PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Free help is being offered to families with children — prenatal through three years old — through a Philadelphia Department of Public Health program called "Philly Families CAN."
Lonnese Bodison, healthy families director at Maternity Care Coalition, said the new program helps assist parents by connecting them with voluntary support for their young children through home visits.
"Home visiting programs offer many benefits for families such as promoting health, safety, literacy and family self-sufficiency," said Bodison.
Jennifer Stavrakos, senior program officer at the William Penn Foundation, added home visits provide personalized care.
"The expertise, care and commitment of home visitors and family service providers helped thousands of Philadelphia children every year to have a better start to life," she said.
The program provides a number of services, according to its home visiting coordinator Stephanie Foster.
"They offer prenatal, postpartum support, breastfeeding support, stages of child development education, parent-child activities, community resource connections, pre-K readiness and kindergarten and other supports," she detailed.
Since the programs are centralized, Bodison said, "Families will no longer have to contact various agencies and programs and answer the same questions that determine eligibility."
Stavrakos said the aim of the program is "to support healthy babies, positive parenting and high impact learning activities, which are all crucial to ensure that a child is on a path to success."