Then her own mother connected her with Show Me Strong Families, an initiative of the St. Louis affiliate of the national Parents as Teachers program. The initiative, which just celebrated its 10th year, connects trained parent educators who conduct every-other-week home visits with families, beginning in the prenatal stage up until the child begins kindergarten. 

Johnson immediately bonded with her parent educator, who would bring activities to their visits and check on the baby’s developmental progress and Johnson’s well-being. The educator invited her to Show Me Strong Families events: cooking classes, a first birthday party, and a meetup of parents with similar-aged children. When Johnson wasn’t sure about her child’s development, the parent educator who worked with her to get an evaluation that led to an autism diagnosis and then supportive services. When Johnson became pregnant with her second and third children, the program connected her with a doula to attend the births and provide support through labor and c-sections. 

“It made me a better mom,” Johnson said. “I felt like I was safe and there was someone I could call if I needed extra advice about something. They gave me that mindset that I could do it, and they never gave up on me, so I didn’t either.” 

The program serves 200,000 families through 900 affiliates in all 50 U.S. states, and in 115 Tribal organizations, five other countries, and one U.S. territory. The model has four components: home-based visits, group socialization, health, and developmental screenings for both baby and family — which include screenings for domestic violence and postpartum mood disorders and resource connection. The latter is intended to provide community support so that families can navigate complicated systems, including early intervention screenings, accessing education and housing and safety concerns. 

Angela Byas has been working with Parents as Teachers since 2015, first as a parent educator for Show Me Strong Families and now as its affiliate director, training and overseeing other parent educators.

As a parent educator, Byas planned her visits around the milestones the baby was approaching. She brought bubbles to help with language development, beads and string for fine motor skills, or books to promote reading habits, and spent time with the mom discussing how-are-you issues focusing on the health and well-being of the entire family. If a mother expressed an interest in going back to school, or concerns about a developmental delay, or a hardship at home, Byas offered support and resources to help. The visits lasted between an hour and 90 minutes, and Byas averaged 20 families on her caseload — though as a supervisor, she now has fewer. 

Byas credits the home visit aspect of Parents as Teachers for facilitating a close connection and high retention rate among families participating. “With a home visit, you’re seeing families in their environment,” she explained. “We don’t go into their home to try and change anything that they have going on in their home. It makes it easier for the children, as well, because we are in their environment.” 

Families find the program through word-of-mouth — as Johnson did — or through online research, a referral from the school district, or from brochures left in grocery stores or doctors’ offices. While most of the caregivers are mothers, those raising grandchildren or foster children can enroll, too. There is no cost to families: Program costs are covered by federal and local grants, including money from the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and private funds. Parents as Teachers was from philanthropist McKenzie Scott and an increase to $15 million in grant funding from .

For most of the families, poverty and lack of education make a vulnerable period even more precarious. A spokesperson for Show Me Strong Families estimates that 90% of participants are from low-income backgrounds. The parent educators are trained early childhood professionals, but ultimately what they do is show up, consistently, for families when they are bringing a new baby into the world and are at the and . Show Me Strong Families has piloted a doula program, which Johnson participated in, giving families the option to have the doula attend their child birth at no additional charge. 

And when a parent educator can help a family identify a problem, they are also able to pivot and offer a road map for early intervention services, helping to offset or reduce delays if properly addressed. that more than half of the children served by the Parents as Teachers program observed with developmental delays overcame these delays by age 3. 

The curriculum and the training that parent educators focus on helps them detect early signs of developmental delays and connect families to the appropriate services. This often involves identifying behaviors that may indicate a need for a referral to a health care provider for diagnosis.The nonprofit’s research estimates that parent educators identify approximately 32,000 developmental or health concerns each year. 

Byas recalls a mother who enrolled in the program when her child was 8 months old. Byas immediately observed signs that the child might be autistic, but the mother wasn’t convinced and was unwilling to talk about options. As their trust deepened, the mother began asking questions, had her son evaluated, and found an early intervention program, as well as support services through the local school district. 

Group socialization is another component of the program, aiming to shore up community support and help mothers connect with one another. This includes celebrating milestones like a child’s first birthday, which is especially important that infant mortality rates are far higher for families in poverty. 

“We like to recognize them and celebrate that they made it through that little phase where it is crucial,” said Byas. This past December, the birthday theme was PBS Kids’ cartoon character Daniel Tiger, complete with hats, cupcakes and games. 

A Future with Uncertain Federal Funding

Like any social services program funded by government dollars, the Parents as Teachers program faces some uncertainty surrounding the deep federal budget cuts and how they will affect early education. Constance Gully, the organization’s president and CEO estimates that 30% to 40% of the programs receive federal funding through HHS. “It’s authorized by Congress, and we expect it to continue.”

Gully of their programs’ success: an improvement in positive parenting practices, fewer maltreatment reports, reduced child protective services reinvolvement, and improved factors like parental resilience and children’s social-emotional competence. The families involved are more likely to gain employment, pursue higher education, and improve family economic self-sufficiency. Families also show greater awareness and use of financial resources like the Earned Income Tax Credit, while reducing neglect.

“The return on investment from early childhood is not forgotten — on families and children and the workforce in general. We have had the privilege for many years of bipartisan and bicameral support,” Gully said. “We are all on pins and needles and hope that the return on investment in early childhood doesn’t get lost in translation with all these cuts.”

In federal court Wednesday, Chris Edelman, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, said it would likely be mid-September before the meets “to better understand how schools and students are coping as they adjust back to the classroom.”

And that’s only if Judge Royce Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, allows the council to proceed without having to start from scratch. 

On Wednesday, Lamberth denied the plaintiffs’ request to put an immediate stop to the council’s activities, promising to rule before the group meets on whether it violated federal law. 

Under , there are three ways to establish a federal advisory committee — by statute, presidential order or through a federal agency. The agency involved has to place a notice in the Federal Register, appoint an administrator to the committee and establish a charter outlining the group’s purpose and how often it will meet. The department hasn’t taken those steps.

The department had planned to hold the first meeting with parent representatives this summer. Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, one of the groups involved, expected it in July.

After issuing an initial press release, the department put up a second that included an email to get updates on the council’s work. The notice said the council “meets to discuss how children are recovering,” prompting the plaintiffs, three conservative organizations, to argue the department was violating the law. To this date, however, there have not been any meetings.

The lawsuit, filed July 6, argues that the council violated the law’s requirement that groups giving agencies input on potential rules or legislation be “fairly balanced.” Cardona, they contend, chose organizations that would fall in line with the department’s agenda.

“The department chose organizations … based on their ability to develop camaraderie so that they would give good advice as a group,” said Christopher Mills, an attorney for the plaintiffs — the , a conservative nonprofit led by former Trump administration officials, , a political action committee in Loudoun County, Virginia, and , a watchdog group opposed to teaching and curriculum focused on race and gender.

But Edelman countered that the group will function more as a “sounding board” for the department, that membership will change over time and that the council won’t weigh in on specific policy.

In the initial announcement, Cardona described the council as an effort to ensure students “have the academic and mental health support they need to recover from the pandemic and thrive in the future.” For Cardona, who initially faced criticism for making public comments that emphasized the pandemic’s burden on educators, the council offers a chance for parents to have a more visible role as the department attempts to rebuild trust between schools and families.

“To have the leadership of the secretary’s office leaning in with good intentions is … an epic win for all parents across the country,” said Ashara Baker, a mother of a first grader at a Rochester, New York, charter school who was appointed to the council by the National Parents Union. As far as getting the group started, she said, “The sooner the better.”

She called the lawsuit “a distraction.”

Other committees challenged 

The department currently has , according to its website, including the President’s Advisory Commission on Hispanic Prosperity and the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Tuesday’s Federal Register, for example, included a meeting for the National Advisory Council on Indian Education.

Education officials aren’t the only members of the Biden administration who have faced challenges related to advisory committee membership. A former member of an Environmental Protection Agency committee , arguing that the agency removed industry representatives in an attempt to “sideline anyone who might dissent from the president’s climate-change agenda.” They argued that the committee wasn’t “fairly balanced” as the law requires.

In March, a district court judge denied the plaintiff’s request to stop the committee from meeting.

The Trump administration, however, had to disband a after a federal judge sided with an environmental advocacy group in a 2018 lawsuit. The plaintiffs argued that potential profiteers from the import of hides, heads and tusks from Africa stacked the committee.

The makeup of the education department’s parent council is a key focus of the current lawsuit. Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, expressed , calling the chosen groups “Biden fans” who are “glaringly out-of-step with the majority of frustrated parents who have been showing up in huge numbers to school board meetings across red and blue America.”

Sanzi and Rodrigues have over the Department of Justice’s warning last fall about against school officials and board members.

It’s unclear whether Parents Defending Education or Fight for Schools and Families wants to be part of the parent council. Sanzi told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ in an email that she didn’t think the group would address any parent concerns over curriculum.

But the groups on the list — including Fathers Incorporated, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Military Family Association — won’t necessarily determine what the parents have to say, said Patience Peabody, executive director of the Flamboyan Foundation, which supports family engagement efforts, especially in the District of Columbia schools.

“The member organizations are among the many voices. They are the facilitators. They are bringing the real stories and voices to the table,” she said, adding that the council “only works if that happens.”

Baker, for example, is a charter school parent, but said a lot of families have children in both charter and traditional schools. After remote learning, she said her daughter is still “struggling with letters” and hasn’t begun to recognize entire words. Her charter school didn’t provide tutoring, so she paid for it herself. 

“Whether it’s a charter, or district or private school,” she said, “we’re all doing our best and doing what’s going to get our kids across the finish line.”