Storytellers benefit Winston Prouty Center in Brattleboro

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - April 14, 2015 - PRLog -- Winston Prouty Center for Child Development estimates that its nurses have been involved with 75% of the families through BMH who have given birth for the first time, assisting with breastfeeding and other services in the home.

According to Winston Prouty Executive Director Chloe Learey,this is an incredibly important resource which helps build the strong foundation young children need to be successful. “The benefits of breastfeeding are well known, but there are other pieces of the development puzzle which are equally important that this type of home-visiting supports,” Learey said,” For instance, helping parents understand how much their baby’s brain is growing and why the environment they create matters so much in these early stages.”

Learey explained, “A baby who is quiet in his or her crib all day may have ‘given up’ trying to engage with an unresponsive parent. An unresponsive parent may be suffering from post-partum depression and needs help accessing services quickly. Home visitors such as the maternal child health nurses at Prouty can respond to this kind of information and support families to build their capacity for being the kind of parents they want to be.”

As part of a multi-disciplinary team which includes mental health specialists from HCRS, as well as social workers in Family Support and developmental specialists in Early Intervention at Prouty, Prouty nurses have access to colleagues for consultation and referral in a way that makes it easy for a family to get the help they need.

The Winston Prouty Center is expanding to be able to better provide these home visiting and community-based services. It has begun a $400,000 capital campaign and has a community fundraiser, “Storytellers on a Mission” produced by The Hatch, on April 18^th at The Latchis. The evening’s storytellers, hosted by Hatch co-founder Tom Bodett, a Vermont-based humorist and regular panelist on National Public Radio’s (NPR) Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!,  include co-creator of The Daily Show Lizz Winstead, Ernesto Quiñonez, Catie Lazarus, David Martin and Adam Wade. All are veterans of critically acclaimed stages that include The Moth, This American Life, The Daily Show, Comedy Central and even the New York Times best seller list.

For more information, call Winston Prouty at 802-257-7852 or visit its website, www.winstonprouty.org.

To buy tickets for “Storytellers on a Mission”, visit http://www.catamountarts.org/shows/storytellers-on-a-mission/.