Meet a Virginia Family

When Ashley talks about her four-year-old son Klaus, she lights up and beams with pride.

During Thanksgiving, the four-year-old helped make deviled eggs, a popular item on the dinner spread. The smart, imaginative, and inquisitive preschooler keeps the Abingdon mom and her husband Michael busy, filling their home with happiness.

“He's just the best little man,” Ashley says.

The busy parents are focused on Klaus’ success, along with his one-year-old sister, Davina. But they’re not alone. Thanks to a partnership with CHIP of Southwest Virginia, Ashley and Michael have an entire team behind them.

Klaus was born in 2019, and immediately, Ashley began to access local resources in the community. Her first daughter was 12 at the time and due to some unfortunate circumstances was raised by a family member leaving Ashley to feel like a new mom all over again.

She enrolled in CHIP’s home visiting program, which pairs expectant and new parents with trained family support specialists/parent educators. Through the Southwest Virginia program, home visiting professionals visit parents in their homes and partner with them to enhance their parenting skills and early childhood development best practices.

It’s where she met Danielle, the home visitor that’s been by her side for the last four years.

“I was a little nervous at first,” Ashley said. “Me and Michael are very much homebodies and were nervous to meet new people, especially someone that was going to be so important to us. But Danielle was so nice and has always been so nice. She came in and told us exactly what she was there for and what she could and couldn’t help with.”

Research shows that home visiting programs like CHIP of Southwest Virginia help strengthen communities, nurture parent-child relationships and ensure that children enter school fully prepared to succeed. Ashley’s family is seeing this firsthand.

During the bi-monthly visits, Danielle chats with Ashley and Michael about parenting strategies and play exercises for the kids. She helped connect the family to programs like Early Head Start and other community resources. When Ashley and Michael noticed Klaus wasn’t speaking enough words for his age, Danielle helped the family enroll him in speech therapy. Within six months, he went from only being able to say four words to sharing full sentences.

The couple appreciates Danielle’s approach of sharing information without telling them how to raise their children. She thoughtfully shares childhood development best practices and tips without judgment so Ashley and Michael can make informed decisions.

“Both Ashley and Michael were actively involved and had lots of questions and were willing to try new things,” said Danielle. “It was great because, as we all know, kids don’t come with any type of manual or textbook.”

Ashley and Michael are invested in their family’s future, and they’ve overcome immense challenges along the way. Both were formerly incarcerated who are now actively working to create a stable and happy home for their kids.

When the couple had Davina – a name that means “beloved” – they navigated a job loss and homelessness which left them living in a hotel. Danielle was with them every step of the way and worked alongside them to enroll Davina in Early Head Start and speech therapy, which helped her overcome some of her shyness. Now the active toddler waves to neighbors and friends.

“I want to use every resource available to me to make sure that my kids are taken care of physically, mentally, emotionally, so that they have the best chance at life that there is,” Ashley said.

Ashley is doing just that – and it’s working.

Today the family is in stable housing, healthy and happy and excited for their children’s future. Ashley knows the power of home visiting, and she’s grateful to have a trusted partner in her home as she raises Klaus and Davina.

“Everybody says it takes a village with children, and sometimes it does, and sometimes it just takes one person,” Ashley said.