Southwest Human Development

Head start and early head start: the programs work with income-eligible families to provide a variety of educational, health, dental, nutritional and social service resources. Head start provides children with high-quality preschool education, along with health screenings, social services and parent training. Early head start helps parents with child development, parenting and life skills during the prenatal period and in years before their baby is eligible for the preschool program. Each of these programs help families learn how to make sure their children are ready for kindergarten success and to sustain their development and learning process. During fiscal year 2024, southwest human development's programs served 1,242 children at its 19 sites located at the following school districts: balsz, creighton, osborn, and paradise valley.

Family support services and child welfare: southwest human development offers an array of education and support services to help parents and caregivers as they raise their children. We believe that all caregivers have the desire to improve their parenting skills, while promoting positive parent-child interactions, enhancing their child's health and development, and increasing their family's economic well-being. Our programs include foster care and adoptions studies, healthy families, and kinship care and adoptions. During fiscal year 2024, these programs served 1,578 children and 3,426 parents and caregivers.

Mental health and child development: programs include the birth to five helpline/fussy baby program, a free, statewide question line, available monday through friday 8 a.m. To 8 p.m., for parents, caregivers and professionals with questions or concerns about children birth to 5. We also provide mental health consultation to early care and education programs and providers throughout the state through our smart support program. Az steps provides training, consultation and support to help child care providers prevent suspensions and expulsion while strengthening their ability to support all children. Our harris infant and early childhood mental health training institute offers two intensive training programs for mental health clinicians and other professionals working with young children. During fiscal year 2024, the birth to five helpline had 6,490 calls; smart support served 457 early care and education programs across the state, az steps trained/consulted with 12,270 child care professionals, and the harris program graduated 32 students.

Health and developmental services (formally known as services for children with disabilities): the agency provides a comprehensive list of services for children with disabilities and their families. Southwest human development's birth to five center of excellence (coe) provides comprehensive disabilities and mental health services and support for young children. The coe is focused on the health and well-being of children birth to five with complex developmental disabilities (autism, feeding disorders, abuse and trauma) by providing state-of-the-art, comprehensive assessment, treatment planning, and intervention services. Our integrated model, which blends medical, developmental, and behavioral/mental health approaches, reflects best-practice in the field of early childhood. Additional services/programs include our adapt shop, smooth way home fragile infant program (swh), includes our virtual neonatal supporvines program (vines), high risk perinatal program (hrpp), nurse-family partnership (nfp), and the inclusion program for early care and education providers. During fiscal year 2024, we served 599 children in our birth to five center of excellence, 84 children through the adapt shop, 1063 children in swh, 1,116 children in hrpp, 144 in nfp and 96 child care providers with coaching and training in our inclusion program.

Family assistance grants: during fiscal year 2024, southwest human development provided direct financial support to 167 families receiving services through its programs with rent, utilities, and family basic needs.