"I'm a single mom," says Amber Vigil, 24, a resident of Del Paso Heights in Sacramento. "My stress level is high as a result." Sometimes, when the kids get sick, the refrigerator breaks, and the money runs out, working full time as a medical assistant and parenting her two boys--Matthew, five, and Joshua, three--can seem overwhelming.

Luckily, Vigil has support--at her doorstep. Since Matthew was three months old, she has participated in Sacramento County's Birth and Beyond program, which offers home visiting and other services to parents of children under five, through family resource centers. Families participate for an average of eight months, some up to three or four years. Visits are two to four times a month, based on the needs of the family.

County to neighborhood

"We have made a major commitment to home visiting as a child-abuse-prevention strategy," says county supervisor Roger Dickinson, whose district includes Del Paso Heights. The county uses state social service funds to pay for Birth and Beyond; Sacramento First Five has added $10-15 million.

FRCs provide a "neighborhood base...where parents can go and see other families," Dickinson adds. "That can reduce the isolation at-risk families often experience."

"Right here with you"

Vigil connected to Birth and Beyond through Mutual Assistance Network of Del Paso Heights (MAN), one of nine FRCs offering the program, which hires home visitors from the neighborhood. "Only residents can really understand their community," says Wilmer Brown, MAN's director of family services. And the money they earn "stays in the community."

Mona Shields, a former MAN home visitor, agrees: "I personally can understand where (the parents) are at. I was a TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] receiver. They see me in the grocery store. I can say, 'I'm right here with you. I've been through what you've been through.'"

Shields and other home visitors receive extensive training and work with a team leader, a licensed counselor. They can also bring in specialists from MAN to address mental health, child development, nutrition, employment, and other needs.

At age two, Joshua, Vigil's younger son, "wasn't speaking at all--'baa baa' and 'maa maa' was all he was saying," she recalls. Her home visitor noticed the problem and called in MAN's development specialists. They arranged for a state-funded speech therapist to work with Joshua at child care, so Virgil wouldn't have to miss work for appointments. "Now my son can speak better than most children his age!" she reports.

Helping parents succeed

With each new family, "we start where that family is and move on from there," says Donna Bell-Dent, team leader for Birth and Beyond at MAN. "We ask: 'How can we go into this home and help them succeed?'"--whether it's helping a parent complete Medi-Cal forms, understand stages of child development, or get a GED.

"If I needed something, she was right there," says Vigil of her home visitor. Once Vigil's refrigerator broke and all the food spoiled. "I called [my home visitor]--within a day, she got someone to donate a fridge and delivered it to my house."

In addition to helping with immediate needs, a major goal is "helping families be self-sufficient," says Bell-Dent-"showing a mom how to catch a bus and taking it with them so they can do it themselves the next time." Adds Vigil: "They help me if I get stuck, but they give me the opportunity to be the independent person that I am."

Trusting relationships

The first months with a new parent, says Shields, "we're building up relationships." Little by little, the mom "starts talking to me more, asking for more information."
At first home visitors do more listening than talking. When Vigil walked into MAN's office one late afternoon, "they were all busy, but Lisa [a home visitor] came out...to sit down with me," she recalls. "She didn't rush me. She took the time...to find out what I wanted to know."

"She didn't treat me like a client, but rather as a person," adds Vigil. "A lot of programs are very formal. [Lisa] helps me interact with my children and she has a great personality. I didn't feel like I was being interviewed every time. If I was too busy to call her, she called me."

"Our home visitors become very enmeshed in their families' lives," confirms Bell-Dent. One home visitor stayed with a mom through childbirth "because the mom was Spanish-speaking and had no one to translate for her."

Building economic self-sufficiency

MAN aims to help families attain "success on all levels--academic, health, jobs, etc." says Executive Director Richard Dana. So its home visiting program includes helping families "move forward financially" as well as the Birth and Beyond program.

Employment specialists "go into a home and do an assessment of the mom, to see whether she needs to get a GED, training, or go right into the workplace," says Brown. They can also connect parents to MAN's employment program, with certificate programs in medical work, data entry, and billing. "We're not only finding people jobs, but finding people careers," Brown adds. "By integrating family support programs with employment...we help family members prepare to get a job and keep it."

Promising results

The difference Birth and Beyond makes is "enormous," says Dickinson. He cites a 32 percent drop in substantiated reports of child maltreatment for families who have participated in Birth and Beyond.

Vigil agrees: "I've been able to grow as a person. I've become a better mother."

For more info:

• Birth and Beyond, 916-875-2020
• Mutual Assistance Network Family Resource Center, 916-927-7694

The research shows

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2003 that "home visitations by trained personnel play an effective role in the reduction of child maltreatment, including abuse and/or neglect."

• The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visiting by registered nurses to at-risk parents of young children. Studies have shown that the program leads to a 79 percent reduction in child maltreatment and saves $4 for every $1 invested, by reducing future costs of substance abuse, crime, and welfare.
  

• Healthy Families America provides home visiting by trained paraprofessionals for families of children from birth to five. In five studies in different states, Healthy Families participants' rate of child maltreatment was less than half the statewide rate.

What is an FRC?

The family resource center (FRC), part of an innovative strategy to promote healthy families and communities, is a warm and welcoming community hub that engages families in a variety of programs and activities that build on their strengths and meet basic needs. FRCs respond to what the community says it needs and often work in partnership with other community agencies.