For many people, expecting a child, along with the first crucial few years of being a parent, is a time filled with love, celebration, bonding, and excitement. It can also be a time of great stress for parents, caregivers, or expecting parents who are struggling with life-changing challenges.

HopePHL's Parents as Teachers (PAT) Home Visiting program is for parents and caregivers of children from birth to three years old, or those expecting a child who are facing housing instability such as temporary living, foreclosure, eviction, landlord challenges, etc.

There are many stories of hope and strength that come from the Parents as Teachers program where parents are given the resources to be their best selves as well as advocate for their children like the ones below (names have been changed for privacy).

The home visiting model of Parents as Teachers is successful as each family is paired with their very own parent educator who can provide them activities to strengthen parent-child interaction, development-centered parenting, and family well-being. Along with these focuses, the educators are able to provide health and developmental screenings, parent group connections and resources for both parents and children.

Parents as Teachers aims to provide support and resources to these families so that they can grow, thrive, and be able to more easily enjoy times with their family. At HopePHL we want to give each parent the tools to be successful as are their child's first and best teacher!

Heritage West: the West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project, a collaboration among HopePHL, Penn Museum, and local community groups, set up at the Community Education Center (CEC) on Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia on September 15 as part of (Park)ing Day. The Community Education Center was at one time a Quaker Friends School, and later, a Meetinghouse. Heritage West organizers were excited to invite community members passing by to join their archaeology dig! Three different excavation sites were being worked on at once: a parking spot where three brick rowhomes once stood before the bulldozing of the neighborhood in the 1960s, a space adjacent to the CEC building that was once a stand-alone house, and the final excavation site right in front of the CEC where the school once stood. Different discoveries during the dig gave a glimpse into the past and history of this location such as glass and ceramics.  

HopePHL facilitated a meeting of staff members from shelters and supportive housing programs across the city on September 15 to discuss best practices and services that benefit children ages pre-natal through five years. The goal was to create a document that identifies what all shelters should provide to children and urge all programs to embrace these standards. 

BELL Manager, Omari Baye explains, “One of our primary goals was to get a sense of environmental program changes and the acuity of families being served throughout the emergency housing systems." He continues, "Since COVID, the landscape and experiences of families residing in supportive housing programs have changed, with enrollments in emergency housing reportedly reaching pre-pandemic levels. BELL aspires to always remain nimble so that we might best meet the needs of our provider partners and the families they serve." 

Villanova students partnered with HopePHL for St. Thomas of Villanova’s Day of Service! The students helped to clear out and organize one of HopePHL’s residential buildings designed for artists. This created space for meetings, events, and a place to showcase the work of artists living in the building.

To go along with the newly organized space, the students help was able to free up some time for our HopePHL team, who were then able to focus their energy on updating a previously covered window with artwork from local artist Emmanuel Olufemi Olatunji ("Femi") and pictures of our community members.

Although the rainy weather prevented the students and HopePHL team from getting started on an outdoor painting project, we hope to host more Villanova students in the future to help take this project on!

Building Early Links For Learning (BELL) team members, Sarah Vrabic and Omari Baye, co-authored a new peer-reviewed study by the Cambridge University's journal of Development and Psychopathology. The findings demonstrate that when shelters focus on early development, families do better: young children are more likely to access high quality early childhood programs and some are less likely to go into foster care. BELL has produced high rates of early childhood program enrollment, specifically in high-quality programs at 42.3%.

If you would like a copy of the full report please reach out to hello@hopephl.org