Grants Pass, OR – Rogue Gateway Rotary Club of Grants Pass has partnered with Siskiyou Community Health Center (SCHC) by providing a district grant to SCHC’s Healthy Families (HF) and Project Baby Check (PBC) programs.
Rotary District Grants fund scholarships, projects and travel that align with the mission of The Rotary Foundation, which is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.
Rogue Gateway Rotary has provided a grant in the amount of $12,000 for the purchase of high quality children’s books as a means to both strengthen the parent-child bond through quality time together and to help parents teach their children both early literacy skills and other critical life skills.
Healthy Families and Project Baby Check are free and voluntary home visiting programs offered to “at risk” families starting either prenatally or soon after birth and continue until the child is 3-5 years of age. HF and PBC share the same goals that align with the state of Oregon Early Learning Benchmarks. Goals include increasing school readiness, improving health outcomes for children and families and reducing the incidence of child maltreatment.
Home visitors are trained to deliver services through trauma informed, strength based and culturally sensitive lenses. They receive ongoing formal training and are certified in the “Parents as Teachers” (PAT) evidence-based curriculum. Through building trusting relationships with parents, both home visitation programs promote self-efficacy through many small successes in parenting and reaching personal life goals. PAT home visiting curriculum serves as a perfect conduit for home visitors to model and mentor parents on early literacy and life skills through childhood books. Research shows that having books available at home contributes to reading success.
Siskiyou Community Health Center is grateful to have the opportunity to work with Rogue Gateway Rotary Club in supporting thriving children and families in our communities.