Making Healthy Happen for Every Family
Making Healthy Happen means helping everyone in the community improve physical, mental and spiritual health. We do this by treating illness and injury AND by promoting prevention and overall well-being through education and wellness programs like these:
Family Development Center Programs “meet parents where they are” from before birth to age six. Early Head Start serves families and children in Vernon and Manchester. Staff members conduct home visits to ensure families have diapers and infant nutrition. They coach parents through child rearing and child development with an emphasis on empowering new parents. Potty training guidance and connecting parents to other families in person and via video conference keeps families informed and engaged. All Family Development Center programs are funded by more than $1.84 million in annual state and federal grants.
Parenting Support Services is a “Positive Parenting Program” that helps strengthen parent/child relationships up to age 18. It serves parents dealing with difficult child behaviors, co-parents, families in reunification and foster, adoptive and kinship caregivers. Screening for post-partum depression and domestic violence are included. In addition, the program serves families in homeless shelters, connecting them to resources to find housing and other essential needs and services.
Family Resource Centers are located at Waddell Elementary in Manchester and Maple Street School in Vernon. Staff work with students and teachers to help make the school a positive youth development environment. The program provides coats and backpacks. It supports family childcare providers and offers referrals to after school care. It even includes mindfulness education like meditation and breathing exercises.
Nurturing Families Network supports first time parents with home visits from pre-natal to age six. It induces infant care and child development, developmental screening and connections to community resources, along with social/emotional support services for the parents.
The Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Program includes a Father Initiative element. Male staff work with fathers, uncles, grandfathers and others to provide male role modeling and father figure education. A state grant from the Office of Early Childhood works with dads in prison to help prepare them for the transition to home and family.
STEPP, Successful Teens Excelling as Parents and Partners, is coordinated with the Town of Manchester. The goal is to help teens focus on learning parenting skills, while advancing through their education and graduating from high school. Case management, parenting workshops, home visits and pregnancy prevention are provided to middle school and high school age teens.
Support from Prospect Medical Holdings, parent of ECHN, provides in-kind services for facilities and community engagement initiatives. Last year donations helped staff shop for Thanksgiving dinners for 70 deserving families in the community. Hospital staff conduct holiday toy drives to deliver age-appropriate toys to children and gift cards for families to purchase toys and food.
This is the fourth of a 4-part informational series designed to keep you informed of our future-focused momentum. All of us at ECHN take great pride in being your community care provider, and we understand the tremendous responsibility of improving the health and well-being of the people who live and work here. We are transforming healthcare for all of us.
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ABOUT ECHN
Eastern Connecticut Health Network operates acute care hospitals and emergency services in Manchester and Rockville, serving a region of over 300,000 people in 19 towns. Its affiliates include Manchester Memorial Hospital, Rockville General Hospital, ECHN Medical Group, Women’s Center for Wellness and the John A. DeQuattro Cancer Center. Dedicated to providing compassionate health care services in over 30 specialties, ECHN is training the next generation of physicians in primary care, osteopathic neuromuscular manipulative medicine and transitional year residency, and will be expanding our residency programs to include behavioral health. ECHN specialty programs include Breast Imaging, Diabetes care, Gastroenterology and Digestive Health, General Surgery, Heart and Vascular Services, Integrative Health, Maternity, Occupational Health, Pain Management, Primary Care, Pulmonary, Sleep Disorders, Stroke Care, Urgent Care, Wound Care and the Women’s Center for Wellness. Follow-up care services are supplemented by Visiting Nurse and Health Services of Connecticut. ECHN is a member of Prospect Medical Holdings, a national family of hospitals and health networks.
