Family Health Promotion

The CODAC Family Health Promotion (FHP) program is a primary prevention program that offers a variety of interventions to children ages 3-8 and to their families. The program offers children developmentally appropriate activities in childcare, school, and recreation to help develop resiliency skills. Parents are encouraged to become involved in activities that enable them to increase protective factors. Participants requiring treatment services will receive them onsite. The central feature of the FHP is the family services team that serves as the integrating force of program. Specific program activities include the following:

- Training in resiliency and protective factors is provided to parents through home visitation. These visits occur once a month during year 1, twice a month during year 2, and as needed during year 3.
- Parent advisory council meetings.
- The S.T.E.P. Curriculum workshop series.
- Support groups.
- Family weekend activities.
- Training of school personnel on the Building Me program curricula and cultural competence.
- Implementation of the Building Me curriculum at the Connie Chambers Early Childhood Education Center.
- Transportation to the program.
- Art therapy sessions.

The goal of the FHP program is to seek seeks to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors in the child and family domains.

Most of the outcome data measures administered between 1996 and 1999 show that the CODAC Family Health Promotion program accomplished most of its behavioral and related programmatic goals. Analyses of 11 different measures suggest that FHP helps children become "school ready," reduces risk factors, and enhances protective/resiliency factors. For teachers, the teachers assessments, the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale, and the Early Screening Inventory all recorded positive improvement from pretest to posttest outcomes. There were also positive improvements in the outcome measures for parents in the Parenting Stress Index, resource utilization, satisfaction, and the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Use Survey. The Conners' Parent Rating Scale received mixed results.