EPIC – Every Person Influences Children, Inc.

Each year, tens of thousands of young, inexperienced new parents leave the hospital with their newborns without the knowledge and resources to provide proper care.

In Buffalo, Every Person Influences Children (EPIC) had designed and implemented Ready, Set, Parent!, a comprehensive, research-based, award-winning parent education program that provides free supportive services to new parents within 48 hours of their children’s birth. With NYHealth’s support, EPIC expanded this program to hospitals in three large urban areas of demonstrated high need while continuing service at the four largest birth hospitals in the Greater Buffalo Region. This initiative has allowed EPIC to advance advocacy activities currently being implemented on a local, statewide, and national stage to focus funding on parenting education as a critical component to early childhood learning and newborn health.

Each year, tens of thousands of young, inexperienced new parents leave the hospital with their newborns without the knowledge and resources to provide proper care. Research has shown that lack of knowledge about good parenting can result in long-term negative effects on children’s health and cognitive, language, social, and motor development, and increases the risk of child abuse and neglect. Since 1981, Every Person Influences Children (EPIC) has provided tools to ensure that parents, caregivers, and teachers have the knowledge and support to maximize healthy child development.

In partnership with Baker Victory Services of Buffalo, EPIC has designed and implemented Ready, Set, Parent!, a comprehensive, research-based, award-winning parent education program that provides free supportive services to new parents within 48 hours of their children’s birth. In Buffalo, EPIC developed and tested a program of in-room visits by trained parent educators, newborn classes in maternity units, and follow-up workshops in the community that has had a positive impact on parents’ knowledge and skills, as well as on their children—more than three-fourths of whom score above the national average in key developmental domains. With NYHealth’s support, EPIC is expanding its program to hospitals in three large urban areas of demonstrated high need—Mount St. Mary’s Hospital in Niagara Falls, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, and Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens—while continuing service at the four largest birth hospitals in the Greater Buffalo Region. The expansion is enabling the program to reach a diverse group of more than 11,000 New York families.