Help Me Grow extends free early childhood resources to Northeastern Wisconsin
Help Me Grow, a network of community resources that aims to help young children thrive, has now expanded into Northeast Wisconsin.
Help Me Grow was first brought to Wisconsin in 2020 with the Help Me Grow Fox Valley system. Since then, Help Me Grow has seen two major expansions: the Help Me Grow Kenosha system and, now, the Help Me Grow Northeast Wisconsin system.
Barb Tengesdal, executive director of First 5 Fox Valley, the organization that runs Help Me Grow Wisconsin, explained that this latest expansion — which covers Brown, Kewaunee, Oconto, Door and parts of Shawano counties — will allow even more families and child care providers to easily access local early childhood resources. All Help Me Grow services are free.
“Currently, we have done over 7,000 developmental screenings just in the Fox Valley area, and we have over 4,000 families in our Help Me Grow system here in the Fox Valley,” Tengesdal said. “So we’re excited that as these expansion sites get started, we can share (resources) with other communities.”
Related:5 steps Wisconsin parents can do to set their kindergartner up for success as they start school
Related:Is 4K right for your child? Educators and parents share insight on this tough decision.
What is Help Me Grow?
Help Me Grow is a national evidence-based model that consists of an interconnected system of programs from a variety of sectors. Together, these programs work to promote early childhood development and collect related data. Because each community has its own slew of early childhood resources, no two Help Me Grow systems look exactly the same.
How does Help Me Grow serve Wisconsin families?
In the Fox Valley, some of the many entities within the network that families and child care providers can be connected with include Early Intervention Birth to 3, Family Services with the Parent Connections program, and health systems such as ThedaCare and Catalpa.
The network allows Help Me Grow Fox Valley to support families in a variety of ways, including helping them find dental or vision screenings, mental health support, information on immigration and citizenship and more, such as parent information on child development and related screenings, Tengesdal said.
Each family Help Me Grow Fox Valley serves is assigned a "navigator." Currently, the Fox Valley system has eight navigators based within community partners. For example, one navigator works out of ThedaCare, another through Waupaca County Health —so Help Me Grow can meet families where they already are, Tengesdal explained.
Often, navigators use Ages and Stages Questionnaires to pinpoint specific areas of concern and provide targeted support such as activities or best practices to families and child cares (with the family’s permission) to help children reach milestones. The results also help determine what, if any, referrals to make. These screenings are free of charge. Navigators periodically follow up to track families’ progress.
“We don’t do any diagnosing; we just screen and then support families,” Tengesdal noted.
How does Help Me Grow Northeast Wisconsin operate?
Help Me Grow Northeast Wisconsin operates in the same manner as its Fox Valley counterpart.
“What we’ve learned here in the Fox Valley System is now being replicated and scaled in the Northeast,” Tengesdal said.
Family and Child Care Resources of Northeast Wisconsin (FCR N.E.W.) serves as a centralized access point for the northeastern part of the state. Community members should call FCR N.E.W. at 920-432-8899 to start getting connected to resources through Help Me Grow.
Additionally, FCR N.E.W. currently houses two navigators; one specifically works with homeless populations, another with child care programs.
Encompass Early Education and Care Inc.’s Child and Classroom Advocate Program aims to help Encompass children and families get the resources they need to be successful. It employs child and family advocates to help meet this goal. Now, those advocates are also Help Me Grow navigators with the Northeast Wisconsin system.
“The connection to Help Me Grow Northeast Wisconsin will elevate the capacity of connection to community resources in Northeast Wisconsin,” said Encompass Executive Director Missy Schmeling.
More:Every parent has questions at times about raising kids. This new text service in Wisconsin can help.
What's next?
While Help Me Grow Northeast Wisconsin now offers a full range of services to families, it's also expanding the use of Wisconsin’s Help Me Grow database for navigators. Tengesdal expects it to be fully functioning by the end of October.
This means that Northeast Wisconsin families’ information, with parents’ consent, can be entered into a database to help local navigators continue to effectively work with families. The information includes results of developmental screenings, followups, supports that Help Me Grow has implemented, referrals and more.
Tengesdal likened the system to a “power grid,” as all Northeast Wisconsin navigators will be able to access it and draw inspiration from others’ cases.
Tengesdal said even more expansions will be in Help Me Grow Wisconsin’s future.
“The goal is, at some point. to expand statewide to get a statewide look at how kids are doing developmentally and how to support families as they’re raising their children under the age of 5,” Tengesdal said.
A Help Me Grow Wisconsin director, Jessica Schneider, is scheduled to start the week of Sept. 18 in the new position, to aid with these expansion efforts.
What if I live in an area not currently covered by Help Me Grow?
Families in parts of Wisconsin not currently under the Help Me Grow system can reach out to Help Me Grow Wisconsin, support@helpmegrowwisconsin.org or 922-422-5437.
“We’ll bend over backwards to find out what they need and where they need to go even if we don’t have Help Me Grow in that area yet,” Tengesdal said.
Madison Lammert covers child care and early education across Wisconsin as a Report for America corps member based at The Appleton Post-Crescent. To contact her, email mlammert@gannett.com or call 920-993-7108. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to Report for America.