Promising Practice

United Way Family Center

State/Jurisdiction: Maryland
Setting: Clinical
Population: Adolescents & Young Adults Children Families & Caregivers
Topic Area: Access to Quality Healthcare Safe and Connected Communities Health Promotion & Communication Care Coordination
NPMs: NPM 4: Breastfeeding NPM 5: Safe Sleep

The United Way Family Center (UWFC) pairs embedded clinical supports with high quality early childhood education to promote the educational attainment of young parents and their children while developing parenting and leadership skills. The UWFC utilizes a trauma-informed, attachment-based model to increase safety and stability for its families to support families in overcoming barriers to their educational success. The UWFC provides high quality, early childhood education to 18 children of Ben Franklin students per day. Ranging from eight weeks to four years, the children enrolled in the UWFC build their educational foundation while their parents are earning their high school education within the same building. The UWFC utilizes the Creative Curriculum and ongoing assessment through Teaching Strategies Gold and Ages and Stages Questionnaires. Individualized lesson plans are developed for each child to best support their development and support school readiness. The UWFC utilizes the Circle of Security curriculum as a theoretical base to guide interactions and decision making. This attachment-based, trauma informed parenting program supports parents’ ability to be a secure base for their child. All UWFC staff (bus drivers, teachers, teacher aides, interns, management, and clinicians) are trained in Circle of Security to support the clinical model of the program from morning pick up through the entire day. All staff are coaches and models for parenting students, leveraging the importance of healthy relationships with consistent adults, to support building strong parenting skills.


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Implementation Handout



CONTACT INFORMATION
United Way of Central Maryland
Heather Chapman
heather.chapman@uwcm.org
410-895-1362
Practice Website