OUR MISSION
HIPPY’s mission is to help parents prepare their children for success in school and beyond. The model supports parents as their children’s first teacher by providing them the tools, skills, and confidence to teach their young children in the home.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
We believe parents are a child’s first teacher and every child should enter kindergarten prepared for school and ready to learn. Through the delivery of the HIPPY curriculum home visitors empower parents to build strong relationships with their children through activities and engagement that prepare them for school. Every parent wants their child to succeed in school and life, HIPPY inspires and promotes interactions that lead to success.
WHAT WE TEACH
HIPPY is a developmentally appropriate, early literacy curriculum designed to promote children’s cognitive, social, emotional and physical development. The curriculum consists of a set of easy-to-use educational activity packets and storybooks developed for parents of children ages 2-5. Parents engage with the curriculum by role playing the parent-child activities with a home visitor who is from the same community, and often a former HIPPY parent. All home visitors are supervised by a professionally trained program coordinator.
OUR STORY
HIPPY started in Israel in the 1960’s as a research project of the Hebrew University funded by the Ford Foundation. Over the past 50 years, as the program has spread to 15 countries, its academic roots have remained strong. A wide range of studies using many different methodologies have been conducted worldwide showing that children are better prepared for school, parents feel more confident in their ability to teach their children, parents are more engaged in their children’s ongoing school experiences and home visitors are motivated to continue their career development.