Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (GP-TMIECHV)

Tiospa Unyusutapte Hehan Wasagunyapte - Strengthening and Encouraging Families (SEF)

What We Do

Strengthening and Encouraging Families (SEF) supports and engages parents, caregivers, and community members to empower family resilience by strengthening Dakota culture, kinship, and other protective factors for lifelong health and wellness. Great Plains Tribal Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (GP-TMIECHV) is a five-year grant that provides home visits to eligible families on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation. This includes expectant mothers, parents, family members, and/or other caregivers of children ages 0 to 5 years old. This is a voluntary home visitation program designed to work and provide parents with health & life skills education, social support, and referrals to community resources & services, home safety, and positive parenting.

Our program’s vision is to support and engage parents, caregivers, and community members to empower family resilience by strengthening Dakotah culture, kindship, and other protective factors for lifelong health and wellness.

The goals of SEF are:

Increase positive parenting/caregiving skills;
To support parents and their children with age-appropriate development and skills that promote resilience;
Provide learning opportunities for children 0 to 5 that support Dakota culture, family and community resilience.

SEF utilizes two evidence-based home visiting curriculums developed for and with Native families

Staff

Terri Rattler, Program Manager
Mariah Foster, Program Assistant
Kristin Wanna, Community Health Worker
Leona Iyarpeya, Community Health Worker

*Tribal MIECHV is supported by funds from the Administration for Children and Families (HHS-2018-ACF-OCC-TH-90TH0045) and was awarded to the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board. The program is being implemented in partnership with the Sisseton –Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation.