Capital Area Health and Human Development Institute

Capital Area Health and Human Development Institute

The Capital Area Health and Human Development Institute was created in 2005, combining the Capital Area Early Childhood Training Institute, the Harrisburg Center for Healthy Child Development and the Urban Community Partnership Initiative, all a part of the Prevention Research Center within Penn State’s College of Health and Human Development.

Faculty and staff efforts focus on the following activities:

  1. Developing mentoring programs that help to produce positive behavioral change in caregivers caring for young children
  2. Developing certificate programs that articulate for college credit in the following areas:  infant toddler, preschool, director, special needs, social emotional development, and home based
  3. Completing early care and education quality studies
  4. Being responsible for all early care and education activities within the College of Health and Human Development
  5. Coordinating all training and technical assistance activities within South Central Pennsylvania as the Regional Key
  6. Providing  policy-relevant information on best practices in infant toddler care to federal, state, and local governments
  7. Assistance to communities on the development, implementation, and evaluation of early care and education programming
  8. Research and evaluation of various human service programs
  9. Conducting public policy research studies related to children, youth and families.

Located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, CAHHDI serves parents and childcare providers in Dauphin, Cumberland, and Perry Counties. The Institute is a community-based initiative to provide training, support, and information to parents and childcare providers of children birth through three years of age. The goals of the Institute are to coordinate and develop training opportunities for parents and childcare providers, to disseminate information regarding training opportunities, to serve as advocates for high-quality infant and toddler training that incorporates the latest research in brain development and best practices, and to serve as a regional clearinghouse for infant and toddler training information. For more information, contact Richard Fiene.

Current projects include the following: