Funds support under-resourced pregnant women and families in north St. Louis County
The Community Impact Network (Network), a group that partners with nonprofit organizations to deliver social services to families in north St. Louis County, has granted the Normandy Schools Collaborative Parents as Teachers (NCS/PAT) program $422,470 to support under-resourced pregnant women and families living in the Normandy Schools district’s footprint.
The one-year grant will be used to administer PAT’s evidence-based home visiting model, provide screening services, host group connections and community events, and train, certify and provide on-going professional development for the Normandy PAT parent educators.
“We are extremely grateful for this generous grant and are honored to partner with the Community Impact Network to strengthen the families we serve, particularly during these tumultuous times,” said Alison Gee, PAT’s vice president of Government and Community Engagement.
Robert Gioia, the Network’s chief executive officer, said, “Parents as Teachers is an integral partner in our efforts to support and empower residents of the Normandy Schools Collaborative footprint. We are proud to work with Parents as Teachers and honored to support them in their mission.”
The Network’s vision is to build equity for lives of choice and opportunity http://www.stlci.net. Its mission is to create spaces and places where transformational relationships are built. It organizes and assists social service providers with complementary resources and expertise to address the key impact areas of education, housing, employment, health, and personal finance necessary for thriving families and communities. It uses relationships with community partners to deliver services that empower community members.
The NSC/PAT collaborative is part of the Parents as Teachers National Center’s Show Me Strong Families (SMSF) direct services initiative. SMSF is a partnership between the NSC and the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program, the state’s grantee that gives pregnant women and families, particularly those considered at-risk, necessary resources and skills to raise children who are physically, socially, and emotionally healthy and ready to learn.
SMSF serves families living in some of the most distressed communities in the city of St. Louis and north St. Louis County. Ninety percent of the families served are African American and most are low-income. Almost half of the parents enrolled in SMSF are teen parents, one-third are homeless, and one quarter has low educational attainment.
“The Parents that participate in our program report that they feel less stressed, more motivated to try new parenting strategies, and better able to understand their child’s development,” said PAT’s Vice President Gee. “They also state that they are more likely to read with their child and that their relationship with their child is stronger. This new influx of funding from the Network will help us continue to serve these families.”