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18 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • April 2019 Ask the Expert a sk t h e e x p e rt Q: Can you explain your respective programs and what they do? Alison Standring – Part C Coordinator, Parent Education - Infant Development Program (PE-ID): The Parent Education - Infant Development Program provides early intervention services to infants and toddlers from birth to age 3 who have a developmental delay or disability. Services we provide are occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech language therapy, developmental edu- cation and service coordination. We receive referrals from parents, pediatricians, hospitals, social services and other RACSB programs. More often than not it's the parent who calls us because the pediatrician recommended our services to them. We regularly visit the parents and children in our program and offer strategies parents can use to help their child between visits. We are there to help the parent help the child. Davy Fearon Jr. – Program Manager, Healthy Families Rappahannock Area We are a living, breathing instruction manual for parents of young children. We are a nationally accredited program that supports families through in- home visits. Our mission is to empower parents to raise healthy children. One way we do that is by reducing the stresses that our parents face. Our enrollment criteria is based on stressors. It's not based on income. The level of income just plays into the amount of stress that one could have. There are so many things that can affect the level of stress a parent is under. They could be new to the area with no social support. They could have a child with a developmental delay and not know what to do. They could have mental health, substance abuse, financial, food or housing insecurity. We can refer families to other services that can help them, and we continue to support them as they work with these other programs. Community partnerships are huge to us, because we can't do it all. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. A strong family is one of the strongest protective factors for a child who may be at risk for abuse. The Rappahannock Area Community Services Board is home to many programs that support parents, families and children, with the overall goal of preventing child abuse and other negative outcomes for children in the Fredericksburg region. We sat down with leaders of two of those programs – Healthy Families Rappahannock Area and the Parent Education - Infant Development Program. They offer valuable perspective and practi- cal advice that can help us all protect children in our community by strengthening parents and families. COMMUNITY SERVICES BOARD RAPPAHANNOCK AREA INTERVIEWED BY EMILY FREEHLING