The healthy growth and development of children is one of Head Start's primary goals. To achieve that goal, Prevention Associates in Alaska has developed the Family Wellness Approach. The model is the outcome of a four-year demonstration project focusing on family wellness and mental health.
The Family Wellness Approach is a comprehensive family development effort built on a resiliency model. It is based on the belief that children and families are able to face life's challenges more successfully if their inherent strengths are identified and developed. Strengths are "protective factors" that can be developed to offset the challenges of "risk factors." This view is consistent with Head Start's strengths-based orientation and belief in family and community empowerment.
There are four main steps to the Family Wellness Approach, all based on building relationships with parents:
- Assessing the child's strengths and
challenges
- Assessing the family's strengths and
challenges
- Putting this information together into a
Family Wellness Plan
- Designing strategies that are parent driven, and supporting their implementation.
These steps are carried out by a trained Family Advocate, who works with the family and other Head Start staff.
Step One: Child Assessment
The first step is to develop a complete picture of a child's mental, emotional, and physical well-being in both the classroom and home settings. This assessment process identifies the strengths and unique characteristics of the child that can be supported and further encouraged. It also allows parents, teachers, and other staff to identify potential risks in the child's environment or behaviors and address them early.
Step Two: Family Assessment
Fundamental to any child's well-being is the well-being of his or her family. The Family Wellness Approach identifies the unique strengths and stressors of the family, as well as the child, primarily through a kinship map and interactive interview.
Step Three: Family Wellness Plan
This step involves taking all of the information gathered in the previous steps-the strengths and stressors of the child, the family, and the community-and beginning to develop strategies to address them. The Family Wellness Plan is a roadmap for promoting individual and family strengths and successfully addressing environmental stressors.
Step Four: Implementation of Strategies
Once the Family Wellness Plan has been mapped out, the parents control the pace and focus of its implementation. The Family Wellness Advocate coordinates efforts on the home front with the teacher's efforts in the classroom. The advocate also connects family members with other services to help them implement the strategies they've designed in their Family Wellness Plan.
Unique Tools of the Family Wellness Approach
The Family Wellness Approach makes use of two unique tools:
- The Kinship Map helps families to recognize their existing support network and think of ways to expand it. The Advocate works with the family to create a picture of its extended family and friends. This Kinship Map highlights people in the parents' lives who provide emotional support and those who provide extra care for the Head Start child. It helps families appreciate the support system they have, and many times parents realize it is stronger than they imagined.
- The Family Wellness Plan is a user-friendly, five-page form that helps families identify all the protective and risk factors of the family and child. Once families identify specific strengths and challenges they face, they begin to develop strategies to overcome them. The goal of the Plan is to help families discover ways to reduce or eliminate risk factors, and to highlight and build up protective factors. The Plan should also be used with the child in the classroom and incorporated into daily planning.
The Family Wellness Approach offers a way to help families expand their natural child-raising skills, and shifts the focus of human service providers from crisis management to prevention and family development. It is one more tool to help our children grow to be successful, healthy, and most of all, happy adults.
... Sally Mead [was the], Project Director of the Region X QIC's Alaska Satellite Support Center.
