Hands to Hearts International |
Hands to Hearts International |
Vision
Hands to Hearts International (HHI) envisions a world where all children are nurtured and loved and where all women have the opportunity to actively contribute to their communities.
Mission
HHI is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of orphaned and vulnerable children and economically disadvantaged women around the globe.
Program
HHI's simple and cost-effective program provides tools and resources for organizations and caregivers to improve the early development of children surviving in orphanages, refugee camps, and severely impoverished or conflict-ridden communities. Through HHI's support and training, caregivers improve their ability to nurture a child's language, social, cognitive and physical skills. And most importantly, HHI's specialized training program enhances the attachment and bonding of infants to caregivers, which establishes the base for all future relationships.
HHI's curriculum is unique because it is designed to empower parents, teachers and other caregivers in how their direct and daily actions of nurturing and caring can improve their child’s development. This is significant, especially when most child development programs only focus on listing child developmental milestones; such as "at this age, a child can roll over or repeat sounds." HHI has also consciously designed its curriculum to be culturally adaptable. This means that the language and examples are all carefully chosen with the support of child development experts to be applicable anywhere in the world. HHI also infuses local knowledge of stories, games, songs and dance to adapt its curriculum to any culture. This empowers people to provide for their children, regardless of a lack in toys, resources, or even the care giver's own level of literacy.
HHI spreads its program through partnerships and consultancies with Government Organizations and Non Government Organizations big and small. It can be applied to any situation, including long-term community building and emergency relief in more immediate situations. Learn more about our technical services here.
History
In the winter of 2004, Laura Peterson took a leap of faith, quit her real job, and created Hands to Hearts International(HHI) in response to the crisis of orphaned children worldwide. Over 10 years of experience in child development gives Laura a rich background and deep knowledge base to apply to serving needy children: she served on State Advisory Boards on issues of youth development and foster care, chaired her own county's Advisory Board on Mental Health for four years, designed new programs for women and children within the agencies where she worked, was a wilderness therapist for troubled teens, and also was a clinical and administrative supervisor for a non-profit serving children who were emotionally disturbed. During this time, she saw the common thread of the most severe child mental health problems: Attachment Disorder, simply put as when children do not learn to love and be loved.
From 2004 to 2005, Laura researched, advocated, and volunteered an immeasurable amount of work to design HHI's solution: nurturing children and empowering women. HHI delivers its model for social change by training local women in developing countries who often lack the opportunities for employment and education, and then mobilizing them to improve the care for their community's most vulnerable babies and children. This lays the foundation for healthy development and a lifetime of benefits to the child who can grow to be a positive and active member of their family, community and society.
In 2005, HHI began its partnership with a US Adoption Agency and their overseas partner orphanage in the Tsunami affected area of South India. After almost a year of communication, program development and planning, HHI launched its first trainings in India in February of 2006, with the expert support of Utah State University's Vonda Jump, PhD. On Laura's next visit to India, upon visiting the orphanages that were given HHI's early childhood development training and consultation, it was found that the impacts were far beyond early expectations: child death and illness rates went down, children showed increased weight gain and were easier to soothe, caregivers took greater pride and demonstrated more confidence in their work, and were seen to be more nurturing and responsive to the babies. These results focused HHI's strategy and catalyzed the expansion its training program. By May of 2007, HHI's results were so remarkable that HHI was requested to train teachers in the world's largest early childhood development program - India's Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
HHI accrued great experiential knowledge during its first two years of operations in India. In 2007, HHI hired early childhood development experts from Portland State University to integrate all of our lessons learned, as well as remodel our curriculum to empower caregivers with the tools of their own cultures. This included weaving the promotion of healthy child development into simple daily interactions, regardless of resources or a lack thereof. HHI's reach continues to expand exponentially, and is responding to the rapidly growing interest by offering training and consultation to sister NGOs so they can apply HHI's simple, replicable and powerful model to strengthen and streamline their own child health programs. Through these smart, strategic partnerships, HHI can touch the most children, at the earliest time, with the simplest, most cost effective form of care possible. Learn more at Technical Services, view the Table of Contents for our Curriculum on Early Childhood Development, and see a Sample of our Curriculum on Early Childhood Development.
HHI Executive Director Tells the Story of How HHI Was Started
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