
Bridges to Growth hosted an end-of-summer event Aug. 19 with a variety of activities.[/caption]
When Martha Paul-Penichet ran a day care in her Georgetown home for 13 years, she said she took the children to classes at Bridges to Growth each week.
Now Paul-Penichet works as a nanny, and said she still brings children to Toddler Time classes and rents books and toys from the library at Bridges to Growth. As a child care provider, she has attended the program’s free classes on how to raise children and regularly takes English classes.
“I use all I can,” she said. “They are great because they always have something for everybody.”
Bridges to Growth, the early childhood program under the umbrella of The Georgetown Project, has been helping parents and child care providers for more than 15 years. The nonprofit serves adults and care providers with children from newborn through fifth grade.
The program offers free parenting classes and low-cost training for child care providers to build skills in child development. Jane Hazelton, the program’s coordinator, said Bridges to Growth launched in the late ’90s to provide support to new parents.
“We don’t have parent instruction before we have children, so we’re trying to help them out,” she said. “We try to help parents learn to nurture their children in the very best way that we can.”
In 2014, 2,741 adults participated the program. About 50 percent of the program’s participants are child care providers fulfilling continuing education requirements and a small number of parents who are court-ordered to take parenting classes. The program largely serves parents who are just looking for advice, Hazelton said.
The location is open three days a week, though parenting classes are offered mostly in the evenings and on Saturdays. The program offers a parent hotline that can be used to ask questions or get information, and Early Childhood Coordinator Lexy Largent holds free office hours appointments on Wednesdays for parents to discuss issues and ask questions.
“They’re able to call and fill us in on what the problem is, and we can help troubleshoot or refer them somewhere else to get help,” she said. “As a parent myself, there are times when you need some help and some advice and a third party to help point you the right way.”
Largent is often able to point parents toward one of the program’s many classes on child behavior. Aside from providing information, the program offers libraries for both toys and books.
“We thought there might be a lot of parents who can’t afford to buy a new toy all the time, so they’re able to get access to toys and can change them out frequently,” Hazelton said.
The program also has a workroom for the public to do laminating, English and Spanish classes of different levels, and offers “morning out” days for parents of children with special needs to drop their children off for up to two hours.
With myriad programs, Paul-Penichet said she thinks Bridges could benefit even more people in the city.
“I think it’s a great place,” she said. “I hope more people go there because they are very good.”