Nurturing Parenting

Starpoint's

Nurturing Parenting Program

Nurturing Parenting is a family centered, home visitation and parenting support program. This program is designed to serve families with children birth to age 17. Through weekly or bi-weekly home visitation and group sessions we encourage nurturing behavior and positive child/parent interactions while offering meaningful connection opportunities with other families.

Any family in Fremont County is eligible for this free service and there are no income guidelines.

Nurturing Parenting is individualized to meet each family’s specific needs, based on their parenting strengths and/or weaknesses. The certified home visitor serves as a mentor, a coach, and a resource who can connect families to valuable community resources, that support and encourage healthy families and relationships. This program is evidence and strength based, as well as trauma informed to provide reliable information for the families we serve. Our main focus is to encourage stabilization within family structures.

For additional information regarding the Nurturing Parenting Program, call 719-275-0550 ext. 214 or email smaulin@starpointco.com.

More Information About

Eligibility

Early Intervention Colorado is available to children under the age of three years. The Coordinator for the Fremont, Custer, and Chaffee areas is located in Canon City. Public schools or BOCES are responsible for children ages three to five years. Some children’s disabilities and delays are not visible at birth, but only become apparent as the child develops or are the result of illness or injury.

For parents with a first child, it may be difficult to know for certain whether their child’s development is on schedule or is a bit extraordinary. It is always wise for parents to attend well-child checkups and discuss their child’s development with their child’s health care provider. Examples of such concerns might include delays in speech, crawling or walking, problems in eating, and behavioral issues such as tantrums, excessive fears, or withdrawing from people. Help is available for kids and parents in any of these situations.

Our community also believes all children should be screened for development, vision, and hearing. Our motto is “do your child a favor.” Parents can contact Project ECHO at 719-276-6176 to schedule a free screening of their child’s development, vision, and hearing for children living in Fremont and Custer Counties. Once a delay or disability has been determined, Early Intervention through Starpoint, focuses on supporting families with eligible babies and toddlers who may have a delay or disability. If you have questions about your child’s development, you can contact your local Child Find:

Buena Vista: 719-395-7029
Salida: 719-530-5375

View Our Entire List of Resources.

Frequently Asked

Questions

How do I know if my child might need special help?

If you, a friend, or a family member have concerns about your child’s development you should refer your child for a screening. These concerns can be about a child’s speech, language, behavior, movement, learning, hearing, or vision. Referrals can also come from your pediatrician’s office.

What steps does the process include?

Step 1: Project ECHO screening or Referral
Step 2: Developmental Evaluation
Step 3: Planning Meeting
Step 4: In-Home Supports for Established Delays and Areas of Concern

What is a Developmental Evaluation?

A developmental evaluation assesses a child’s development in a playful format. In these assessments, Early Childhood Professionals will look at how your child talks, moves, uses materials, and interacts with their environment. These assessments help to determine areas where a child is excelling, and areas where they may need support in order to grow and thrive.

What does the planning meeting and In-Home support entail?

Each plan is completely unique to the child and his or her particular family, and are comprehensive addressing not only the needs of the child but also the needs of the entire family. These plans are required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and can be either an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) or an Individualized Education Plan (IEP for children age 3 to 5). The in-home support that follows is conducted by a licensed professional and the family is the driver of the plan. This means that the family is 100% in charge of the plan and can decide how often and where this coaching may take place. Families will never receive a bill or any copays from us, as this service is 100% free.

Of a Nurturing Parenting Family

Testimonial

Hear from a parent who has gained valuable assistance through this program:

Meeting with Becky through Starpoint started around a year ago due to my Son Landon’s growing issues at Spin Child Care Center. Landon started having issues with many different areas around the age of 2 and they continued to progress in a negative way through the years to include tactical issues, communication issues, expression of feelings, challenging negative behavior with peers to include hitting, biting, throwing toys, ripping apart an entire classroom, transitional issues, development issues and basically developing slower than your typical child. We worked diligently with Starpoint through his first year of school (pre-school) to set up behavior plans.

To no avail Landon was beginning to be named the problem child and would act out daily to receive attention whether positive or negative. This has followed him to Kindergarten and before and after school care programs. We have seen tremendous positive change implementing several ideas that were given to us by Becky to assist in behavior changes.

Becky introduced a simple list of how his day is going with a chart that gave us an option of great choices made by Landon down to ‘Need to work on Negative Behavior.’ This could change throughout the day giving him a visual aid to see where his choices were taking him. We implemented small positive incentives through the week to get his buy in and this assisted in drastically reducing the need for the school to contact us. He uses this tool at home and in his classroom.

Becky continuously and without fail gives Landon Positive Feedback and small gestures of care to show that she is proud of him weekly to influence his positive belief in himself. Without this positive influence I do not believe that Landon would care about having good days as we call them. He is always excited to tell us when he has done well, but is also very honest about when he makes bad choices and includes them in our discussions. With this tool he can always turn his decisions into positive ones.

Becky has also given us, as the parents, tools to use so that we are on the same page with how we deal with the difficulties of having a child with specific needs. It made us look at how we approached issues. My husband and I work very hard to support our children and when we are not on the same page it is very hard to do this. We have done questionnaires on how we discipline the kids, or how we believe things should be handled.

Weekly we discuss not only our children, but how we are doing. This is not something that we have received in the past and it has helped us to see where we are making bad and good decisions with how we move forward when new things come up. Nurturing Parenting Training and Becky have assisted us in pulling together as a strong team and strong family to assist our children to have the best outcomes. Even when we have a bad week Becky assures us of the good we are doing, and how we as a team and family can work through any tough situation that may come up. She is always uplifting and shows true compassion for our family.

Landon has had such huge growth in school that he is receiving anywhere from an 88% to a 100% for his class work and behavior. He has also been able to move forward and spend time in his homeroom at school and not just be separated from peers in the Avengers program. This program is great, but we feel that having him in his regular homeroom has offered him the ability to truly test the positive strides he has made while working with Becky inside of SPIN and his move to Kindergarten.

Lilly is our youngest and at 3 years old, she does not have the same issues as Landon. She is a little slower at speech than kids her age, but has given us direction on working with Lilly to ensure that she does not fall behind children her age. Lilly also picked up some bad behaviors from school, and Landon, so we have implemented many of Becky’s ideas with Lilly as well. On a regular basis she witnesses how the kids interact together and how we interact with them. She has been able to guide us with referrals to programs that may help and even recommendations on how some counseling may not hurt to see if we can continue with positives on this road that we are on.

We truly from the bottom of our hearts appreciate everything that Becky assists us with and all the guidance that she is able to give to us. Without assistance from this program we may not have seen such leaps and bounds in the behavior and progress of our children. Thank You.

Nurturing Parenting

Starpoint's