Because many lay home visitors experience life challenges not unlike those faced by the families they serve, we believe that empowerment and self-esteem building are a critical component of healthy family development. Home visiting programs nationwide are utilizing lay home visitors as a strategy to better serve families in a more culturally acceptable context. Enhancing the self-esteem of the home visitors can improve their ability to empower the families they serve.
Many lay home visitors are barely a step removed from the domestic violence, drug abuse, financial struggles, and mental health issues faced by the families they serve. To address our staff’s needs to vent their frustrations, cope with the stresses of their families, and provide overall support, we invited our mental health consultant to teach staff how to visualize, strategize, and deal with some of their own personal issues. From these sessions, our multi disciplinary team developed the Finding the Gold Self-Esteem Curriculum to use with our families. Our program evaluation has demonstrated a correlation between the number of times home visitors discussed self-esteem issues with needy families and improvement in their self-esteem.
The Curriculum was designed to provide support for the home visitor through scheduled activities and handouts that focus on self-growth topics. This new curriculum promotes self-improvement, positive thinking, relaxation techniques, positive attitudes and healthy lifestyles by providing the education and support needed to ensure successful pregnancies and healthy families.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to: 1. Understand implications of using lay home visiting staff to serve at-risk families 2. Learn strategies for building self-esteem in lay home visiting staff 3. Discuss the importance of self-esteem
Keywords: Curricula, Self-sufficiency and Empowerment
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Florida State University Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employment