| MountainStar will serrve over 200 children and their families through our Outreach and Therapeutic Classroom Programs this year. Prior to receiving services, all clients undergo an initial intake that includes an assessment of the child and family’s needs, risk factors and goals. Each family is then helped to develop an initial Family Plan that details their specific needs and expectations and serves as a benchmark for periodically assessing progress. At the conclusion of this assessment, families are assigned to either our Outreach Program or Therapeutic Classroom Program. |
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Outreach Program provides crisis intervention and ongoing services to high risk families that contact us and those waiting to enroll in our Therapeutic Classroom. All families in this program receive our core services, listed below. Staff provides ongoing support to the family through home visits, respite care, and safety monitoring on behalf of the child(ren). This program creates a supportive ‘safety net’ forvulnerable families where the risk of child abuse/neglect is high. A majority of our clients are served through this cost-effective system. |
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Therapeutic Classroom Program creates a safe, predictable, empowering environment where at-risk, distressed infants and children can thrive. Multiple classes are run throughout the day and are divided into three age-appropriate sessions: infants, 1-2 year olds, and 3-4 year olds. Our Infant class takes place once a week for three hours and includes weekly 1.5-hour home visits to help families learn about healthy child development, appropriate parenting behaviors and skills and stress management strategies. Our sessions for 1-2 and 3-4 year olds take place twice a week for three hours each and include monthly 1.5-hour home visits. Each class maintains a ratio of at least one staff to three children. The class curriculum is highly individualized so that each child is working toward addressing their specific issues and developmental delays. Staff conducts regular assessments of children’s progress toward developmental milestones and shares this information with parents on an ongoing basis. Children graduate from our program better equipped to succeed in preschool and kindergarten—socially, emotionally and developmentally. |
| Families in both programs are provided with the following core services: |
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Parent Support and Referral gives parents an opportunity to develop improved skills for dealing with family conflict, anger, depression, effective decision making and self-advocacy. We confront parents about the serious consequences of neglectful and abusive behaviors toward children, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and other behaviors detrimental to healthy family life and support them in connecting with the appropriate community resources. |
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Parent Skills Training provide families with an opportunity for ongoing discussion and support on the challenges of parenting young children as well as important information on child development, discipline, positive reinforcement, nutrition andhealth, family dynamics, and other topics. |
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Home Visits give parents an opportunity to translate learning and development that occur at our facility into the context of their daily lives and provides them the constant support they need to succeed. |
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Respite Care provides three hours of on-site care for up to 15 children one day a week. This program is geared to meet the needs of our highest stress families and those families whose children are not currently enrolled in our Therapeutic Classroom. |
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Basic Needs Support provides USDA meals twice a day for children enrolled in our therapeutic classes; supplementary food boxes to families; new and used clothing, toys and equipment; and additional support such as gas vouchers, car seats, help with utilities, etc. |
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Transportation is provided to a many of our children and families as many have no way to reach our facility. |
Our Support Community 