Steven and Cindy are participants in our Dakota Healthy Families (DHF) home visiting program, which works to enhance parenting skills of first-time parents who live in Dakota County. DHF home visitors help create a family environment where children are safe, healthy and nurtured. They partner with parents to ensure that children are prepared for kindergarten. Steven says their DHF home visitor, Jennifer King, built a trusting relationship with them and helped demystify parenting for them.

“We met our home visitor two weeks after birth. We were both nervous but hopeful. We had many parenting questions to ask and not have the biased opinion of each of our families,” he says. “We appreciated that Jennifer just let us talk and voice our successes and concerns as we enter in to this new phase of family. Jennifer also offered non biased data driven practices that have supported our daughter’s development.

Steven says that support from the program has helped them be more intentional in their parent practices. “We are so fortunate to be a part of this program. Our daughter’s development has wowed many people. Her fluency, motor and cognitive skills all excelled as well as her self-regulation,” he says, “We have been able to shape our own family value system and culture with support of the program and Jennifer’s guidance.”