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Home Schooling: The ParentChild+ program has boosted high school graduation among Philly’s most vulnerable children – by showing up at their homes
Malkia Singleton Ofori-Agyekum believes that the messenger makes a difference.
“You’re going to take what you hear from someone you don’t identify with versus a person you do identify with in a very different way,” she says.
As the Pennsylvania state director of ParentChild+, an early literacy, school-readiness home visiting program, she sees every day how crucial it is to find a cultural match between participants in the program and the staff who work with them in their homes.
That cultural fit sets the stage for the success of the program, which targets low-income families with children between the ages of 16 months and four years. Over the course of twice-weekly home visits for two years, specialists bring books and toys that fuel early literacy, while modeling bonding skills for parents to emulate with their children.
The visits are a time for families to play and take a timeout from life’s stressors. But they’re deeper than that. “Not everyone knows the importance of playing with their child, or talking to their child or praising their child,” Singleton Ofori-Agyekum says. “To have someone come in and show you that in a nonjudgmental way creates new habits. This becomes the norm, and it’s transformative.”
It’s experiential learning on families’ home turf.
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