The Home Visitor's Guidebook

Pioneering expert Carol Klass was first to develop a home visiting primer readers could trust--and now she's updated her bestselling Home Visitor's Guidebook for the next generation of practitioners. The ultimate professional development resource for early interventionists, social workers, therapists, and other home visitors, this research-based guidebook is enhanced throughout with up-to-date references and new material on today's hot topics.

Readers will learn the basics of effective home visiting: building trust with families, communicating effectively, maintaining boundaries, working with families experiencing risk factors, and integrating professional beliefs with families' cultural beliefs. Then, with the in-depth child development information and practical guidelines, home visitors will help parents

• encourage children's healthy social and emotional development
• provide developmentally appropriate guidance and discipline
• enhance children's communication and language skills
• use play to promote learning and development
• strengthen family connections thorough everyday rituals and celebrations
• foster positive sibling relationships

Throughout the book, veteran home visitors model skillful and positive interactions with families, reflect candidly on their successes and challenges, and give readers invaluable advice on creating a support network and learning new strategies through professional development.

New to this edition is information on today's hot topics including assessment and evaluation; the role of grandparents; childhood illness, including dental disease, nutritional deficiencies, obesity, asthma and allergies, and lead poisoning; achievement motivation; moral identity; and the secure child.

With this must-have guidebook from the voice of experience on effective home visiting, professionals will get parents engaged and actively involved in their child's development-and approach their important work with renewed passion and creativity.

In her long career, Dr. Klass has taught college, worked as an early intervention specialist and mental health consultant, and served as a field-based mentor of early educators. She has designed and directed two early intervention programs for high-needs young children, and three professional development programs for early childhood educators.

Dr. Klass has used ethnographic action research to improve her own practice and the practice of the early educators with whom she has worked.

Her books include The Autonomous Child: Day Care and the Transmission of Values (Falmer Press, 1986) and The Child Care Provider: Promoting Young Childrenâ (TM)s Development (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1999).

Her works in progress include a book of oral narratives of early childhood educators and a book for parents. Dr. Klass provides training seminars and keynotes and teaches as an adjunct professor. She is a sunrise walker, gardener, and mother of two grown sons, and she always knows the phase of the moon.