Welcome to the neighborhood...
Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County is a community-based, family-centered human services agency. We operate three centers in the county, two located in Iowa City and a third located in Tiffin serving the western part of rural Johnson County. Our programs, services and activities reach over 200 children and up to 100 adults each day. Our continuum of programs begin with NAEYC accredited child development programs for infants, toddlers and preschoolers and continues with in-school and after school prevention programming for school-age children. In addition, we also work closely with parents and other adults through our Even Start Family Literacy Program and our Successful Families Initiative. (Please see Attachment B—organizational chart)
We employ over 50 full time staff and have an operating budget of $1.4 million. Our funders include, but are not limited to the following: 1) Iowa Department of Education (Even Start, Parent Support 0-3, At-Risk Preschool, School Based Youth Services); 2) Department of Human Services (Safe and Stable Families, Child Care Block Grant, Foster Care Reunification Project); 3) Iowa Department of Public Health: 4) Iowa Department of Human Rights; 5) Head Start Expansion Grant, 6) Johnson County Decategorization Project; 7) City of Iowa City; 8) Johnson County; 9) United Way and; 10) twenty-five business and corporate sponsors.
Recognized Areas of Expertise and Effectiveness
Child Development:
We are an accredited child development program through the National Association for the Education of the Young Child (NAEYC). We also provide training for Child Development Associate preparation for Head Start program staff through Hawkeye Area Community Action Program. We use the Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP) as a curriculum-based assessment tool.
Parent Involvement:
We provide training to the Iowa City and Clear Creek Amana School Districts on parental involvement in schools and other programs. We have been conference presenters to providers on parent involvement in schools and our "two generation" approach to child care and child development.
School-Age Programs:
We have written our own curriculum for school-age afterschool programs, targeted particularly at vulnerable children. We also have staff providing in-school mentoring at elementary, middle and high schools in both the Iowa City and Clear Creek Amana school districts.
Parent Education and Family Support:
Parent support has been a core program of Neighborhood Centers for 29 years. We provide both group and home-based parenting and parent support. We currently use the Strengthening Families curriculum as a foundation. We currently are partnering with MECCA and United Action for Youth on a CSAP grant with a parent support focus.
Multi-Cultural and Dual Language Programming:
Programming at the Centers reflects the diversity of cultures represented in our Neighborhoods. We provide training to the Iowa City Community School District. We operate the only dual language (Spanish/English and Arabic/English) classrooms in Johnson County.
Cross Cultural Programming for Immigrants and Refugees:
Since 1977, Neighborhood Centers has been active in providing support for new immigrants to our community. As recently as March 2001, Governor Vilsack’s staff visited the Neighborhood Centers to study our methods and use them in his immigration initiative.
Family Resource Center Development:
In 1997 and 1998, Neighborhood Centers was asked by the Iowa Department of Human Services to provide technical assistance to rural communities throughout Iowa that were developing Family Resource Centers.
Literacy and English as Second Language:
We recognize parents as the first teachers of their children and deeply value lifelong learning. We have a well respected Even Start Family Literacy Program achieving great success in adult basic education, ESL and literacy development for young children. Our early childhood programs have partnered with the Wendell Johnson Speech and Hearing Clinics at the University of Iowa to help young children reach their potential in speech language and literacy.
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