‘Great Expectations’ for the former Family Visitor Programs with name change, new support services

Immediately after pretty much 40 years as the Household Visitor Programs, the Glenwood Springs-based mostly nonprofit group serving mothers and fathers of newborns and toddlers is going through a identify modify.

The new name — Great Expectations — embraces a modify for the corporation as it expands to offer parenting assist groups this summer with funding from the countrywide method, Circle of Mother and father, Government Director Andrew Romanoff claimed.

“Family Visitor has served us nicely, but as we expand past our home traveling to products and services we preferred a identify that demonstrates a broader scope,” Romanoff explained.

“We surveyed our purchasers a few of months ago and, in addition to saying they would advocate our family members customer services to other family members, they also questioned what we could do past those property visits to assistance younger families,” Romanoff explained.

Circle of Mother and father is offering a multi-calendar year grant to enable manage guidance teams in Garfield, Pitkin and western Eagle counties, tapping into the knowledge that moms and dads on their own can share with some others.

Great Expectations also aims to raise $16,000 this thirty day period in support of the hard work.

In the same way, area faculties, by way of their Loved ones Source Centers, offer you help team courses for parents of older, college-aged kids.

“Our focus on is the new mothers and fathers of small children below the age of 3, which has a unique established of difficulties,” Romanoff mentioned.

In addition to the new guidance teams, the firm is hiring new staff members to grow its household visitor and childrens’ wellness services, which include two nurses and two additional dwelling visitors.

“All of them, like most of our new staff members, are bilingual,” Romanoff stated. “We want to establish a workforce that demonstrates the local community we provide.”

Romanoff is also bilingual in English and Spanish, and the organization’s board of directors now contains 6 Latina members.

With the expanded solutions, Wonderful Anticipations has a target to increase the selection of families it serves in the area by 50%. The Relatives Visitor Packages served 250 households in 2021, even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Romanoff noted.

“As with anything we do, the new mother or father assist groups will be no cost to the family members we provide,” he mentioned.

Very last yr, Terrific Expectations also introduced a new tuition guidance mortgage program as a way to entice new nurses. Some of the new hires are the latest Colorado Mountain College or university nursing program graduates, and other personnel have applied the financial loan plan to continue on their educations in other parts, Romanoff reported.

Details of the new parenting guidance groups will be declared this summer time when the software is rolled out, he claimed.

Senior Reporter/Controlling Editor John Stroud can be attained at 970-384-9160 or jstroud@postindependent.com.