Building relationships from the ground up

You’ll find him on the floor, playing among the children. Israel Flores, family coach for Battle Creek’s Early Childhood Connection since 2011, is happiest there.

Working with children and their parents wasn’t Flores’ first job in the United States. Born in Mexico City, when he immigrated to the U.S. at age 22, Flores first lived in Ann Arbor and worked in the food industry. He moved to Battle Creek around the time he married, and when he heard of a job opening with the Early Childhood Connection (ECC) for a family coach, his heart sang.

"I love working with kids! You could say I’m like a kid myself," he says. "When ECC advertised that they were more interested in finding someone with a passion for working with children rather than experience, I thought I could make an impact."

With his bilingual language skills and first-hand knowledge of the Latino community culture, paired with his knack for working with kids, Flores was hired.

"I’m like a kid magnet," he says. "Sometimes families need that extra support, and I wanted to provide that."

Early Childhood Connections, part of the Calhoun County Great Start Collaborative, provides welcome baby baskets to new parents, home visits, and playgroups for families with children from birth to 5 years old in Battle Creek. Family coaches partner with parents to help them raise children who are safe, healthy, and ready to succeed in school and in life.

Flores, who since moving to Battle Creek now has two sons of his own (and two dogs), says he's sharpened some of his coaching skills with his own family.

"I work out some of my own emotions as a father with my boys," Flores says. "I don’t go into homes as some kind of professional who knows everything. None of us are better than anyone else. That’s why I sit on the floor, at kid-level, when I go into someone’s home, and I invite parents to sit on the floor, too."

Flores is skilled at connecting with both the children in the home and the parents, helping both sides to connect and enjoy each other’s company. Since beginning his job as a family coach, Flores has become a certified car seat technician (checking that car seats are correctly installed and, if they are not, reinstalling them), parent educator through Parents as Teachers, and a certified professional coach through Leadership That Works. He is a fellow with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network.

He's one of 12 coaches at ECC. When he was awarded a fellowship his hours coaching have gone down, but in 2014 he worked with 40 families, about 50 kids, meeting with them about once a month. That was about 260 home visits over the year.
"We also have two playgroups twice per day to which we invite families," Flores says. "We can serve more people that way, while kids get more socialized and learn to share."

Flores does something of everything for families. He connects them with resources in the community that they may need. He listens to problems and offers support where he can. He teaches children skills that develop gross and fine motor skills, and he helps them learn primary skills--first letters, numbers and colors, for instance--to prepare them for preschool and kindergarten. All of these services, home visits, and playgroups included, are free.

"I model behavior for parents," he says. Flores also helps parents find creative ways to provide for their kids needs rather than spend money they may not have.

"For instance, there are a lot of toys you can make at home. Chips in a can make a rattle. Clean out a milk jug and put things inside it. Toys are for fun, but they have educational value, too. These toys may not be as pretty, but they are more creative, and they give kids a chance to get creative. Whatever you have on hand, you can make something out of it."

Another area of impact for Flores is to help Latino men in the community see their roles as fathers in a different light. He meets them where they come together naturally.

"I created a soccer team and invited dads to join in. That’s football to us," Flores smiles. "First couple times, it was just us dads playing, but then I brought along my son, and the others started bringing theirs."

Meeting on the soccer field, Flores found his chance to talk to fathers about their roles and how they might improve their relationships with their children. He shared stories about his own mother to illustrate a point.

"When my mom cooked for us, she was often the last to sit down to dinner, right about the time others were getting up to go into the living room and watch TV," he says. "She was cleaning up while others were relaxing."

That was a wake-up call to the fathers. Some expressed shame at suddenly realizing how they had treated their mothers, and now, the mothers of their children. A conversation began, and Flores used it to tell these new dads there is nothing wrong with a father changing a diaper, cleaning house, or making a meal.

"Latino men resist another man coming to the house and playing with their kids, and that can be challenging sometimes," Flores says. "That’s why it’s important for me to meet with both parents at first. If that means coming by in the evening, when the dad is home, that’s what I do."

Flores says he has many stories of success to keep him motivated. He tells of a young mother living in a darkened house, curtains drawn, with her 3-year-old boy. Flores visited her weekly, and he found that she was suffering from depression. Talking to her about making efforts to get better for herself were fruitless, but encouraging her to get better for her son brought her back to life.

"She started coming out more, because it was about her son, not just her," Flores says. "The boy had fallen behind, wouldn’t say a word, and he was in special education when he started preschool. But by the time he was 5, he was fully bilingual and ready for school, at the same level as everyone else."

The woman is now expecting her second baby, and the family is thriving. Flores worked with the father, too, to help more at home.

"I love creating those relationships," Flores says. "We have to tell these stories. Everything we do, we do for our community, to make it better."

Contact Early Childhood Connections at 269.660.1606, ext. 6143, for more information on the services that are available for families with young children who have not yet started kindergarten. For information in Spanish and Burmese, call 269.789.2483. Or connect with ECC on Facebook.

Zinta Aistars is creative director for Z Word, LLC, and correspondent for WMUK 102.1 FM Arts and More program. She lives on a farm in Hopkins.

Photos by Susan Andress.

This story is part of a series of solutions-focused stories and profiles about the programs and people that are positively impacting the lives of Michigan kids. The series is produced by Michigan Nightlight and is made possible with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Read other stories in this series here.