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PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — Standing in her living room, Isabel Valencia sets up her makeshift tennis serve with the materials on hand: a green balloon for a ball and a ruler affixed to a paper plate for a racket.
She bats the balloon to her home visitor, Mayra Ocampo, and they pass it back and forth, counting each return, offering encouragement and laughing at their mistakes.
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The moment is light and playful, as it likely will be later in the week, when Valencia tries the same activity with her 4-year-old daughter Celeste. But Ocampo takes care to explain what’s happening beneath the surface: They’re not just playing tennis. They’re building social skills. They’re working on hand-eye coordination. And they’re practicing numeracy.
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Valencia, who came to the U.S. from Colombia a few years ago, found Ocampo through a free program that supports families with their children’s early learning and development.
Home visiting programs have provided a lifeline for families, especially those for whom access to quality early education is scarce or out of reach financially. The programs, which are set to expand with new federal support, are proven to help prepare children for school but have reached relatively few families.
It was during a trip to the grocery store in 2022 with her two young kids that somebody told Valencia about the home visiting program. She had moved to Pueblo, Colorado, only a few months earlier and was feeling isolated. She hadn’t met anyone else who spoke Spanish.
“I didn’t leave my house,” she says through an interpreter, “so I thought I was the only one.”
The Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters program, known as HIPPY, provides families with a trained support person — in Valencia’s case, Ocampo — who visits their home every week, showing them how to engage their children with fun, developmentally appropriate activities.