MEDIA RELEASE

Press Release
August 13, 2009
For Immediate Release

Contact: Jane Simpson, Director of Public Relations
(402) 978-5646 or jsimpson@lfsneb.org

Justin Dougherty, Young Families Initiative Program Supervisor
(402) 978-5638 or jdougherty@lfsneb.org

Susan Pawloski, Building Families Boutique Program Coordinator
(712) 242-1040 or spawloski@lfsneb.org

Council Bluffs Shopko donates electronic learning systems to Building Families Boutique

Shopko in Council Bluffs recently provided a donation of 39 Hooked on Phonics Electronic Learning systems to the Lutheran Family Services Building Families Boutique in Council Bluffs.  The learning systems contain over 100 learning activities for children ages 4+ focusing on the skills of phonics, bilingual learning, rhyming, vocabulary, beginning spelling and logic skills.

The Building Families Boutique is a prevention/early intervention program serving families with children prenatal to age five who live in Pottawattamie County.  The Boutique aims to create healthy, safe and self-sufficient families through an incentive-based program where participating parents can earn points by engaging in healthy activities including timely immunizations, well-baby check-ups, attending parenting classes and continuing education.  Families redeem their earned points for new and gently-used infant and toddler items at the Boutique store.

The program goals are to increase parenting skills and healthy family behaviors, decrease the risk for child abuse/neglect, and increase knowledge, understanding, access and participation in available community resources.

“I want to thank Shopko, Council Bluffs for being a wonderful community partner and helping our children get ready to read,” said Boutique Program Coordinator Susan Pawloski.  “We are staffed with a full-time bilingual family life educator and are now offering our Nurturing Parenting Program® in both English and Spanish, so the new learning systems will be very beneficial for many families in the program.”

In 2008, the Building Families Boutique served 361 Pottawattamie County families, with 637 children under age five and 62 prenatal babies being served.