top of page

Healthy Start

The Healthy Start early childhood development program equips parents and guardians with the education and support they need to successfully care for and nurture children younger than age 6.

Family Support Specialists (FSS) make twice monthly home visits, providing basic supplies, parenting support and information, group activities, developmental and health screenings, and referrals to community resources.

 

A Parents as Teachers (PAT) Affiliate home visiting program, Healthy Start provides a structured, evidenced-based curriculum that guides parents through every stage of their child’s first three years of development. Parents learn age-appropriate ways to support healthy growth, while stimulating the language and physical skills that ensure a child is ready to learn on their very first day of school. Parents also learn to set and advance toward their own goals to enrich and fulfill their family life.

 

Home visits are typically 75 minutes and involve the parent/guardian, the child and any other household members participating in raising the child. The enrolled caregiver does not need to be a biological parent.

Eligibility

You may qualify for child development services if you are:
 

  • A family living in east King County and the surrounding areas
     

  • Enrolled in Friends of Youth Transitional Living programs
     

  • Pregnant or are the parent or guardian of child is younger than 6
     

  • Experiencing more than one “family stressor”

Services Include

  •  Two home-based visits per month in-person or virtually
     

  • Group connections at least 12 times per year as a way for families to gather, decrease isolation, and gain community support
     

  • Annual screenings and assessments related to developmental milestones, parenting skills, physical and mental health, hearing and vision, and intimate partner violence/domestic violence
     

  • Appropriate resources based on stated needs and based on outcomes of screening assessments
     

  • Semi-annual parent advisory meetings

Additional Resources

Rectangle 6.png

Youth Haven

I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Rectangle 6.png

Youth Haven

I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Rectangle 6.png

Youth Haven

I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

transparent-safe-place-logo-640w.webp

Safe Place

24-hour crisis hotline for youth ages 12 - 17. Safe Place coordinators assess crises, provide outreach and referrals to appropriate shelter and support services.

All King County Library locations, metro buses, local businesses, and non-profit organizations are official Safe Place sites—2,100 sites in total. See a map of Safe Place locations here!
  
 

Text or call - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 
1.800.422.TEEN (8336)

We Believe in Equity and Inclusion

Friends of Youth welcomes, honors, and celebrates our clients, colleagues and communities’ diverse identities, histories, knowledges, languages, and cultures. Our organizational values shape the way we work individually and collectively, as we prioritize young people’s belonging and achievement. We work to challenge, alter, and ultimately dismantle interconnected systems of structural and historic oppression. We collaborate with community stakeholders and partners to develop policy and decision-making frameworks that advance racial equity.

bottom of page