Deaconess Children's Services is excited to continue to provide Project Safecare to our clients for 2nd year

Deaconess Children’s Services' IMPACT program is excited to continue to be providing Project Safecare to our clients for the second year. Project Safecare works with parents to educate them with modules in three areas: health care, parenting infants and children, and home safety. This is an in-home program where case managers work on the curriculum with parents and their children one on one.

According to research carried out over a two year follow up period and presented in the journal, Child Maltreatment, families previously referred for child abuse and/or neglect, who participated in the in-home intervention, Project Safecare, had significantly lower reports of child abuse and neglect than families who did not receive this intervention. Parents participating in Project Safecare receive training in three aspects of child care: treating illnesses and maximizing their health-care skills (health), positive and effective parent-child interaction skills (bonding), and maintaining hazard-free homes (safety) for their children.

We are currently serving clients referred by the state as well as partnering with other organizations including YWCA’s Pathways for Women program to offer services to their clients. The families that we have worked with under this program have improved their knowledge of safety, health, and especially parenting skills. The skills that our clients have learned in Project Safecare have helped them to parent more positively and set appropriate boundaries for their children. We also have been able to help parents to learn the appropriate time to seek emergency medical care for their children, and obtain basic home medical supplies through this program. Our clients have appreciated this help and have been very excited to learn how to better care for their children. We currently have one staff member trained in this evidence based intervention and are looking forward to having another case manager trained in November. Right now we have new clients starting this program, so we will keep you updated as the year progresses.

A Story of Success with Project Safecare:

Susan has two young children between the ages of 0-5. When she was first referred to Deaconess for case management services, she was having difficulties getting the children down for naps and being consistent with them. After completing an assessment of her family’s strengths and needs, we began working on Project Safecare. Susan progressed quickly through the health and home safety modules and was very committed to the program. The parenting component of the program initially posed some challenges for Susan; however, she stuck with it. She practiced the parenting skills that she was taught in the program and began to ignore her children’s minor outbursts and give them more positive attention. She also started to follow through more consistently with consequences when they misbehaved. She said she found it really helped when she was consistent and when she got to spend individual time with both of her children; she also reported that they really enjoyed it too. By the end of the parenting module she was able to successfully demonstrate mastery of Project Safecare’s parenting skills and reported that she was more confident in parenting her children.