Featured Program Vignette

Project NENES

With the first day of school right around the corner, many parents of preschool-age children are wondering how they can prepare their children when the time comes to begin school. A good question!

Perhaps enrollment in the HIPPY Program might be the answer they are looking for – that is, the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool-age Youth Program administered by the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program (IV-ROP) through Project NENES. The Project is based on an intensive, 30-week home instruction program that relies heavily on parent involvement and that applies the HIPPY Curriculum to support early education, child literacy and the overall school readiness of the child. Guided through an internationally recognized program that has evolved for over 40 years, the HIPPY program is driven by committed parent-home visitors specifically trained to model weekly activities designed to prepare children for kindergarten. Thirty weeks of daily activities help parents prepare their 3, 4, or 5-year old children for success and school entry. Project Nenes is currently beginning its eleventh year of funding through the Imperial County Children and Families First Commission, and is the only HIPPY-based program in the county. Since its inception, over 800 children have benefited from Project NENES activities, and for fiscal year 2014-2015 the Project Coordinator plans to target the families of 75 children 3 to 5 years of age within identified communities through the funding awarded by the Commission.

Services will include up to five lessons per week, once a week for the 30-week duration; monthly support group meetings for parents; and developmental assessments using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire which are used in order to identify any delays in development and assess the overall development of the child. Furthermore, the Project intends to continue targeting children from within school district catchment areas identified by the Commission’s School Readiness Program as part of its partnership with the Commission. The HIPPY program seeks to support parents who may not feel sufficiently confident to prepare their children for school, and is designed to remove barriers to participation in education, the main objective being the overall success for children that are identified as being at risk for various reasons, such as socio-economic status, language, parent education, and geographic location.

Benefits from program participation that have been identified by Project NENES are that children demonstrate improvements in listening skills and increase their ability to directions; a strong learning relationship is established between parent and child, where the parent is the child’s first teacher; parents are offered support and role-play opportunities through parent group activities; children with delays in development are identified through assessment, which may lead to an emphasis on activities and/or referral for further evaluation for special needs. In addition, participants improve their story comprehension and learn to enjoy reading as they begin to understand story sequencing.

For more information please contact Project Director, Wendy Prewett at (760)312-6222

For a listing of other Proposition 10 funded Projects featured by the Commission click here.