Convinced that intervening early can improve a child’s life trajectory, the Learning Community of Douglas and Sarpy Counties is dispatching home visitors to help low-income parents interact better with their infants and toddlers.
The home visitors in the pilot program underscore to parents the importance of reading to babies, playing with them, talking and singing — things that might be missing from low-income homes.
The visitors also establish a relationship between that family and the school that the child will eventually attend.
The goal is to ultimately help erase achievement gaps between disadvantaged children and their more-affluent peers.
The program was developed by superintendents in the 11 Learning Community school districts with assistance from the Buffett Early Childhood Institute.