Home-based Services

Early Head Start is a comprehensive program aimed at enhancing the development of infants and toddlers while strengthening families.

Next Door Foundation places an emphasis on:

• High quality, which recognizes the critical opportunity of EHS programs to positively impact children and families in the early years and beyond.
• Prevention and promotion activities that promote healthy development and recognize and address atypical development at the earliest stage possible.
• Positive relationships and continuity, which honor the critical importance of early attachments on healthy development in early childhood and beyond. The parents are viewed as a child’s first, and most important, relationship.
• Parent involvement activities that offer parents a meaningful and strategic role in the program’s vision, services, and governance.
• Inclusion strategies that respect the unique developmental trajectories of young children in the context of a typical setting, including children with disabilities.
• Cultural competence which acknowledges the profound role that culture plays in early development. Programs also recognize the influence of cultural values and beliefs on both staff and families’ approaches to child development. Programs work within the context of home languages for all children and families.
• Comprehensiveness, flexibility and responsiveness of services which allow children and families to move across various program options over time, as their life situation demands.
• Transition planning respects families’ need for thought and attention paid to movements across program options and into-and out of-Early Head Start Programs
• Collaboration is, simply put, central to an Early Head Start program’s ability to meet the comprehensive needs of families. Strong partnerships allow programs to expand their services to families with infants and toddlers beyond the door of the program and into the larger community.

Early Head Start Home Visitation

In the home visitation program, Parent Educators work with parents to:

• Understand the child development process,
• Check the safety of the home environment, and
• Stay on track with the recommended schedule for well-child checkups, including dental care.

Parent Educators help parents develop a Family Partnership Agreement (FPA). Goals can vary between emergency and crisis assistance, accessing community resources, participating in continuing education, etc.

To encourage parent involvement, the Home Visitation staff brings families together by offering playgroups twice a month at the Next Door Foundation. We also host annual events including a Winter Fest, Mother’s Day & Father’s Day Brunch, Music Jamboree, field trips to the Milwaukee County Zoo and Betty Brinn Museum and much more.

Next Door began its first home-based early childhood program in 1973. The primary prevention program was a precursor to home-based Early Head Start with essentially the same type of programing, but with more limited resources.

For more information on Early Head Start Home Visitation contact Stephanie Parrett Early Head Start Administrative Assistant at (414) 562-2929 ext. 290 or sparrett@nextdoormil.org.

Prenatal Services

Next Door’s Early Head Start prenatal program provides services throughout a pregnancy from start to finish which includes: the first through third trimester, labor and delivery, postpartum adjustment and transition to other supportive services. We have on staff two Doula trained Parent Educators, as well as an Infant Massage Instructor.

Next Door’s Early Head Start prenatal services meets the needs of mothers by:

• Improving access of pregnant mothers to primary and preventive health services;
• Focusing on the prenatal health of women and their babies in order to have healthier pregnancies, deliveries, and postpartum birth experiences;
• Preventing and reducing intentional and unintentional injuries to newborns through the neglect or lack of knowledge of women during pregnancy;
• Encourages a safe sleep environment;
• Offers prenatal parenting classes to expectant mothers and families.

The Parent Educators use a variety of methods and curricula to determine the parent’s knowledge of infants both prior to delivery and post-delivery. This information helps determine the areas of education that the Parent Educator needs to focus on when working with the parent.