From the Directors Desk – Summer 2019

Director’s Desk
May 2019

The emergence of summer brings new energy to our staff and to our programs.

In May we added a new evidence-based program to our service offering. Triple P —Positive Parenting Program. The Level 3 Primary Care program component of Triple P offers parents a brief and private way to get guidance on specific behavior concerns. In addition to one-on-one sessions with a parent educator, the program includes tip sheets for parents, focused on strategies to address the problem behavior. For now, the program is limited in scope. We will report back on the future for Triple P after evaluating our pilot program, which is sponsored by St. Croix County.

As we implement new offerings we continue to monitor performance and enhance the quality of our existing evidence-based programs. 2018 marked the twentieth year the Family Resource Center has offered an evidence-based home visiting model called Parents as Teachers. Recently I met with directors of other longstanding Wisconsin home visiting programs and state home visiting leaders to review the findings and discuss implications of a national report on the effectiveness of evidence-based home visiting programs. (See the MIHOPE Study at: https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/MIHOPE_Impact_Report-Final2.0.pdf).

The report finds significant benefits for home visiting families including improved quality of the home environment, decreased household aggression, fewer hospital emergency visits, and fewer child behavior problems. Our discussion group stressed that key to successful programs is attracting and retaining skilled parent educator professionals and supporting them by investing in reflective supervision and high-quality professional development. Family Resource Center St. Croix Valley is fortunate to have a professional, dedicated, and compassionate staff committed to strengthening children and families.

Talking about skilled parent educators, we are delighted to introduce two new members of our team. Devin Chladek and Erin Knegendorf had several weeks of shadowing certified parent educators before attending the Parents as Teachers model training and becoming certified in May. Welcome Devin and Erin!

This month we send a fond farewell to Development and Communications Coordinator Kristin Thompson, who has served the Family Resource Center St. Croix Valley since 2012.

Kristin has led the organization’s donor relations and fundraising efforts—including the Reach for the Stars annual gala, served as the editor of Family Matters newsletter, and led numerous Family Resource Center St. Croix Valley initiatives.

We appreciate all of Kristin’s contributions and wish her all the best as she embarks on her new career as Advancement Director at Landmark Conservancy. 

Enjoy summer’s bounty.

Agnes Ring
Executive Director