Early Childhood innovation is the goal of the Idea Factory

Debbie Gilbert of Gilbert & Associates is a self-employed nursing contractor who conducts well-baby examinations at the Idea Factory's monthly meetings. Above, Gilbert examines 4-month-old R.J. Granville.

The community center in Nevada was the setting for the Idea Factory's educational program's monthly parent meeting. But this is not just any parent meeting -- the goal is to socialize and educate parents and children ages 0-3 years.

Renee Compton and her staff have been involved with early intervention initiative for a number of years.

The Idea Factory is funded by the Missouri Department of Social Services, it's basically an educational program for stay at home parents. The program is geared toward parents with children who are 0-3 years of age. Hampton was initially a grant writer and developed her company 15 years ago.

Their mission statement is: "To provide quality early childhood educational opportunities to income eligible, stay-at-home parents of children 0-3 years of age, to enhance their role as a primary educator and promote school readiness in their children."

The program offers a number of incentives for parents who are eligible, based on the economic status of the families.

"Typically they have to be at 185 percent level of the poverty line index or below," said Hampton.

Though there are some exceptions, parents who work are only allowed to work for 20 hours or less a week. The company is based out of Nevada and is contracted by the state to provide the program. The idea is to focus on what they call the "seven developmental content areas," which are health, safety and nutrition; learning environments and activities; child growth and development; child observation and assessment; positive guidance and discipline; interactions with children; and lastly, positive family interactions.

The program also offers home visits to assist parents in educational opportunities, health and well being and sometimes they administer parental stress tests. Developmental screening, which is also known as the ASQ, is also offered. The Idea Factory hosts home visits and hosts the parent meetings on an alternating monthly schedule.

"The meetings are a good way to reduce parental isolation and provide the child with socialization," said Hampton.

Hampton does not work alone. With the help of her sister, Twila Earll, who volunteers, and with Hampton's part-time staff, which includes Emma Conner and Terri Mann, both part-time program assistants, she is able to cover six counties. The factory covers Benton, Vernon, Cedar, St. Claire, Bates and Henry counties, providing all those families with need based education, health, safety, referrals to other programs and group interaction.

At any given time there are, at minimum, 25 families involved in the program per geographic location. The factory is partnered with area Head Start and Early Head Start programs as well as being partnered with local health care agencies. They also provide mobile lending libraries that they bring to the families' residences during monthly home visits.

Hampton said, "The most unique aspect is our certificate program. For each home visit and group meeting they attend they (the families) receive a $15 gift card per eligible child. So, if they have three children under the age of three, then they can earn a $45 gift certificate."

The factory is partnered with U.S Toy/Playthings in Kansas City, the company discounts the gift certificate for the program so that the factory is able to utilize them.

The theme for this February's parental meeting was "Love is Magic," and past themes have included "Come to the Circus" and "Woodland Wildlife."

When the families come in, they enter a door prize drawing which had a valentine theme this month, with wrapping paper donated by Hallmark, as well as grab bags filled with great prizes.

Carla Raney said, "Ally (her daughter) really enjoys it she likes the play groups. We saved all our certificates and got her a great playhouse."

There were stations set up that each parent could take their child too, stations like the well-baby station where parents could take their children for a health screening from Debbie Gilbert, BSRN. Also, there was entertainment for the children from Uptown the Magical Party Clown who provided balloon animals for the children.

Idea Factory parent Angie Theis said, "We've been doing this for a year and we really love coming to these."

Jennifer WIlkshire who has only been in the program for a few months, said, "I like the activities, I found out about the programs from referrals."

Hampton and her group have worked with special needs children as well as providing them with sensory toys and even providing blind parents of normal children Braille books so that they were able to read to their children.

"Its going great. Is our fifth year into it and we've had a lot of success. We believe that the early years are the most influential, stimulation and education will decrease problems. We had once found a child to have Down Syndrome that the physicians were not initially able to catch." said Hampton.

Emma Conner said "(Parents) don't feel uncomfortable, they don't feel judged and they know that we are here to help the family in any way that we can."

For more information, call (417) 549-9923.