CAP Council expands location to better serve babies and infants
EL CENTRO — After serving 376 local families last year, the Imperial County Child Abuse Prevention Council is ready to expand its facility.
The CAP Council, also known as the Child and Parent Council, has been at its same location, 563 W. Main St., since 1999 and is now set to make their first expansion since 2001.
The council will be using an unoccupied business space, located directly next to their main office to open an Early Development Center.
Previously only serving parents with school-aged children and preschoolers, the council expanded its parent curriculum in recent years and now serves children 5 years and under.
“When we expanded into working with toddlers and infants, we started to realize we had outgrown our space,” explained CAP Council’s Executive Director Yvette Garcia.
The Early Development Center will provide parents with infants and toddlers some much-needed space that wasn’t available in the council’s original office.
“We needed to have floor space that was safe and appropriate for our parents with infant classes,” said Garcia. “Parents and their babies can now be in a safe and bigger area.”
The Development Center will also feature rooms designed for child development screenings and intervention classes.
Last year, the council screened 85 children without their new facility.
“The screenings are to help parents understand their child’s developmental milestones and whether their child is meeting those milestones and if they are developing at the rate and age they should be,” noted Garcia, who believes the new Development Center will allow the council to more than double the amount of children they screened last year.
Any parent that has a child under 5 and a half years old can request a screening with the council.
“The screenings helps us screen out the children that are in the appropriate range and those in the cut off range. Any children that reach the cut off range are referred to other agencies for full assessments for why they they’re not developing the way they should be,” stated Garcia. “We want to make sure we’re catching things early to help those delays not happen or affect them by the time they get to kindergarten.”
The intervention classes set to be held in the new Development Center will give children in need an opportunity to reach their age-specific development milestones, such as their speech, vision or motor skills.
The CAP council’s new center will also feature a parent café, which was created to give parents a social avenue to talk with other parents after classes.
CAP’s Council Early Interventionist Jackie Ponce-Barra noted the parent café will serve a great purpose.
“Facilitating the classes, I see the need for the parents to have some kind of outlet aside from classes where it’s a little bit more informal. They don’t have a lot of time for during the classes and this gives them an opportunity to just talk once they finish the classes,” said Ponce.
“Instead of going somewhere like Starbucks, this is primarily for parents, so it doesn’t matter if their children are crying or screaming or playing nicely,” stated Garcia.
The CAP Council began moving into its new space, which was formally used by a physical therapy clinic, at the beginning of the month and hopes to have a grand opening for the new Child Development Center by mid-February.
“The stigma that comes along with parenting classes is that parents feel that other people will think if they’re in a parenting class it means you’re doing something wrong,” indicated Garcia, who has been the CAP Council’s executive director for 17 years. “Really, we need to look at parenting classes as an opportunity to educate yourself and inform yourself on how to be a better parent.”
The CAP Council is a private, non-profit organization that serves Imperial County families at no cost and has both English and Spanish programs.
“We should be a resource for every parent in the Imperial County,” said the executive director. “We should be a place where you could come and ask any question at any time. We really want the community to see us as a resource to help strengthen their families.”