the women drop out and never come back, and cash bonuses, coaches, seminars, emergency gas cards, and other expenses cost more than $7,000 per mom per year on top of the $7,500 per child for Headstart. It'll be a few years before the results are in, but researchers are convinced that getting policymakers and agencies to think about the family all together will save taxpayers big money in the long run. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

Published by LEAP

Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.