Youth in Need to Receive Prize

The national Parents as Teachers office recently selected Youth In Need as one of three programs in the country to receive the Losos Prize for Excellence, a prestigious award that recognizes Parents as Teachers programs for their creativity in furthering the Parents as Teachers vision.

Sue Stepleton, President and CEO of Parents as Teachers, will present the Losos award to Youth In Need at the re-opening of its Wentzville Head Start and Early Head Start Center. The rededication ceremony will be held at 4:30 p.m. today at the Center, located at 1200 Continental Drive in Wentzville.

The will be on hand for the ribbon cutting.

The Center sustained considerable damage following storms last summer and is re- opening after nine months of reconstruction.

The Losos award includes a cash prize of $2,500 to be spent on furthering the Parents as Teachers vision. Youth In Need will use the award to send one staff member to the Early Head Start National Resource Center Program for Infant/Toddler Care Trainer Institute. The training’s goal is to help care-giving teachers recognize the importance of providing tender, loving care to infants, in an effort to support their intellectual development through an attentive reading of each child’s cues.

Youth In Need has incorporated the Parents as Teachers Born to Learn curriculum into its Head Start and Early Head Start programming since it became a Head Start provider in 1998.

At the beginning of Youth In Need’s Head Start service delivery, data showed that reaching disengaged and isolated families was a program challenge. In order to ensure that all families could access Head Start services, Youth In Need opted to employ a rarely used home-based option to reach these families. This program component brings teachers, or home visitors, into a child’s home on a weekly basis to help parents enhance their parenting skills and assist them in using the home as their child’s primary learning environment. Because that approach was considered unconventional in Missouri, Youth In Need began a partnership with Parents as Teachers and made its curriculum an essential element of the home-based program and staff training.

The agency operates 14 Head Start and Early Head Start locations throughout its multi-county service area (St. Louis City and St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren and Montgomery Counties).

Youth In Need, a member of the United Way of Greater St. Louis, is an eastern Missouri regional agency serving more than 11,000 children, teens and families each year with residential group homes, homeless street outreach, education, counseling and support groups, foster care case management and infant, child and family development programs.

Youth In Need’s mission is "Believing in the power of potential, Youth In Need’s mission is to provide nurturing environments and educational opportunities so children, youth and families will find safety and hope, achieve their goals, and build a positive future."

Youth In Need’s programs and services are funded, in part, by its 2010 Children’s Partners, including Monsanto as the exclusive Principal Partner. 

The Losos Prize

The Losos Prize is named after its benefactor, Carolyn W. Losos, a lifetime early childhood proponent.

“This prize is a wonderful way for our organization to highlight the new and innovative activities of Parents as Teachers affiliates,” said Stepleton.

Created in 2006, three Parents as Teachers affiliates demonstrating creativity and originality in pursuit of the Parents as Teachers vision that all children will learn, grow and develop to realize their full potential are selected from across the globe annually.

Parents as Teachers

Headquartered in St. Louis, Parents as Teachers champions the critical role of parental involvement and early intervention in the early childhood development and education continuum.

Parents as Teachers supports a network of professionals and organizations who serve more than 300,000 families across the country and around the world through a proven parent education model.