This One’s For You, Dan

I want to say “HI” to everyone from the Great Start Parent Coalition who is be reading this today. We met last night and talked about some of the early childhood issues in Kent County.  Please join us next time, more info is on the Great Start website.

One of the people  I met at the Coalition last night was Dan.  We found out that we have a common friend, Adam Imperato, who started the Grand Rapids Dad’s Group. I know Adam from waaaay back, when he was still hanging around with a bunch of chicks because he couldn’t find any other stay at home dads.

Dan and I got on the subject of the Child and Family Resource Council, and how to sign up to recieve the Ages and Stages questionairres, as well as the Connections calendar. I promised I would ‘blog’ about it as a Friday Feature, so here it is!

The Child and Family Resource Council offers a free program to parents with children ages 0-5 in Kent County.  Once you have signed up for the program, they send you the Ages and Stages Questionairres about every 8 weeks.  You complete them, send them back, and they send you an evaluation which helps you to determine if you child is on track, or if there may be some possible developmental delays occurring. 

It has been particularly helpful to me during the times of A.P.’s hearing loss issues and Maybelle’s failure to thrive diagnosis (note to the medical community; don’t put ‘failure’ in a diagnosis unless you REALLY want the parents to freak out).

There is a very valuable calendar of events that comes out periodically as well. Sign up is easy and can be done online here.

Connections also publishes a Family Resource Guide with TONS of local information worth checking out.

So there you have it! Please say hi if this is your first time stopping by, and don’t forget to sign up for email updates.

Thanks for reading!