Principal Investigator: Myra Parker, PhD
Grant Title: Ina Maka Family Program
Sponsor: United Indians of All Tribes Foundation
Project Period: 12/16/11 – 6/30/13
The United Indians of All Tribes Foundation UIATF in Seattle, Washington, will assist families in improving the long term social and health outcomes for Native children by providing support and an intervention to their parents through a comprehensive home visiting program tailored for the Native community. For the last 40 years, UIATF has been the premier community based agency in the provision of services customized specifically to the educational and social needs of Indian children through a variety of programming. These programs include Early Head Start, Head Start, Indian Child Welfare, children’s mental health therapy, and interventions for at-risk parents and infants.
UIATF will utilize an evidence-based home visiting model to deliver a culturally-appropriate intervention that emphasizes the critical role of parents in the long-term success of their children both before birth and during the formative early childhood period of birth through five years. UIATF will include programming that integrates critical information regarding the health; physical, cognitive, and emotional development; economic supports, and other ancillary, and social service delivery into a home visiting curriculum tailored specifically for Native families in King County, Washington.
The first year of the project will serve as an opportunity to extract and collect data to formulate the tribal home visit needs assessment, develop an intervention model utilizing the Community Advisory Committee, and draft an evaluation to ensure a sustainable tribal home visit program for the urban AIAN community in King County, WA. With guidance from our partner research institution, the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute at the University of Washington, we will produce the community needs assessment and use that as our framework to identify and develop an evidence based home visiting program that resonates with tribal families and children while maintaining fidelity to evidence based practice.