In addition to early childhood programs, a handful of K-12 districts are also building home visits into their model. Home visits are an increasingly accepted part of early childhood education best practice. Head Start isn’t the only preschool program that uses home visits as a way of building community and allowing teachers and programs to help meet students and families where they are-quite literally. Such intensive home visiting programs also offer a chance for parent educators to identify needed areas of intervention and to identify resources for families. A special role at Head Start, the “parent educator,” visits the homes to introduce parents to the science of early learning and provide specific strategies and activities for advancing children’s brain development. For home-based programs, the weekly home visit of 90 minutes is designed to cultivate parents as teachers. Home visits are also mandated for Head Start’s home-based programs, which typically serve children from birth through age five, including those who are either too young to enroll in preschool, are on a waitlist for a preschool spot or from families who prefer to have their children learn at home. The visits are mandated by Head Start and complement the work that teachers are doing in the classroom by providing an opportunity for teachers to speak informally with parents or other family members they may not routinely see. The home visits conducted by Jones’ staff, which occur twice a year, are central to the Head Start model of serving two generations-both children and their families. Macy Jones, Head Start director for the Alexander County Schools, N.C. So if you can do it, go to that home because those kids’ eyes light up whenever their teachers come see them at their home.’” I say, ‘You don’t have to go.but just remember who doesn’t have an option-those babies we let off the bus every single day. I say, ‘You don’t have to go.but just remember who doesn’t have an option-those babies we let off the bus every single day. “I tell them they can go somewhere else to meet the parents if they don’t feel safe visiting the family’s home. “Head Start really needs to start rethinking the whole home visit requirement,” she says, referencing the federal program that provides high-quality early childhood education to more than one million children from low-income families each year.įor now, Jones lets her staff decide whether to conduct home visits, emphasizing the power of these visits for students. But without a full-scale training program and set of comprehensive safety procedures, she isn’t convinced her team should be required to visit the homes of their students. Jones, who attended Head Start herself when she was a child and who has worked at Head Start for over three decades views home visits as critical to the success of both staff and students in the program.
So I’m having conversations now that I never had to have in the ‘80s with folks.” Jones says. “Here we are in 2019, and we don’t know what we’re walking into, or when somebody may show up that came to do harm to somebody in the home. In the past few years, her concerns about staff safety during home visits have increased as she has heard more reports of violent crime in the rural county.
Jones has been concerned about keeping the 37 teachers, assistants and home advocates in her program safe on home visits since she assumed her position seven years ago. Don’t wear something that can be a choking hazard like a lanyard.” Macy Jones, the Head Start director for the Alexander County Schools in North Carolina rattles off a list of pointers she gives her staff before they begin their home visits each year.
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