News

PCHP’s NY Program Director, Andre Eaton, Advocated for City’s First Readers

NEW YORK, NEW YORK March, 2017 – Parent-Child Home Program’s (PCHP) NY Program Director, Andre Eaton, testified in front of the New York City Council on Monday, March 6, advocating the importance of City’s First Readers and PCHP. This initiative supports the expansion of reading readiness across the city, through early learning and early literacy programs such as PCHP. Mr. Eaton made the case for a $5 million request in collaboration with City’s First Readers. These funds will allow PCHP to expand to its fourth community with SCO in the Brownsville/East New York area of Brooklyn.

The current funding through the City’s First Readers initiative has allowed PCHP to provide 75 families with the knowledge, skills, and materials to prepare their children for school success in three communities – Astoria, Washington Heights, and Sunset Park. These communities have had limited early childhood school readiness services, and there are many families who do not have access to supports to help prepare their children for school and life success. Through the community partners PCHP is working with, we are able to reach families who would otherwise not have access to any high-quality early childhood school readiness support services.

With this additional funding, PCHP will be able to reach additional families through a new City’s First Readers program partner in Brownsville/East New York. This funding will ensure that 100 families annually will receive 4,600 home visits by trained Early Learning Specialists and 2,300 children’s books and educational toys to support school readiness.

“For the past two years, PCHP has been a partner in NYC’s City’s First Readers early literacy network. Last year, we provided our services to 75 families in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Astoria, Queens, and Washington Heights, Manhattan. It is my hope that these services will be expanded to the community of Brownsville/East New York where more than 70% of children are reading below the third grade level and 82% performing below the standardized math score. We are grateful to be working together with other evidenced-based programs to combat the lack of school readiness across the city, prepare children to succeed in school, and provide parents the tools necessary to be their children’s first and most important teachers,” explained PCHP’s NY Program Director, Andre Eaton. “The network is built around a continuum of services from 0-5, focused on closing the achievement gap for the youngest children in NYC. We look forward to continuing our advocacy work for additional funding to expand our services across the city. PCHP thanks the entire City Council for its support, and especially, City Councilmen Stephen Levin and Antonio Reynoso for their continued support and dedication to this citywide effort.”

PCHP is extremely grateful for the New York City Council’s support for programming that will ensure that all NYC children in these communities and eventually across the City will start school ready to succeed.

—

About The Parent-Child Home Program: The Parent-Child Home Program’s (PCHP) nationwide network of program sites provides under-resourced families with the necessary tools to ensure their children achieve their greatest potential in school and in life. Since 1965, PCHP has been assisting underserved communities in replicating and expanding this proven school readiness program that builds early parent-child verbal interaction and learning at home. Through twice-weekly visits by highly trained community-based Early Learning Specialists, PCHP provides families the skills, materials (books and educational toys), and support to help parents engage and teach their children. Over 50 years of research shows that the Program effectively increases school readiness, decreases the need for special education services before grade three by 50%, and increases participants’ high school graduation rates by over 30% to the same level as their middle income peers. For more information please go to: www.parent-child.org.

About City’s First Readers: City’s First Readers, an initiative of the New York City Council, is a collaboration of nonprofit organizations fostering the literacy development of NYC children, ages 0-5. The initiative provides parents, early childcare providers, and teachers with the resources and services needed to ensure children enter school ready to read and achieve educational success. For more information please go to www.citysfirstreaders.com

Media Contact:
The Parent-Child Home Program
Courtney Inman Tel: 516.883.7481

###