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Baskets for babies
Program expands to Kona Community Hospital
Genevieve Mercado-Furtado Piko had one thought when she woke up Monday morning: It was time to take her new baby boy home from the hospital. But the hospital had other plans. While her husband, Nalei Furtado Piko, held their newborn, representatives from Baby Steps to Stronger Big Island Families presented the family with a newborn goodie basket filled with parenting tools and resources. "This is awesome, a really nice gift," Mercado-Furtado Piko said. "They don't send you a manual on how to raise babies when you go home, so it's great to see all this information. There's something for every member of the family, and it covers more than just birth. It's for strengthening families, and that's what it does." The baskets are a primary component of the Baby Steps program, an initiative of the North Hawaii Drug Free Coalition and Big Island Good Beginnings Alliance Community Council. Each basket contains an infant front-pack carrier to encourage attachment and bonding; a parenting resource directory, which is color-coded by district; a first book to promote literacy; and useful brochures and information from programs that support healthy families. Conceptualized by Angela Thomas, early childhood specialist and Big Island coordinator for Good Beginnings Alliance, the idea behind the project was to surround families with support from the very beginning. "Research shows that children develop that sense of self within their first year. The bottom line is the emotional connection they have to their parents," Thomas said. "That first relationship with the mother --or whoever the primary caregiver is -- is the relationship that child uses to judge all relationships." With initial funding from North Hawaii Drug Free Coalition and through Five Mountains Hawaii, the project was underway, and the first basket was delivered to North Hawaii Community Hospital on Dec. 10, 2004. Less than two years later, with the help of a $100,000 state grant-in-aid awarded by the Legislature, the project's newborn basket component expanded to Hilo Community Hospital, and on Monday, the first basket was delivered at Kona Community Hospital. "I never expected it would get this far; this is huge," Thomas said. "It's not just expanding islandwide, but Kamehameha Schools is using this as a model for their communities as well." The baskets are put together by volunteers in Waimea and delivered to the mothers by a [Family Support Services of West Hawaii's] Healthy Start family assessment worker. To date, more than 1,200 baskets have been delivered, and with the KCH expansion, Thomas said they will now be delivering more than 200 baskets a month. "We see families all over using the (infant front pack carrier), especially at KTA," she said. "What we really like to see is daddies using them." KCH administration and nursing staff were also pretty excited about the program, having waited two years for it to begin at their facility. "We've really waited a long time for this," said Jane Cassel, KCH obstetrics nurse manager. "This is just an exciting time because it's finally come to fruition and it's beneficial, not only to the family, but also it helps the nursing staff learn what resources are out there. It's a wonderful way to start 2007." For more, call 887-1228. |
