About GKI

Growing Great Kids™ Prenatal - 36 Months:

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A Parenting, Attachment, Child Development and Family Strengthening Curriculum and Training Program

• Primary focus on growing nurturing, empathic parent-child relationships and secure attachments
• Builds 6 essential parenting skills
• Includes comprehensive child development activities package
• Grows family foundations with a series of family strengthening modules
• Culturally competent and father friendly
• Skill driven Certification Seminar with hands-on practice with families
• Includes a 2-year, post training, in-house professional development program

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What Distinguishes Growing Great Kids from Other Parenting and Child Development Curricula?

1. Specialized strategies for motivating overburdened parents to nurture their infants and young children and to support their early learning and development.
2. Modules focused on helping families to identify and to work toward realizing their values, cultural heritage and dreams for their children.
3. Strong emphasis on developing parental empathy and supporting parents in responding sensitively to the needs and development of their children.
4. Focus on raising children who are self confident, respectful and capable as adults.
5. Each module gives step-by-step interactive questions to actively engage parents with the materials so they do not feel they are being given advice or being talked down to.
6. Supports staff in developing the skills needed to address difficult issues with families.
7. More than a curriculum. It is also a staff development program. Supervisors learn how to build staff competence and confidence in 6 areas.
8. Has been field tested with staff who speak English as a second language. It has dramatically changed not only the content of their visits and parent groups, but also has resulted in staff feeling much more confident and proud about the work they are doing.
9. Has been Medicaid certified in various states.
10. Contextualized for developing countries.

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What is Growing Great Kids?

Beginning prenatally, Growing Great Kids is a comprehensive curriculum that supports the development of nurturing and empathetic parent-child relationships for 0 to 3 year olds. It does so by focusing on child development and health, provision of care, parenting concerns and dynamics of parent-child and family relationships.

For Every 3 Months of the Child's Development, There are 6 Modules Addressing:

• Basic Care
• Social and Emotional Development
• Cues and Communication
• Physical and Brain Development
• Play and Stimulation
• Parents' Corner

Each of these modules is designed to support learning by anchoring the information in activities and interactive discussions.

An exciting most practical addition, specifically designed for home visitors, parent coaches, and child caregivers, is the Growing Great Families manual with modules focused on family dynamics and supporting growth within the family system.

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How Do You Use Growing Great Kids?

Growing Great Kids is written to be inclusive of all family members and all individuals involved in raising a child. The curriculum can be easily adapted to meet the cultural needs of your families and communities.

The purpose of this curriculum is to integrate learning into parental practices and behaviors. This curriculum can be used either during home visits or with parent groups, depending upon family dynamics or group size. Each module will take 1 to 3 visits/sessions to complete.

The curriculum includes handouts for parents, unit certificates of completion for parents and documentation records specific to each module.

Growing Great Kids Prenatal - 36 months Curriculum is available in both English and Spanish.

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Why Use Growing Great Kids?

Beginning prenatally, Growing Great Kids provides a "how to" guide, or roadmap, for supporting parents and developing parenting competencies. It provides a structure for each home visit or group, and takes the "guess work" out of parent contacts and supervision. Growing Great Kids puts difficult concepts into simple language by offering examples of words you could use, and the “how-to’s” in the following areas:

• Building relationships with families that focus on program goals
• Growing parental empathy and nurturing relationships
• Doing activities that support childhood health, growth and development
• Integrating the latest information on supporting early brain development into daily parenting practices
• Gaining an understanding of parental/family values
• Communicating to facilitate open discussion and parental empowerment
• Making age-appropriate toys from common household items
• Enhancing family relationships
• Extending families’ support systems
• Addressing concerns and exploring solutions
• Cultivating critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Promoting parental self-care and health

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How Does Growing Great Kids Build Staff and Supervisory Skills?

Growing Great Kids is more than a Curriculum.
It is also a Staff Development Program.

Growing Great Kids training builds supervisor skills in how to maintain focus on program goals while being strength-based and solution focused with staff and families.

The curriculum provides a framework for supervision specific to age appropriate development and parenting issues. Supervisors learn how to build 6 Key Home Visitor Competencies by using a 2-year post training professional development program included with the Growing Great Kids Certification Seminar.. (For a copy of these 6 Competencies for Home Visitors, please contact us.)

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Who Has Growing Great Kids Been Written For?

• Home visiting programs for parents of young children
• Community organizations and businesses offering parenting classes
• Department of Health Maternal Child Health Programs
• First Nations and Inuit Health Programs
• Native American Maternal Child Health Programs

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