BERRIEN SPRINGS — Berrien Regional Education Service Agency’s Parents as Teachers program has earned a prestigious endorsement by Parents as Teachers National Center as a Blue-Ribbon Affiliate, recognizing it as one of the top performing early education and home visiting affiliates within the international Parents as Teachers network. The official designation was made on Oct. 1.

Berrien RESA’s PAT program is a part of the home visitation and parent education field, implementing the evidence-based Parents as Teachers model with fidelity.

Families in Berrien County are impacted by the services delivered by this program, which include home visits, group connections, child screening and connections to community resources, equipping parents with knowledge and resources to prepare their children for a stronger start in life and greater success in school.

To earn Blue Ribbon recognition, PAT staff members completed the intensive quality endorsement and improvement process through the Parents as Teachers National Center throughout the past year. To earn the endorsement, the Berrien RESA program met all the Parents as Teachers essential requirements and at least 75 percent of the Parents as Teachers quality standards. Berrien RESA’s program met the requirement as well as 90 out of the 100 state standards. The designation as a Blue-Ribbon affiliate is good for five years, until Sept. 30, 2021 as long as the program continues to meet the essential requirements.

“We are thrilled to have earned this designation,” said Kerenda Applebey, director of Berrien RESA’s Early Childhood Education Department.  “We know that parents are children’s first and most influential teachers.  In an effort to promote the best experiences possible, it was important that we could validate that we were offering home visiting services of the highest quality. By achieving the Blue-Ribbon Affiliation status, we know that we are not only meeting national expectations, but exceeding them. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, parents and their children are now well on their way to enjoying future educational success.”

Berrien RESA will be celebrating the program’s achievement from noon to 1 p.m. Monday, Dec. 11 at the Berrien RESA Administrative Conference Center, 711 St. Joseph Ave. in Berrien Springs. Invited to attend the celebration are area dignitaries, as well as Renee Demars-Johnson, Michigan Department of Education’s Director of Early Childhood Development and Family Education, as well as Cynthia Zagar, senior professional development and training coordinator for the Michigan Public Health Institute (which oversees Parents as Teachers programming in the state). 

The presentation will be followed by the district’s regular December board of education meeting where Applebey and her team will outline details of the Quality Endorsement and Improvement process.

Berrien RESA’s Parents as Teachers  Program is a free service that is offered to families in Berrien County who are pregnant or have children under the age of 3. To learn more, visit berrienresa.org/pat. 

Parents as Teachers is an international, non-profit organization that promotes optimal early development, learning and health of young children.  Parents as Teachers provides an evidence-based home visiting model and is a center for innovation in promising practices. Parents as Teachers designs and develops quality research-based and evidence-informed curricula and trainings for early childhood family support professionals.