“The class this time was offered at the Booker T. Washington Center (BTW),” Marsh said. “This was done in partnership with Nurturing Every Step Together (NEST).”
NEST is designed to help people fighting everything from poverty to drugs find a way to get back on track. When trying to parent under these circumstances, it can be a recipe for disaster if you don’t have the skills according to Faith Haydon of the Early Head Start program at the Butler County Educational Services Center.
“Every parent desires the best for their children. In the class we discussed the importance of children getting off to the right start,” she said. “We looked at the role parents can play in laying the foundations for their child’s success in preparing them for school and beyond.”
There were several important building blocks to become a better parent that were discussed at the BTW forum that ranged from effective communication between parents and their children, discipline and how to deal with everyday struggles including finances.
Learning how to cope with medical issues when going to the doctor is now a building block to discuss with all of the changes coming to health care.
The parenting forums hosted by NEST are part of the Medicaid funding to help reduce infant mortality in Butler County that was received last year as part of plan to give projects a chance to combat the problem.
High Hopes and Sojourner Perinatal, two agencies that have been very active in fighting infant mortality in Butler County joined the parenting discussion.
There was an average of about 15 to 20 participants at the forum according to Anne Haubner, who believes that the message of how to break poorly learned habits as a parent was well-received.
“The feedback was that the course was informative, encouraging and allowed parents to reframe their thinking about life in order to break unhealthy generational cycles,” she said. “The discussion emphasized positive parenting skills.”
She added that Sojourner Recovery Services, a comprehensive alcohol and drug addiction treatment and mental health service provider, was also a participant in the forum, in order to discuss options about how to battle addiction.
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