SHENANDOAH, Iowa (KMTV — It is National Home Visiting Week — all about celebrating the professionals dedicated to supporting families by working one-on-one with them in their own homes.
The Child and Family Resource Network in Council Bluffs specializes in coordinating these visits across nine counties in southwest Iowa.
They put me in touch with parent educator and home visitor Debbie Pope. I joined her as she paid a visit to the Freed family. She has been meeting with them for about four years now.
"They're always waiting at the door," Pope tells me.
"Yeah Miss Debbie comes twice a month to our house to do home visits. The girls love it because she always brings a fun activity for them," mother, Kathryn Freed said.
While the visits do include fun activities, they are geared toward making sure children are on the right track and reaching developmental milestones. If children are not reaching those milestones, the visits work toward getting them there.
"The sooner you can get those things going in a child's life, the sooner they will be on target and ready for school," Pope said.
The guidance provides a huge relief for mothers navigating modern parenting expectations.
"As a mother nowadays you're on social media and you'll see, 'Oh do this with your kid or if you're not doing this you're not good enough or at this age they should be doing xyz.' But Miss Debbie kind of takes care of that for us," Freed said.
"We also set goals. I set a learning goal with each family after every visit," Pope said.
"You're like, 'Oh we really need to do that.' Well I can say that for six months. But Miss Debbie is like, what are you going to do this next week to make that happen? And she's always full of resources as well," Freed said.
Freed isn't the only one who thinks highly of Pope. This National Home Visiting Week, Pope was nominated for Home Visitor of the Year.
"I think it is one of the greatest honors that I've been given during my lifetime," Pope said.
Pope's work extends beyond home visits. After her visit with the Freed family, she visited the Shenandoah Pregnancy and Resource Center and Shenandoah Medical Center to give out gift bags full of resources for new moms in southwest Iowa.
To learn more about the The Child and Family Resource Network, and the free programs and resources it provides, click here.
