Free or low-cost family programs are crucial to childhood development, local community leaders say.

“Anything we can do as a community that stimulates a child’s learning is going to help them, and it’s going to help their family,” said Karen Ulp, coordinator for the Early Care and Education Coalition of Northumberland County.

It’s important to have programs that allow families to set aside quality time to do things together, Ulp said, “because there’s just not enough of that today.”

Much of the responsibility to make these programs available lies with area businesses and other leaders, particularly legislators, she said.

“We need to get back to the roots, that family is most important — that parents are the child’s first educator,” Ulp said. “There is no other substitute. With the way our society is these days, families are very stretched, they have a lot of other demands placed on them, and kids may be lost in that.”

With at-risk children, such as those who live in one-parent homes or are economically disadvantaged, accessible community programs are extremely important.



Spending on the front end

“Law enforcement is passionate about spending on the front end, so we’re not spending so much later on,” said Bruce R. Clash, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania. If children are able to develop safely and properly, there is no doubt prison costs would decrease as a result, he said.

“We need to be as willing to guarantee our kids space and high-quality pre-kindergarten programs as we are to guarantee a criminal room and board in a prison cell,” Clash said.

There are certain components, he said, that can be seen in every successful program for young children — parental involvement and one-on-one mentoring.

The Northumberland County Head Start program also seeks to encourage the same. The comprehensive program offers education, medical, dental, mental and nutritional services for families, as well as referrals to early intervention, family literacy, Parent-Child Home and Parent-to-Parent programs.

“Anything that helps the parents would ultimately help the children,” said director Gayle Schlesinger.



School chief helps new parents

Mount Carmel School District Superintendent Cheryl Latorre has found a way to help parents who also happen to be students in the district.

“Many times, I will get a student who had a baby,” Latorre said. With subsidized care through Child Care Information Services, she said the district can provide funding to provide childcare for these parents, who may otherwise not be able to afford care. “Many times the mother only needs to pay $5 a day,” she said.

Latorre owns the day care where these children can be placed. “We do try to support anybody at the day care graduating from high school,” she said. The day care also provides meals, including baby food and formula.

An annual free Children’s Health Fair through Evangelical Community Hospital, Lewisburg, is another way for parents to make sure they are providing the right care for young children.

This year, the fair’s 20th anniversary, brought in more than 1,200 children. The event has become so big that it now encompasses almost all the common areas in the Susquehanna Valley Mall with its many vendors, games and hands-on activities for children.

“There are a lot of great organizations out there to help parents,” said Deana Carson, community health educator at the hospital, “and parents just don’t know what’s available.”



Library gets grant

The Priestley-Forsyth Memorial Library in Northumberland recently received a $5,000 Family Place Library Grant to revamp its children’s area, making it friendlier to young children and more informative for their families.

“It enabled us to set up a dramatic play area in the library,” said Kim King, youth services coordinator and assistant director of the library.

A new train table, small kitchen area, a writing desk and an extension of its parent resource collection have since been added to the second-floor children’s area. Beginning in October, the library will offer educational programs for parents, which will include professionals of early intervention programs who can answer questions such as when a child should be talking or crawling.

“We get information to parents who might not know where to call,” King said.

The programs also are good for the socialization of youngsters and networking for parents, King said.



Moms meet moms

Lebow Frey, Family Place coordinator at the Selinsgrove Community Library, agrees.

“It’s a great way for moms to meet other moms,” she said. “It’s good for children to be around those in the same age group. Kids learn from other kids, even though the child may not yet be crawling.”

The Selinsgrove library offers a special program for children from birth to 3 called Mother Goose on the Loose.

“We do a lot of repetitive actions,” Frey said. Rhyming, singing, playing instruments, reading, puppets and marching to the beat of a drum are regular activities at the weekly program.

“It tries to teach children in a positive, fun manner,” Frey said. “They don’t even realize they’re being taught things.”

The program teaches children early on about language and awareness.

“We can’t even imagine what a baby can really absorb when exposed to language,” Frey said.

The program, which averages about 12 families, will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays starting Sept. 22 in the community room, in the basement of the Selinsgrove borough building.



Plenty of playgrounds

The Valley also offers plenty of free outdoor community events and public playgrounds, such as Kidsgrove in Selinsgrove.

“It’s geared to younger kids, and they love it,” said Dick Norman, a park founder.

From swinging, climbing and sliding to a big play train with several cars, and even a mini-town with several buildings that each include educational hands-on activities, the park is perfect for kids to explore and develop in a safe environment.

“The mothers,” Norman said, “can sit and watch without having to worry about traffic.”