Wednesday, Nov. 8, is National Parents as Teachers Day, and the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) is honored to support 64 Kansas Parents as Teachers (PAT) affiliates across the state.

A map of the Kansas PAT affiliates can be found at Kansas Parents as Teachers (ksde.org). The complete directory of Kansas affiliates is available at 2023-2024 Parents as Teachers Kansas Directory (ksde.org).

Kansas PAT affiliates work hard every day to provide quality home visiting services to families and children enrolled in Parents as Teachers, said Lisa Williams, a PAT consultant on KSDE’s Early Childhood team.

“Through ongoing training and professional development, parent educators tailor personal visit services to each family enrolled in PAT,” Williams said. “Tailored and individual curriculum and resources help the family meet their personal goals and prepare themselves and their child to begin their educational journey. Intentional visit preparation and design allow parent educators and families to work together to determine what is best to support the child.”

Last year in Kansas, trained PAT professionals engaged with 6,178 families, including 8,323 children. Those families were served with 56,506 personal visits.

Parent educators last year helped families identify 2,355 potential health or development delays in children. Early identification of potential concerns allows for increased monitoring and follow up if needed, Williams said. Identifying additional support early in children’s lives helps them meet their full potential as they enter kindergarten.

About 11.5% of Kansas PAT families were enrolled prenatally, giving families the full support they desire to prepare for their child’s important early and formative years.

The evidence-based personal visit model utilized in PAT provides a wide array of services to families with children from prenatal through kindergarten and also offers insights into early childhood development, Williams said. Since 1984, the model has been rigorously tested by peer-reviewed studies and shown to produce outstanding results for families.

PAT is delivered by trained professionals who engage with families to help children achieve early childhood goals and be prepared for kindergarten.

There are four components to the PAT model – personal/home visits, group connections, child and caregiver screenings and resource networks.

When used together, the model supports families and children in the following goals:

• Increasing parent knowledge of early childhood development and improving positive parenting practices.
• Providing early detection of developmental delays and connection to services.
• Improving parent, child and family health and well-being.
• Preventing child abuse and neglect.
• Increasing children’s school readiness and success.
• Improving family economic well-being.
• Strengthening community capacity and connectedness.

National Parents as Teachers Day was started by the Parents as Teachers National Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The organization declared the first Parents as Teachers Day in 2001. It is a day to recognize the organizations that offer educational services to parents across the country and around the world so that they may be able to better support a child’s learning and growing. National Parents as Teachers Day acknowledges the important role that parents play in the initial education of their child’s life.