FAITH (Faith Alive In The Home)

The main goal of FAITH is to support parents in their role as first educators of the faith.  The FAITH program will concentrate on the spiritual life of young children, supporting their growth and development and fostering independence through purposeful work. FAITH aims to help parents live out the baptismal covenant by incorporating faith practices in a faith-filled home environment.

What is FAITH?
FAITH is a home visitor program for early childhood faith development created to support parents’ role as the First Educator of the Faith.Since the Church teaches that the home is the “domestic church,” faith is communicated to the child first by interaction with their parents/ care givers, and also by the environment of the home.FAITH program facilitators will attempt to enrich the parents’ spirituality and offer concrete, developmentally-appropriate methods for sharing faith with children.

What FAITH is not
FAITH facilitators are not professionally trained to offer full academic, social or behavioral assessments of your child. However, because FAITH is based on the belief that a child’s development in all areas – physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual– underlies and encompasses the spiritual, FAITH visitors with parents monitor developmental milestones of children tailor activities and lessons to the developmental stage of your child. If observation and conversation with parents should raise concerns about a child, referral to other professional community resources can be recommended. 

What Services will FAITH provide?

1. FAITH will provide personal home visits by trained members of the Catholic faith community according to a mutually agreed schedule.  Visitors will support parents by offering knowledge of a child’s spirituality along with strategies that can assist the parent to enhance this relationship with God and form the basis for moral development of the child.   

   Group Events – will be offered to provide opportunities for growing and sharing your             spirituality with others. Group events aim to strengthen your confidence in parenting your   child in the faith.

A personal connection to a faith community along with additional resources that might interest you and/or support your child’s development in faith will be provided through the home visitor

What will a home visit look like?

1. On a first visit, through a simple survey filled out by you, and an informal interview, the home visitor will learn more about your child or children, your family, your faith commitment and ways of expressing this.  Together, care-givers and visitor will identify their areas of strength, and choose to explore other means that could further enhance the lived-experience of faith for the family and child.

2. According to the schedule set, you will receive visits from the same home visitor who will listen to your experience and demonstrate practical ways to foster your child’s knowledge of God and your family’s spiritual life.

3. After six months (or at least three visits) you will be asked to provide feedback on how this FAITH program is affecting the faith life of your child and family.  We will seek your input on ways the services could be more effect going forward

What is your role in FAITH services?

1. Commit to participate in FAITH for at least one year.  You (along with any other consistent care-giver) are asked to be present for scheduled visits.

2. Share your efforts, experiences and the responses of your child with the home visitor and let the visitor know if there are other topics or methods about which you are interested in learning.  This helps the visitor to tailor services to your child’s personality and interests.

3. Contact the home visitor if you need to cancel and reschedule.

4. Attend at least two group connections each year.

Record Keeping

The home visitor will keep a record for each visit of the material used and significant experiences shared with you and your child to help provide consistency of service to your family, and to provide anecdotal evidence of the program’s results. Records will also be kept of initial interview information and any requested referrals.

Confidentiality

1. FAITH will not share confidential information outside the program without  your written permission except in these situations:
   1. There is indication that referral is needed to protect any family member(s) from serious harm.
   2. ​FAITH program has been ordered by a court to release information.
2. Reports or stories shared in FAITH materials or presentations (with your permission) will not identify individuals or families