Healthy Marriage Initiative

Three words that have historically stricken fear into the hearts of liberals fearing right-wing "family-values" conspiracies: Healthy Marriage Initiative. Last fall, CMCA received a grant award of nearly $500,000 per year for the next five years as part of the Head Start Healthy Marriage Initiative. While I was ecstatic to receive that kind of funding, I was a little nervous about the implication that we might become a dating service, wedding chapel, or spiritual counselor . . . none of which fit with our new Strategic Commitments. As it turns out however, what we are really talking about is supporting healthy relationships to benefit children. I attended a meeting today to start forming a statewide healthy marriage (relationship) initiative in Missouri with Dr. David Schramm. Among the fascinating information we got, I learned that "intervention research demonstrates that parent-child relationship quality and child behaviors were improved more by "Couples Education" than by "Parent Education" (Cowan & Cowan). That certainly puts an interesting twist on our efforts to work with Parents As Teachers and our own Head Start home visiting model. One could go many different directions with research related to healthy relationships but we also heard about one I had never considered. We know that unhealthy relationships between the adults in a child's life can lead to negative effects like maltreatment, depression, unhealthy stress levels, physical illness, and economic hardship but it also effects a child's quality and quantity of sleep. Why does that matter? A child's sleep patterns is directly connected to their cognitive performance, academic achievement, physical health, body mass index, and psychological adjustment! This information blew my mind. Dr. Schramm, in his remarks, indicated that marital agression in a child's life is a factor in childhood obesity. That may seem like a stretch, but when you consider the list of effects we already knew about crises, violence, and aggression in the home (maltreatment, depression, unhealthy stress levels, physical illness, and economic hardship), these factors line up with causes of obesity. When the parents of children, married or not, do the right things for their kids, they are greatly enhancing that child's ability to be successful. I am proud that we are diving into this arena with our partners at the University of Missouri. Following are the benefits we expect for healthy relationships among the following groups:

Adults: lower stress levels, better healthy habits and practices, better mental health, better physical health, greater financial well-being.

Children: improved school performance, decreased emotional/behavioral problems, decreased substance abuse, criminal activity and risky sexual behavior.

Workplace: Better employees, lower absenteeism, greater work commitment, greater job stability, higher levels of productivity.

Families and Communities: more involved fathers, better parenting, financial stability, homeowners, volunteers in communities, fewer risky behaviors/criminality.

I suspect I have another blog posting or two on this subject. What are your thoughts?

Boonville Head Start Back in Action

Last night the Boonville City Council unanimously approved the plan to move Head Start into a new facility. This after more than a yearlong pursuit of new facilities. The old one deteriorated beyond repair after the December 2006 ice storm. After exploring more than 40 different properties the Head Start staff finally came back to me last summer to recommend the purchase of the Kemper Greens clubhouse. I visited the site and was impressed that we had found such a perfect location. It is the former clubhouse for the former Boonville golf course and is just the right size and shape to be perfect for a Head Start center. I remember traveling in August of last year and hiring a property lawyer over the phone and finalizing the contract prior to returning home. I thought we were ready to roll. Turns out however that I still had about five months of heartache in front of me. The golf course was purchased by a local partnership called GRM, LLC and they were really stepping up to help out the community by taking this vacant 52 acre property off the hands of investors that would have otherwise been sunk. They had this great idea to develop the land into about 13 acres of high end single family homes and the rest would be commercial, retail properties. As such, they had it rezoned as a mixed use zone. The first of its kind in Boonville. That's where CMCA comes in. Rather than tear down the clubhouse to build a pharmacy, we suggested, why not sell us the clubhouse and about 2 acres for our Head Start center. This looked good to the developers because it meant they'd have a sale on their hands to kick-start their development. Looked good to us because it is a great location and practically move-in ready. Being the first sale in a first-of-its-kind development has its drawbacks though. The City Council has been very cautious to proceed because they want to make sure this development is everything it was cracked up to be. Long story short, we had to work with GRM's engineer to redraw the site plan for the 2 acres, negotiate a transfer agreement that essentially transfers the responsibility of the developer regarding road development and infrastructure to us proportional to our portion of the total development, attend multiple Planning and Zoning meetings to defend our plan, and attend City Council hearings up to approval last night. On top of all of this, at least one Council member worried outloud about CMCA's ability to meet its obligations and GRM's capacity to hold up its end of the deal. In the end, I think the Council is more in tune with Head Start than they were before. In fact, several Council members asked about the need for more Head Start slots. I'm pretty sure this is finally going to work out. Andy Prevo is starting to work on some minor upgrades to the building and I'm hoping to get our Boonville families into that facility within a few weeks. In the meantime, Krescenz Hundley and the Head Start staff have proven their mettle by keeping those families involved using the home-based model and even setting up temporary quarters at First Baptist Church. Real leadership shines in a crises and Krescenz has outshined them all for the last year.