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 Family Supports & Services
Weekly Children’s Enrichment Playgroups
Children are bright, loving and cooperative by nature
Children benefit from making choices about their learning
A learning environment that includes children of all abilities benefits all children
Spring is a great time to join our enrichment playgroups, which meet weekly as follows. The Aiken Street Barn, where The Grapevine is located, is fully accessible, and we welcome all children birth to 5 and their parents.
Mondays and Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9:30 am - 11:30 am: Better Beginnings Playgroup
Fridays from 10am - 11:30pm: New Better Beginnings Babygroup
for children ages 18 months through 5 years and their parents. The focus is on social and language development for the children, and parenting education and support for the parents.
support and socialization for moms, dads and their infants.
Early Home Support:
in collaboration with The Family Center in Peterborough and Home Healthcare, provides home visits to Medicaid-eligible pregnant teens and young mothers to ensure the health, safety and developmental needs of the child are met.
Parent Consultations:
for parents who are having difficulty with issues such as appropriate limit setting, routines and behavior problems.
a parent-cooperative preschool program that offers hands-on exploration of science, numbers, reading and art, and an opportunity for parent involvement in their child's early learning.
 Community Services, Resources and Activities
Information, Referral and Assistance for people in need of basic services and resources such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and dental care, health insurance;
Classes and Workshops: Parenting education, Safe Babysitting, nutrition, money management, and other topics;
Access to Basic Services: Heating fuel and electric assistance from Southern NH Services, child & family counseling by Monadnock Family Services (sliding scale fees), support for people with disabilities from A.C.C.E.S.S., free family mediation by Milford Area Mediation, and help for those who are homeless from Southwestern Community Services; Healthy Kids Insurance from Home Healthcare.
Community Woodbank: Free firewood to families and individuals who use wood as their primary heat source and cannot afford to buy it;
Community Suppers in Antrim, Hancock, Bennington and Francestown: Free, in one of the towns every Thursday at 5:30;
Savvy Seniors: There are three sessions per year, in the Fall, Winter and Spring.
Call now to reserve your space, as enrollment is limited to 12 people. Strong Living is a 12-week community-based strength training program for adults age 50 and older, created by physiologists from Tufts University.
The People’s Service Exchange: a neighbor-helping-neighbor project based on the successful "Time Dollars" model, which offers a community-based, coordinated structure for trading services and skills with their neighbors, including child care, transportation, tutoring, sailing lessons, cooking, respite care, music instruction and much more.
Visitation Site: The Grapevine is an approved supervised visitation site for the NH Division of Children, Youth & Families, offering local families with a much-needed, family-friendly environment for these important visits.
Brown Bag Coalition: Representatives from town groups—schools, churches, law enforcement, town recreation, civic groups—meet monthly at The Grapevine to coordinate the wealth of resources in our town. The group has directed its focus to the need for out-of-school-time programming, and is taking steps to bring together local resources to ensure that children have meaningful, accessible out-of-school-time programs. In August, the BBC successfully launched the Before School Club in collaboration with the Antrim Parks and Recreation Department. The group was convened by Grapevine parent educator Sydney Wilson-Smith in 2003.
 Detailed Program Descriptions
Better Beginnings Children’s Enrichment Playgroups offer play, social opportunities and activities that naturally support children’s individual needs and developmental abilities. Playgroups are open and accessible to all families in the community. Early childhood educators focus their attention on the children in one-to-one or in small groups, and on designing child-friendly space that is warm, inviting, friendly and engaging. Our teachers follow children’s leads in choosing materials or activities, while also working to introduce new ideas and ways of playing. Activities offer experiences with toys, dress-ups, homemade play dough, sand, water, music, art, books, foods and cooking, etc. in order to enhance each child’s experience. Playgroups provide
important social opportunities for children, a chance for them to be together and learn to communicate and cooperate. The playgroups are for children between the ages of eighteen months and five years.
Better Beginnings Parent Groups are offered to parents during the same time as the children’s enrichment playgroups. Once the parent and child are comfortable separating, parents will meet separate from the children for discussions on parenting topics of interest. Parent Group educators, Jane Richards-Jones and Carol Lunan, introduces topics such as relationships and relationship building; communication; attachment and bonding; early learning; child development; and/or any number of parenting topics such as toilet training, feeding and nutrition, etc. Each morning, time is set aside for “checking in” with parents, offering the opportunity to discus parenting and other challenges in a supportive, confidential, trusting environment. Parent groups are open and
accessible to all families in the community.
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| Jess Baribault of Antrim brings drums and songs to "baby group" |
Better Beginnings for Babies is a parent-infant program (birth to 18 months) offered one morning each week. The group is for parents and babies together, and welcomes expectant parents. Infants and toddlers have the opportunity to explore a nurturing and inviting environment, engage in developmentally supportive play, and to be together. Parents play with and observe their children, informally talk about parenting topics and concerns, share ideas and visit. The group is facilitated by Beth Bradford M.A., a Hancock native and an early childhood/parent educator. Special speakers often join the group to share information on particular topics.
The Learning Vine is a parent-cooperative preschool program (3 ½ to 5 years) offered two mornings each week. The preschool program supports children in their early learning experiences and includes sing and sharing time, planning, work time, recall, snack, circle and outdoor time. Children learn how to resolve conflicts, solve problems, and other critical social skills. The preschool is run by Carol Lunan M.Ed., a long-time Francestown resident and experienced early childhood educator. Parents assist in the classroom and have opportunities to work with Carol on parenting or child development questions. The preschool class is kept small to support small group activities and individual attention. The program is open to all preschool aged children from the target communities.
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