The Hospital of Central Connecticut's Family Enrichment Center helps families achieve parenting goals through a blend of services.
The Family Enrichment Center’s staff are highly trained in child development, parenting, group work and community-based outreach. The Family Enrichment Center is located on the campus of The Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain. The Family Enrichment Center is spacious and offers homey, comfortable environments for the entire family, including a playroom equipped with interactive toys.
The Family Enrichment Center provides services to enhance parent child interaction via, groups and one-on-one connections, in your home and/or virtually.
The Family Enrichment Center services are modeled after the nationally recognized evidenced based Parents as Teachers curriculum. Parents as Teachers curriculum is designed to support families in learning more about child development, health and safety, and getting their child ready to start school. Parents as Teachers services can start any time before the child starts kindergarten, including during a parent’s pregnancy. These services reach pregnant women, expectant fathers, and parents and caregivers of children under the age of 5.
The Family Enrichment Center services also include Parenting Connections. Parenting Connections are groups that include topics on parenting, relationships, development, nurturing, discipline and creative play experiences.
The Family Enrichment Center recognizes that parents-to-be need a lot of support and information as they prepare for their little one.
Specifically for our communities’ young mothers (20 and under) the Family Enrichment Center offers unique services.
Family Enrichment Birth Doula will provide support to our community’s pregnant young mothers during this important time in her life. The support of our Duala is offered one on one for an individualized supportive experience and with groups.
The Birth Doula will provide consistent communication and support throughout pregnancy and at labor. Expecting moms will have the opportunity to create a birth preference plan to share with medical providers, and her birth team.
This continuation of support with accurate information, emotional support and encouragement, seeks to empower young mothers to advocate for their needs and wishes surrounding the birthing experience.
The Family Enrichment Center & HOCC’s OBGYN Ambulatory Clinic: provides a unique supportive care model for prenatal patients 20 and under. Patients can receive comfortable, confidential, and teen friendly prenatal care. This prenatal care model offers teens support around their prenatal appointments. This support includes encouragement in asking questions and getting answers in a way that empowers to fully understand the changes happening in their bodies. Additionally, this service supports the teen by making any necessary referrals to help in caring for themselves and planning for their little one’s arrival.
The Family Enrichment Center offers a wide variety of prevention services for teenagers, ages 13-20.
Support for Pregnant and Parenting Teens: For our parents 20 and under, the Support for Pregnant and Parenting Teens (SPPT) services seek to assist young parents in their development of this new parenting role. Through connections to counseling, coaching and academic support our team works to help teen parents achieve their academic goals. We work together to support the balancing of parenting and school.
Specialized Teen Services: Being a teenager isn’t always easy. It’s a time of rapid physical and mental development when adolescents are shaping their identity, becoming aware of their sexuality and looking for independence. The Family Enrichment Center offers a wide variety of services for teenagers, ages 13-20. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teenagers in the United States are less likely to receive preventative health services – compared to younger children and adults.
Parents or teens can reach out to the Family Enrichment Center if they are in need of help or guidance. Some of the services, which are offered in both English and Spanish, include:
- Individual coaching
- Social support groups
- Academic support
- Short and long term life planning
- Birth control and reproductive education
- Evidence-Based Prevention Workshops
- Additional community resources as needed
The Family Enrichment Center partners with Centralized School District of New Britain and Klingberg Family Center, in providing Evidenced Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programming. This is a city wide initiative known as Youth Empowerment Services of New Britain also referred to as the YES! Initiative.
This federally funded initiative by the Office of Population and Affair and Partners in Social Research was designed to combat the city of New Britain’s Department of Public Health statistics in significantly high rates of first and second teen pregnancies and STI’s for those ages 15-25. These rates exceed both state and national averages demonstrating the need for a new more innovative approach to providing reproductive health education for the city of New Britain.