Home visting programs help promote positive parenting behaviors in order to promote a healthy home environment. These programs can help prevent child neglect or abuse. In Memphis specifically, the Nurse-Family Partnership home visiting program has reduced health care encounters by 28% and hospitalizations for injuries of young children by 79%. The Nurse-Family Partnership program is just one of many home visiting programs.
One of the most distressing and challenging aspects of parenting is figuring out the best way to deal with a child’s aggression. Fortunately for parents, working with children to learn to control themselves during their earliest years has been shown to be the most effective way of preventing the development of behavioral issues as they mature.
Violence and conflict in the home can have detrimental consequences to a developing baby. A child does not have to be the direct recipient of the violence to be a victim. Simply experiencing a toxic home environment can produce negative consequences on a child. The more frequent and the more violent conflicts are, the more susceptible the child will be. The consequences, both physically and psychologically, of a chaotic home environment can last a lifetime.
Last week, Memphis hosted the 57th annual Tennessee Association for the Education of Young Children conference. Early childhood educators, researchers and clinicians from across the state came together to learn about early brain development, best practices in early childhood education, and child development from experts in a broad range of fields.
Like most urban systems, Memphis City Schools have demonstrated the kind of achievement numbers that keep school reformers up at night. One in three students fail to graduate, and those who continue remain far behind by all achievement measures. Just 4 percent of seniors score well enough on entrance exams to qualify to take college-level courses without remedial work.
Only 4% of Memphis City Schools seniors are ready for college, based on scoring at least 19 on the ACT, the college entrance exam taken by district seniors. In other words, of 6,774 seniors, only 271 are college ready. It’s a disturbing statistic that speaks to why closing the achievement gap should be a priority for Memphis and Shelby County.
