Neighborhood House Association (NHA)

The Neighborhood House Association (NHA) is San Diego County's largest multi-purpose human services agency. NHA serves San Diego County through a network of nine programs in over 130 locations. NHA helps thousands of individuals and families improve their quality of life by providing vital social services including employment, healthcare, child, family and senior services. Over the past four decades, NHA's Head Start program has touched the lives of more than 250,000 low-income preschool children and families at more than 140 locations in San Diego County. Neighborhood House Association currently holds 83 licenses to operate Head Start facilities. NHA offers Head Start services that are center-based, home-based, part-day, extended day, full day, school year, and year-round.

Head Start Families receive comprehensive services at no cost including: early childhood education for children three to five years of age, free dental exams and follow-up care, training and workshops including first-time homebuyer seminars and budgeting classes, services to pregnant women and their children, including prenatal and post-partum care, parenting classes, infant and toddler childcare, health, nutrition and social services.

The information technology infrastructure is critical to the success of a service oriented organization of such operational scale. Over the years, the NHA's information technology department has acomplished one of the best system integrations around the country, from human resources management, help desk management, inventory, security, to single sign on. For Head Start, NHA has successfully integrated PROMIS into its information infrastructure. "We are a very large Grantee Operated Program in San Diego, CA and our agency invested in and implemented the online PROMIS system a couple of years ago and by doing so PROMIS has allowed our organization to intregrate and streamline many of our Head Start processes for better efficiency and effectiveness." Said Mr. Frank Zalich, VP for Information Technology. The capacity, maturity and value of the system have been some of the key factors for NHA choosing PROMIS. Because of the same reasoning, almost all the mega (very large) grantees in the country have selected PROMIS as their management system.

At NHA, each child receives an individualized educational program based on his/her strengths and needs. Children are provided with the opportunity to participate in large and small group activities, math, science, art, language, drama and cultural activities. PROMIS has been utilized to systematically track and manage the strengths and needs assessment, as well the customized child development activities.

All children need to be fully immunized to participate in Head Start. Head Start provides referral assistance for immunization. In addition, Head Start provides children with:

• One-third of their daily nutritional requirements. All meals are served family style.
• Timely immunizations and screenings for cognitive development, basic health, speech and language
• Hearing, vision and dental screenings
• Promoting preventive health services and early intervention. Each family is assured linkage to an ongoing health care system
• Participation in experiences that promote positive mental health, improved self-esteem, stress management and personal growth.
• Daily teeth-brushing and collaborates with dentists to provide oral exams

In order to provide services for children with disabilities and their families, NHA has built strong partnerships with local early intervention and education agencies, community organizations, support services and school districts. Head Start/Early Head Start staff work closely with families to assist in requesting services and resources for their children. NHA's disability services specialists have played very instrumental roles in shaping and designing the Disabilities Service module.

Using PROMIS, NHA has also successfully streamlined its business processes internally such as daily attendance and meals data collection, and externally reaching out to local community services partners such as Delta Dental.

Today, NHA can access "real-time" reports and information never-before available to the program. "The investment in PROMIS resulted in our agency achieving a compelling Return On Investment (ROI) by improved decision making, improved client satisfaction and improved productivity. I highly recommend PROMIS." Said Mr. Zalich.