A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Southwestern Pennsylvania Parental Assistance Center Project
Community Action Southwest

Community Action Southwest (CAS) has designed the Southwestern Pennsylvania Parental Assistance Center Project as a way to help parents provide learning support for their children to succeed in school. CAS is an experienced provider of services to families in poverty and to those facing educational disadvantages. Since 1965, this agency has organized and developed over 50 programs in the region, including Head Start, Even Start, English as a Second Language, and Women, Infants, and Children.

This project serves Washington and Greene Counties, located in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania. The area, once booming with industry, has experienced a 63% drop in the workforce in the past twenty years, resulting in a great increase in poverty. Greene County has the highest percentage of its population living in poverty of all counties in Pennsylvania.

The design of this project is based on the successful Even Start model developed by CAS in coordination with the West Greene School District. Coordinators are located in each of the counties and utilize existing school/community partnerships to better serve the families. In the first year of the program, the SWPA Parental Assistance Center will serve at least 200 families in 12 school districts. Within four years, the project will include families from all 19 districts of the region. Working in concert with the school districts, CAS, and local agencies, the Center will meet the following objectives:

1. Provide training and information for 200 parents on nurturing, rearing, and teaching their children by establishing a home base Parents as Teachers program in ten school districts. Parenting workshops are being offered in each district and an adult basic education and GED preparation program is being provided both in participants' homes and in small group sessions within communities.

2. Encourage better communication between parents and educational professionals (including administrators and teachers) through a liaison program and home visits. The project includes a transition program for parents of children entering kindergarten that promotes parent involvement in school activities.

3. Provide information about community programs and services available to children, parents, and educators to help meet the needs of the children in the community. Parent information resource rooms are being established in designated school facilities in each participating district and information is provided through a telephone information service and public access television broadcast from West Greene High School. A statewide resource center is also being developed in collaboration with Pennsylvania Even Start by identifying materials which have proven effective in meeting the needs of participating families.

4. Enhance the developmental progress of children by providing direct early childhood education activities to preschool children in participating families and engaging parents in activities designed to model things parents can do to help children learn.

Collaborators:

• West Greene Even Start
• Washington Even Start

Director:
Barbara Mooney
Community Action Southwest
22 West High Street
Waynesburg, PA 15370
Telephone: (412) 852-2893
Fax: (412) 627-7713
Award: $453,013
Affiliation: PAT

-###-

[Eagle Ridge Institute]

[Black Hills Special Services Foundation]