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Since 1965, The Parent Child-Home Program (PCHP) has been providing under-resourced families the necessary skills and tools to help their children thrive in school and life. PCHP’s nationwide network of program sites works with low-income families to ensure that they have the knowledge, skills, and resources to achieve their greatest potential in school and in life. 

Today, we are excited to have Sarah Walzer, CEO of The Parent-Child Home Program. 2015 marked 50 years of service for the PCHP.

1. How did PCHP begin? How has the program’s vision evolved since it was founded?

PCHP was started in 1965 when educational psychologist Dr. Phyllis Levenstein was asked to develop a program to help reduce the growing number of high school dropouts on Long Island. Based on her research, she concluded that the most effective way to reduce high school dropout rates would be to reach families before their children even entered a classroom and ensure that parents had the knowledge, skills, and materials to prepare their children for school success. With this idea, the model for PCHP was created.

The vision has essentially stayed the same – with PCHP focusing on reaching out to underserved families in under-resourced communities and working with them to strengthen parent-child interaction, support and increase reading and play activities in the home, and build language and learning rich home environments. The biggest change since 1965 is that now we work with families speaking over 50 different languages and almost always with a home visitor who speaks their language. Phyllis could not have imagined that when she first piloted the Program.

2. Can you tell us about the PCHP research-based model structure and how it works?

PCHP is based on an extensive body of research that demonstrates that children who receive rich verbal stimulation in their homes (conversation, reading, and play) come to school with the language, vocabulary, and social-emotional skills they need to be successful. Researchers have demonstrated that by age 3, low-income children have heard 30 million less words than their middle income peers, so we know that too many children do not experience the quality verbal interaction they need to succeed. Parent (primary caregiver)-child interaction is critical to closing this word gap and preparing children for school.

Building on this research, the model PCHP provides two years of intensive, twice-weekly home visits to underserved families when their children are 2 and 3. We match each family with a PCHP early literacy specialist in their community, and most of the time this early literacy specialist shares the family’s cultural background and language. These home visits are for a half-hour, twice-a-week. The half-hour is to make it easy for parents to fit the visits into their schedule and so they can see how little time each day it takes to support their children’s school readiness.

Over the course of the two years, each family receives at least 92 home visits, 46 new, high-quality books and educational toys, as well as curricular guide sheets that provide the family with tips for verbal interaction, skill development, and additional literacy, music, and art activities. The early literacy specialists model for the parents and children together verbal interaction, reading and play activities that are fun and become part of the families’ regular routines.

It is important to note that PCHP’s approach is one of modeling, not teaching; a non-directive, non-didactic approach that builds on the relationship between the home visitor and the family, empowering the parent to be their child’s first and most important teacher.

3. In November 2014, your response to The New York Time’s Article, “To Help Language Skills of Children, a Study Finds, Text Their Parents With Tips-NYTimes,” stated that texting parents with tips is not enough to close the achievement gap. Can you explain what you mean by this?

Texting parents is a great way to remind and teach parents the importance of conversing and reading with your child; however, by itself it will not close the achievement gap for the most under-resourced families. You don’t actually know if the parent receiving the text can read it or read it in the language of your text. You don’t know if they have access to books to read to their children, if they know how to find age-appropriate reading material, and how to read and talk to a young child in a way that builds language and literacy skills.

School readiness is about so much more than just language skills, it is about the social-emotional skill development that comes from playing games that involve taking turns, supporting children while they try increasingly difficult tasks on their own, etc. These are not all things that can be conveyed or demonstrated to parents via text messages. Some families need more support and the PCHP model can provide the needed materials, modeling, and tools for their children’s’ success.

4. After 50 years, what does the research show about families who complete the PCHP program?

The research not only shows that PCHP participants start school ready to succeed, but it also shows that this success continues as they move through school. A new study just released in February highlights the impact that PCHP is having both on kindergarten readiness and on third grade success. This longitudinal study demonstrates significant long-term outcomes for PCHP graduates based on standardized Washington state assessments of kindergarten readiness, English language proficiency, and third grade academic performance. The three key findings from the study show that signifcantly more PCHP graduates

• started kindergarten better prepared than their peers
• demonstrated English proficiency in kindergarten
• scored significantly higher on third grade WA Reading and Math assessments, including above the state average in math.

5. Looking forward, where do you see PCHP headed in the coming years? Any projects that you are particularly excited about?

We’re hoping to expand to reach over 10,000 families annually. We want to be able to serve as many families as possible. We recently trained the staff for our second site in Chile, which is the 4th country we have opened sites in. We are currently working in 14 states and would like to see that number grow as well. We were recently selected by the GreenLight Fund Philadelphia to be their newest portfolio program, which will mean a four-year expansion there to reach at least 400 families annually. We are particularly excited about expansions like the one in Philadelphia that involve working with housing authorities to support families in public housing and immigrant organizations to support diverse immigrant populations.

6. How can people get involved or find a PCHP nearby?

You can find a PCHP location nearby by going to our website, www.parent-child.org and using the link “Find a PCHP Near You” to find a list of all of our locations and their contact information. Additionally, there is information on our website about how to support the Program, how to start a site if there is not one in your community, and potential volunteer opportunities. Please be sure to also follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop. We constantly have exciting news and events to share, and are always happy to welcome anyone who would like to get involved.

Sarah Walzer has been the Chief Executive Officer of The Parent-Child Home Program, Inc. since 1997, during which time the Program has grown from reaching 800 families in 5 states to over 7,000 families annually in 14 states. Before joining The Parent-Child Home Program, Sarah Walzer was Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Legislation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services where she worked on legislation related to early childhood and domestic violence prevention programs, and the development of crime, substance abuse, and dropout prevention programs for youth. She has presented on The Parent-Child Home Program to many audiences, including the Social Impact Exchange, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Council of Great City Schools. She serves on the Board of The Petey Greene Program and the Princeton University Bridge Year Advisory Committee. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

 

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For over thirty years my primary specialty has been the prevention of secondary stress (the pressures experienced in reaching out to others.) During these three decades, I have experienced periods during which the situation has become more difficult for those in the healing and helping professions. For the past several years up to the present, I believe this has become the case again—with an even greater, far ranging initial negative impact, not only for professionals, but also for those whom they serve.

In some cases, the impact I have noted is quite dramatic. When getting ready to speak to military chaplains in Germany, many of whom returned recently from Iraq and Afghanistan, a colonel walked up to me and said: “Before you give your presentation on resilience, I want to give you a caution.” “What is it?” I asked. “There are a lot of ghosts in this room,” he said. “What do you mean by that?” I responded. After a pause, he said, “There’s nothing left inside them.”

Such cases are often termed “acute secondary stress.” This occurs when helpers and healers encounter trauma in others in such a dramatic way that their own sense of well-being is psychologically contaminated. As a result, they too can begin demonstrating the symptoms and signs of post-traumatic stress. Their dreams can be disturbed, their sense of security disrupted, and their overall outlook on the world dimmed.

However, during these times, I have found that a possibly even more disturbing pattern is one termed “chronic secondary stress,” or what has long been called “burnout.” Although this sounds less dangerous, and is certainly not as dramatic as its acute counterpart, I find it to be more worrisome because it is so insidious. Marshall McCluhan, a Canadian philosopher of communications, once said, “If the temperature of the bath rises one degree every ten minutes, how will the bather know when to scream?” In today’s society, I don’t believe we know when to scream or, in the parlance of what I would term “compassion erosion,” know the signs of when it is essential to strengthen or own a self-care program so we can continue to have the broad shoulders to bear others’ burdens as well as our own.

This is not only an American problem, it’s a worldwide one. After presenting a lecture on maintaining a healthy perspective to an audience in Johannesburg, South Africa, a social worker said that she had had enough and was going to leave the profession. When I asked her why, she said that she worked with women who were single parents, had been sexually abused, and were living on the edge of poverty. When she would go to court with them because of the rape they had experienced, they would need to take a day off from work; something they could ill afford. Yet, often the judge would just look at them and say, “Oh, I haven’t had time to look at the material. Schedule another time to come back.” She was clearly despondent and felt she wasn’t making an impact, despite her efforts to help the women that she served.

Even when the individual is initially optimistic and energetic, staying the course can still be problematic. A professional caregiver for the Veteran’s Administration enthusiastically greeted one of the returning Vets when he came in for his initial appointment. He responded by saying, “Boy, you are full of great energy.” To which she smiled and replied, “You have served our Country well. Now, come on in and let us know what we can do for you.” Yet, in the past months she has had to deal with the unpleasant reports that seem to tar the whole VA. Few reports include reference to those workers who are doing good work and truly respect the deserving clients they serve.

The problem goes beyond these events of course. Everyone, not simply helping and healing professionals, are being bombarded with negative and, in some cases, tragic events either directly or indirectly: news of the horrible outcomes of wars in the Middle East, physicians being sued not for malpractice but mispractice (even though no one can be perfect 100% of the time), financial stress due to the unavailability of good paying positions, educators being hounded rather than supported by parents when their children are corrected or not given the grade they expect, clergy being treated with disdain even though they have done nothing inappropriate themselves, nurses being unappreciated for their role as representing the heart of health care… The list is endless and causes both a drain on one’s personal quality of life and an increase in compassion erosion (a decrease in the ability to reach out to others in need on a continued, natural basis).

So what is to be done? Well, to start, several essential steps must be taken by all of us—not just those among us who are in the helping and healing professions. One of these actions is to reframe any efforts at helping others in our circle of friends, family, and those whom we serve so that we focus on faithfulness (which is in our control) instead of success (which never totally is). In the case of the South African social worker, I emphasized to her that she was the only one present to the poor abused women whom she served and this, in and of itself, was of crucial importance and was definitely a positive support.

In addition to appreciating the power of presence, spending time on self-care is also important because one of the greatest gifts we can share with others is a sense of our own peace and a healthy perspective – but we can’t share what we don’t have. In a restaurant, workers are mandated to wash their hands after they go to the lavatory so they don’t contaminate the food of those they serve. In the hospital, the workers must also wash their hands before as well as after they use the bathroom to decrease the occurrence of cross contamination. The same is necessary psychologically for those of us who serve others—even if it is simply our families or co-workers. We must take the necessary steps to be resilient so when encountering negativity, we are not psychologically infected by their problems. Of what good can we be when this happens?

Finally, recognizing the importance of alone time (time spent in silence and solitude or simply being reflective and mindful when in a group) is essential. When I was up on Capitol Hill speaking to some Members of Congress and their Chiefs of Staff on the topic of resilience, I took away an important quote by a former Senator. When asked what he felt was one of the greatest dangers facing the Congress today he replied, “Not enough time to think.” We need some quiet time to be mindful or we will not make it.

We are all in a tough spot now as compassion erosion seems to be spiking for the present. Many of us feel even more than ever before that life is not good and we have little to share with others. However, taking a page from the posttraumatic growth (PTG) literature is essential: namely, some persons who experience severe stress or trauma have the possibility to experience even greater personal insight and depth in their lives that would not have been possible had the terrible events not happened in the first place. So, chronic and acute stress need not be the last word. They may even set the stage for a life of greater, not less, compassion and an appreciation of what and who is truly important to us. However, for this to happen, we need to recognize the danger and do something about it now.

The post A spike in “compassion erosion” appeared first on OUPblog.

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Time and again, writers, editors and other folks in the industry say that if you want to be published, you should "Write what you know." So, in between Elena's first and second brain surgeries last year, I managed to sit butt in chair long enough to write a short story for an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book. The beginning drafts were painful. I'd been away from the process for so long that slogging through my prose felt like an exercise in futility. But in the end, the hard work paid off. The Chicken Soup folks bought my story! Getting the news in the midst of our family drama was a highlight of my Year That Went to the Dogs, and a reminder to Trust the Process, wherever it takes you. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Family Caregivers hits bookshelves nationwide on March 13th. Check out this link for a look inside and to pre-order.

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A family gathering in my grandparent's backyard. My Aunt Jean is 2nd from left. Uncle John is taking the picture. (Oh, and I'm the little squirt on the right)


My 94-year-old uncle died on Feb. 20. My aunt died twelve days later. She was 90. They were a remarkable couple. Uncle John was my dad's brother―the middle child among three sons. My Aunt Jean and he spent much of their adult years in Chicago.

Although life was good, not long after they were married, Jean was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; a potentially devastating disease, especially for a young mother raising three young children. But, it didn't stop either of them. My uncle set out to get her the best care possible, and she faithfully exercised (swimming daily) through the pain. It was years before she was forced to give up her cane for a walker and eventually, a wheel chair.

Still, they took all life had to offer; traveling the world and, after retirement, moving to California to build their dream house, complete with amazing ocean view. Their time in the new home would be short-lived, however, when my aunt began to deteriorate and had to move into a complete care facility. My uncle visited her every day until his failing health prevented it. But, whenever possible he still took her to church and out to dinner on Sundays.

The completion of their journey begins and ends in early February when my aunt, whose 65-year struggle with MS finally caught up with her, was rushed to the hospital. "She only has days to live," the doctor told the family. The family believes it was then that John decided it was "time for him to go;" his caregiver days over. But, Jean surprised everyone; family and doctors alike, and left the hospital in good spirits. My uncle's path was, however, irreversible and he simply "went to sleep" a few days later sitting in his wheel chair.

The Friday before her death, Jean began to deteriorate, once again. But, just like before, on Saturday she rallied and smiled and talked to her daughter. On Sunday, a caregiver saw her pointing to John's picture, telling him, "I'm okay." Early Monday morning he came to get her.

And so, they are free. He from constant, frustrating battles with old age; she from the never-ending struggles with a disease that still has no cure in sight. No longer bound to wheelchairs, I like to picture the two of them dancing on clouds as my aunt tilts her head back and laughs…just the way I remember.

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No- wait...not that kind of snow (even though I am a skier and start to get excited when the temperature drops below 50). 

I'm excited about ROBERT'S SNOW: FOR CANCER'S CURE -- a huge, bright, and beautiful fund raiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  You're probably familiar with children's book author-illustrator Grace Lin, who began this incredible campaign with her husband Robert Mercer after he was diagnosed with cancer several years ago.  Robert died at the end of August, so this year's fund raiser is a bittersweet tribute to his life and his work.  Children's book illustrators -- more than 160 so far this year --  have created breath-taking, original snowflake ornaments to be auctioned off to raise money for cancer research.  This year, kid-lit bloggers are helping to spread the word about the auction by featuring interviews and profiles of these illustrators on their blogs, as well as their snowflakes and a link to the auction.  I'll be featuring Judy Schachner, Amy Young, Sara Kahn, Cecily Lang, and Shawna Tenney on Kate's Book Blog some time in October or November. I hope you'll stop by to meet these generous artists, enjoy their creations, and bid if you can.

I love projects that bring people together like this.  I love it when kindness counteracts all the cynicism out there in the world.  And I love it when kids have a chance to be a part of it.  My 7th grade students are going to be exploring the work of my five illustrators, helping out with the interviews and profiles, and creating their own snowflake ornaments to sell in our community so that we can make an extra donation to the Dana-Farber Institute.  I cannot WAIT to tell them about this project. 

I know there are others on my LJ friends list --  like kellyrfineman, jo_no_anne, lizjonesbooks, jamarattigan, lisa_schroeder, lgburns, and cynthialord -- who will be featuring illustrators, too, so be sure to visit them over the next few months to meet some incredible artists.  If you want to learn more about Robert's Snow, you can drop in on Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, whose organization on this project amazes me, and whose belief that written words can help change the world is an inspiration.

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Good news. Grace Lin has announced that there's to be a new Robert's Snow and all you wonderful little published artists and illustrators out there are invited to submit applications for potential contributions. All is explained here, and bear in mind that you'd be in primo company (15 pages worth of it, in fact). Go do the good thing.

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