Reference Catalog

Building a Comprehensive Family Support System for Urban Indians

Katie Hess, Myra Parker, Camie Goldhammer, and Deyorhathe Esquivel

• Parents as Teachers (PAT)

This session presents multiple perspectives and community-informed approaches to strengthen the transformation of family support services in home visiting. Western science (e.g., public health and social service frameworks) requires comprehensive family services to include an array of resources based on a specific theory of change at the individual level that correspond to system-level risk and protective factors. Meeting these goals, however, along with institutional, program and community priorities using a culturally grounded framework, can be challenging and complex. All of these elements are vital to growing healthy communities and families, yet planning and implementing this complex web of supports, and successfully integrating these elements, remain elusive for many. Our approach reflects challenges and issues common to many home visiting programs. Our emphasis on social justice and the well-being of children, combined with a family-centered focus that supports the relational framework common to most indigenous communities, has informed our work and can serve as a model to others working with diverse communities. We believe our approach will guide other programs and institutions with ensuring that the collective community voice remains centered to enable long-lasting, sustainable community change. (author abstract)

Finished

• Program Enhancements, Innovations, and Promising Approaches
• Participant Recruitment, Retention, Engagement, and Dosage