PASADENA, Calif. – Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced that Foothill Family, a Healthy Families America (HFA) affiliate, has been accredited as a provider of high quality home visiting services to families who want to improve their child’s health, nutrition, and developmental outcomes. PCA America is a leading national child abuse prevention organization.
HFA is a signature program of PCA America that has been providing home visiting services for more than 20 years. Expectant and new parents have common questions about their child’s development. HFA connects with families through community partners like hospitals and pediatricians to find the answers to their questions, meeting within the familiarity and convenience of the family’s own home. HFA is an accessible, voluntary, and well-received service.
“At Foothill Family, we believe that prevention and early intervention is foundational to building brighter futures,” said Foothill Family Chief Executive Officer Steve Allen. “With programs like HFA in place to support families from their earliest stages, we help to set them on a path to success which develops confidence, strengthens bonds, and builds stability. Those are ingredients for healthy families, which are the backbone of thriving communities.”
“The American Dream starts with a happy, healthy childhood,” said Dan Duffy, President and CEO of PCA America. “As parents, we all have questions from time to time. Our HFA professionals offer evidence-based best practices to provide answers to questions, individualized support when needed most, and linkages to community services. As we congratulate Foothill Family we also recognize the state and community leadership that has contributed to success in the San Gabriel Valley and surrounding regions of Greater Los Angeles.”
The accreditation process is based upon a stringent set of 12 critical elements grounded in more than 30 years of research. The process involves an in-depth examination of the site’s operation, as well as, the quality of the visits made by HFA home visitors.
“Foothill Family’s Asher Center is proud to have earned accreditation through PCA America,” said Program Manager Regina Angelo-Tarango, who works at the Foothill Family Asher Center. “Each day, our HFA team works tirelessly to empower parents with tools and knowledge that have cascading benefits within families, throughout communities, and for generations to follow. The accreditation is a reinforcement that since we implemented the program in 2013, we have been doing impactful work, and we’re doing it well.” The Foothill Family HFA site in El Monte, California is located at 11204 Asher Street.
“We commend the Foothill Family Asher Center for opening itself up to such an intensive review process,” said Cydney Wessel, National Director of HFA. “We believe that all families and all communities deserve access to quality home visiting services.”
Home visitors in each community receive extensive training in a wide range of areas that can cause stress and worry to just about every new parent: caring for a new baby, ensuring the baby is receiving the nutrition needed, promoting healthy child development and coping with a myriad of other potential stresses, such as financial, housing, partner relationship, etc., that may become heightened with an addition to the family.
HFA is the sole topic featured in an issue of The Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community (Volume 34, Numbers 1/2 2007). The title of the issue is “The Healthy Families America Initiative: Integrating Research, Theory, and Practice,” and was edited by researcher Dr. Joe Galano. There are 11 distinct articles about various aspects of HFA and authors include a number of PCA America national office staff including Senior Director of Research, Kathryn Harding.
Foothill Family was founded in 1926 and provides a range of community-based mental health and social services to at-risk populations in the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys, Glendale, and Burbank. Its mission, to build brighter futures for children and families, has helped Foothill Family earn a reputation as a leader in providing high-quality services aimed at empowering families and strengthening communities. Programs include mental health services, early child development, school-based behavioral health care, and youth and family services including child abuse prevention and treatment, domestic violence prevention and treatment, services for pregnant teens and their babies, family counseling, and youth development. Last year, more than 24,000 children and their families benefited from Foothill Family’s life-changing programs and outreach. For more information, please call (626) 993-3000 or visit the website at www.foothillfamily.org.
PCA America was established in 1972 with the belief that child abuse and neglect is preventable. The not-for-profit, volunteer-based organization is committed to preventing child abuse in all forms through education, research, public awareness, and public policy development. Today, PCA America has 50 statewide chapters.
PCA America implemented the Healthy Families America (HFA) initiative in 1992 in partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities, building on two decades of research in the field of home visiting. HFA serves families of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, meeting the needs of close to 600 communities in 40 states, DC, the U.S. Territories and Canada.
Healthy Families America is an effective and proven evidence-based home visiting program according the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. PCA America is proud to support HFA and to be part of a national coalition of organizations dedicated to improving the home visiting field.