Baby
Bear Hugs
Regional Home Visitation Program
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Regional Home Visitation Program
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History of Baby Bear Hugs
(Updated
February 2005)
As a result of growing mobility, young families in Yuma County did not
have the support networks once relied upon by new parents.
In addition, a problem unique to rural areas, that of isolation, was also
true for these families. To address
this problem Yuma County developed a universal, voluntary home visitation
program using trained volunteers as visitors.
The specific objectives of the visitors are to: establish rapport with
the family, build on family strengths, identify obstacles to families growth,
listen to parents, develop a "partnership" with the parent provide
support, reinforcement, and encouragement, model appropriate behavior and
attitudes, provide a link to the larger community, act as a liaison between the
family and existing community resources, and teach parenting skills.
The Baby Bear Hugs program was implemented in Yuma County in 1989.
In 1992 Yuma County received a Federal "Child Welfare Enhancement
Grant". The purpose of this
grant was to see if the successful Baby Bear Hugs program could be replicated in
other rural areas. The goal was
accomplished and the Regional Home Visitation Project, as it was known,
established universal, voluntary home visiting programs in the 8 surrounding
counties. The Federal Grant ended in
1995, but 7 of the counties along with Yuma County, decided to continue the
regional concept. The program
reorganized, elected a board of directors, and hired an executive director.
Baby Bear Hugs received 501(c)(3) non profit status in January 1995 as
the Regional Home Visitation Program, however we remain "doing business
as" Baby Bear Hugs.
What does the program actually do? It
provides a support system for the families.
The program connects trained visitors to families as early in the
pregnancy as possible, and conducts weekly, bi-monthly, and then monthly visits
providing support, education, and connection to community resources.
All expectant mothers and/or parents with children 0 to 3 years old are
eligible. The County Coordinator
promotes the program, recruits volunteers and families, supervises the
volunteers, arranges for the training of the volunteers, and seeks local support
for the program.
This universal level of support is considered primary prevention, and
while it is successful with most of the population, there are families who have
needs above and beyond what the volunteers are prepared for, or capable of
handling. These needs are mostly
defined by the parents stress level, but may include psychological need, teen
mothers, mothers of children with birth defects or birth trauma, families with
lack of adequate resources, or overwhelmed parents.
Since this may take more visiting time and further training, the
situation is addressed through paraprofessional visitors.
The paraprofessional visitor segment of the program was established in
1995. Visitors are more intensely
trained in areas indicated by this population.
The paraprofessional visitors do the same thing as volunteers with the
addition of serving as coordinating liaison between service providers and the
family. This will ensure that each
family identified will have a coordinated effort through the highly trained home
visitor who can assist the family in developing and utilizing all appropriate
resources. The paraprofessionals
provide services on a somewhat more intense level, usually spending more time
with the family.
In order to promote the assimilation of the idea that communities are
responsible for their people, not necessarily agencies, great care is taken to
see that each county has local input. A
local advisory committee consisting of members from the professional and
parenting community guides each county. Each
County has a paid County Coordinator (most are part time) to oversee activities
in that county. The program uses
volunteers to serve a universal population.
This is done in part because all new parents can use support and
information, but also so that no one group will be targeted, everyone may
receive the support. This addresses
the problem of stigmatization when living in a small community.
Collaboration with other agencies and individuals is very important as
many program resources are donated. Each
county coordinator has established donated office space.
In some of the offices the facilities are donated along with other office
amenities, such as use of fax machines, copy machines, and someone to answer the
phone. This benefits the program
financially as well as provides an on site contact with the program.
In 1996 three South counties Kiowa, Baca, and Prowers, invited Baby Bear
Hugs to provide support to new families there.
Programs were established and the counties were added to the Baby Bear
Hugs region. Also in 1996 Baby Bear
Hugs was involved in developing and piloting Warm Welcome, a statewide
initiative of Bright Beginnings. A
one time visit, aimed at every new mother in the region provides mothers and
families with parenting and community information, and one more opportunity to
connect families with Baby Bear Hugs. In
1999 Logan County, who has their own ongoing support system called Family
Visitor Program, joined us in doing Warm Welcome visits.
Although
we had been serving Spanish-speaking families, our services to them received
more attention beginning in 2000. Morgan
County Baby Bear Hugs developed a Spanish Lullaby and Nursery Rhyme book in
response to a lack of materials in Spanish.
The Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes were written down as they were told to
the Morgan County visitor by her Spanish speaking families.
They were then compiled and put into a spiral bound book that is given to
the Spanish speaking families that want to participate in the program.
Also in 2000 Yuma County Baby Bear Hugs became part of a 5 agency
collaborative that received a Federal grant to provide health services to the
Spanish speaking families in Western Yuma County.
The agencies involved are the Yuma District Hospital, Centennial Mental
Health, Yuma County Social Services, and Northeast Colorado Department of
Health. Through this grant we were
able to hire 2 bi-lingual Paraprofessional Visitors to provide services to
Spanish speaking families. The
programs in Prowers and Baca Counties had struggled due to changing personnel
and inconsistent community support. In
November of 2000 the Board of Directors embarked on a different method of
service delivery when they accepted a contract with Prowers County.
Baby Bear Hugs signed an agreement with Prowers County Nursing Service
whereby we provided the funding to hire the part time Coordinator at .6 FTE and
they put in the remaining funding and benefits making the job full time.
The job responsibilities were both BBH and County Health.
Prowers County hired and supervised the County Coordinator, and appointed
a person to serve as the board of director member from their county.
The BBH Board of Directors saw the program as working very well this way.
The program was being built up and families were served, but at the end
of the year Prowers County ended the contract and opted out of BBH.
The troubled Baca County program also opted out of BBH, intending to
begin a home visitation program on their own.
In May
2001 we discovered that Kiowa County had only 6 births per year.
This was not enough to warrant a Coordinator, and we were having
difficulty attracting anyone to the position, so for the time being the Public
Health Nurse agreed to do the Warm Welcome visits.
This arrangement lasted a year, and the birth rate began to rise, as well
as interest in the program. A
terrific, energized Coordinator was hired and the program took off again and
gained momentum. The
board, staff, and advisory committee members met in November 2002 to review the
goals and priorities of the organization. This
group confirmed that the mission statement was relevant, viable and sufficiently
broad to encompass the work of the organization.
The group established the following Core Principles:
Core
Principles of Regional Home Visitation Program DBA Baby Bear Hugs: A1.
Universal Home Visitation a.
Volunteer b.
Paraprofessional A2.
Programs of Colorado Bright Beginnings a.
Warm Welcomes b.
Moving On visits (Language Power) A3.
Providing Information and Referral to Community Resources A4.
Collaboration (highly collaborative model) Individualized
programs as approved by the Board of Directors and as funding allows: B1.
Group support B2.
Car seat loaner programs B3.
Parenting classes ·
All services are culturally
appropriate and have a culturally appropriate delivery. In mid
2003 Baby Bear Hugs began its involvement in the work of mentoring older
children, ages 8 through 15. In May
of 2003 Baby Bear Hugs was offered the assets of the Yuma County Family Center
as it was dissolving. One of the
requests was that Baby Bear Hugs carry on the volunteer mentoring program.
The Board accepted this responsibility, and the Yuma County Coordinator
continued the work of the volunteer mentoring program.
In November of 2003 Baby Bear Hugs contracted with Centennial Mental
Health to do a Paraprofessional Faith-Based Mentoring program.
The Yuma County Coordinator also took on this responsibility, which grew
into a 1/3-time job and added 8 part time employees. Over
the years the Regional Home Visitation Program has received several awards.
In 1998 we received the El Pomar Foundation Awards for Excellence in
Youth Development. In 1998, 1999,
2002, and 2003 we received the Group Publishing Community Service Award for
Outstanding Service to Improve Community Life in Northern Colorado.
In
2005, at the 10-year anniversary of receiving our 501(c)(3) and 16th
anniversary of our founding, Baby Bear Hugs serves 9 counties in Eastern
Colorado and employs 30 people. The
counties involved are Cheyenne, Kiowa, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Morgan, Phillips,
Sedgwick, Washington, and Yuma. We
also supervise the programs of Bright Beginnings in Logan County.
Since it’s beginning, the program has served a total of 2,050 families
with 740 volunteers. Contacts have
been made with over 5,287 expectant mothers all over the Northeast Colorado
region. In addition, Baby Bear Hugs
has made 3,632 Warm Welcome and Moving-On visits.
The Regional Home Visitation Program - Baby Bear Hugs, has served as a
model program for home visitation in rural America.
Baby
Bear Hugs is a Promise To The Future!
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