St. Louis, MO, Nov. 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Parents as Teachers National Center (PATNC) is pleased to announce that Ballmer Group -- the chief philanthropic vehicle of Connie and Steve Ballmer -- has committed $2.7 million for the continuation of the non-profit’s Building Capacity for Quality initiative, which is aimed at deepening services to targeted audiences and supporting PATNC’s network of affiliates.
The money will help Parents as Teachers National Center leverage technology to lead, innovate, learn, and evolve in how it supports families, the PAT network of parent educators and affiliates, and the broader home visiting field. PAT will receive the funding over the next three years.
"Parents as Teachers does critically important work supporting families during the foundational years of child development," said Dr. Raychael Jensen, National Director of Early Childhood & Families at Ballmer Group. “We are proud to support Parents as Teachers’ commitment to continually improving their practices, particularly for families facing systemic barriers and inequities. We applaud Parents as Teachers’ forthcoming work to engage fathers, better support families involved in child protective services, and reduce the disparities in health outcomes for BIPOC moms and babies.”
Ballmer Group’s donation is the second multi-million-dollar gift, following a $2.55 million grant in 2018. The earlier gift allowed PATNC to hire additional staff and build greater capacity to support the 1,300 partner organizations that deliver home visits to more than 220,000 families nationally, each year.
With the new funding, PATNC will be able to deepen services targeting families in three areas:
- Engaging fathers in the parenting and early child development process
- Supporting families involved in child protective services
- Reducing maternal and infant mortality and morbidity.
The funding will also allow PATNC to develop tailored curriculum materials for parents and professionals, as well as professional development, implementation support, and data collection resources.
“At a time when charitable dollars are scarce and even more difficult to acquire, private philanthropy, like Ballmer Group’s extraordinary gift, is critical in helping us expand our reach to the tens of thousands of children and families that depend on our service,” said Constance Gully, the president of and chief executive officer of Parents as Teachers’ National Center. “We are extremely appreciative of Ballmer Group for its belief in what we do to strengthen families and especially grateful for the vote of confidence they have shown in Parents as Teachers with this second very generous and ongoing gift.”
The funding will inform Parents as Teachers’ service delivery, guide its program quality and fidelity, and support research and evaluation that identifies PAT’s impact on children and their families.
“This new gift will help us enable more affiliates to use the Parents as Teachers data collection system, thus increasing their access to essential data that inform service delivery to parents and their children,” said Gully. “We will create digital tools that can improve parent engagement with the PAT curriculum and their parent educators and inform the development of targeted curriculum resources. Together, these efforts will ultimately help us improve outcomes for families and children.”
Parents as Teachers’ work is centered around a prevention strategy, aimed at reaching families before a crisis hits and stopping the cycle of diminished outcomes for children. Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, the non-profit organization is a national leader in the field of home visiting, serving more than 220,000 families, the largest number of all home visiting models in the country.
PAT provides parent education and family support through home visits, offering child screenings and coaching that help parents understand their child’s development as families work towards self-sufficiency. Funding and technological enhancements will help position Parents as Teachers as a leader and innovators in the development of data-driven and research-informed practices that benefit families with young children.
“These new initiatives will directly improve the lives of families we serve, as well as advance the critical work of early childhood professionals and the broader home visiting and early childhood field,” Gully said.
About Parents as Teachers
Parents as Teachers (PAT) builds strong communities, thriving families, and children that are healthy, safe, and ready to learn by matching parents and caregivers with trained professionals who make regular personal home visits during a child’s earliest years in life, from pregnancy through kindergarten. The internationally recognized evidence-based home visiting model is backed by 35 years of research-proven outcomes for children and families. PAT currently serves nearly 220,000 families in 50 U.S. states, 115 Tribal organizations, five other countries, and one U.S. territory. Parents As Teachers National Center, Inc., is a non-profit organization headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, visit www.parentsasteachers.org. or Twitter @NatlPAT.
