ARCHS' partnership with the Children's Trust Fund of Missouri (CTF) provided 1,200 books in February to more than 50 families in the St. Louis area. Families selected for book donations were part of ARCHS' Home Visitation Program, formerly known as the Stay at Home Parent Program).

The ARCHS' Home Visitation Program works to promote positive parent child interactions. To help achieve this, the book donations give the parent and child an opportunity to spend quality one-on-one time and is considered a best practice to help prepare children for school.

"Reading with children from birth helps children learn the sounds of language, stimulates their imagination, and introduces them to the world around them," said Amber Stevenson-Donnelly, ARCHS' Vice President of Grant Management Services.

The goal of the grant from the Children's Trust Fund is to promote programs across Missouri that help reduce the likelihood children will become the victims of abuse or neglect.

"For families in high-stress situations, reading can offer a break from the chaos around them as they take 15 minutes out of their day to pause and spend time with each other sharing pictures, sounds, stories, and adventures in books given to them from ARCHS," Stevenson-Donnelly said.

• BOOK GIVEAWAY PHOTO GALLERY
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Stay at Home Parents in St. LouisIn the City of St. Louis: Countless numbers of stories concerning child abuse can be read in newspapers across the country each day, and it seems at times that St. Louis is no exception. New Hope Community Center Executive Director Melisa Mershon not only has heard about some of these stories, but also has dealt with them in a personal matter.

Child abuse is a sensitive topic for someone who designates their life towards helping children, and Mershon prefers not to discuss openly incidents she has heard about. Rather, through ARCHS’ Stay At Home Parent (SAHP) partnership, Mershon is out to help St. Louis inner-city parents who have been identified by the state of Missouri as “at-risk” better learn the needs of their own children.

Stay at Home Parents in JenningsIn Jennings: The eyes of Jennings resident Arthur Crawley were fixed upon his two-year-old son, A.J., as he started to figure out a motor skills development activity as part of the ARCHS' Stay At Home Parent (SAHP) partnership. He had difficulty at first, but A.J. was soon able to string several Fruit Loops onto a piece of licorice through determination, and from watching his dad do the same. Arthur’s eyes teared up some as he beamed with pride for what his young son was able to accomplish.

“This is one of the everyday development practices to help my child out that I didn’t know before. I used to think I knew it all,” Arthur said while his wife, Shantail, sat on the other end of the couch holding their two-month old baby Destyne.

“The Stay At Home Parent program positively affects the lives of approximately 1,300 families throughout Missouri every month,” said Toni Sutherlands, of the Department of Social Services. “It focuses attention on one of our most vulnerable populations – children under the age of three – and helps their parents become the best caregivers they can be, while helping them realize their own strengths and work towards achieving goals that many of them thought they would only be able to dream of.”