FARMINGTON – All it took was the mention that simulated babies were needed to get Renee Blanchet on a grant writing mission.
Blanchet, the executive director of the Franklin County Children’s Task Force, was visiting a parenting class at Mt. Blue High School when teacher Karen Luker asked if she had any infant simulators. The simulators look like regular infant dolls, but are equipped with computers that can be programmed using 15 different 24-hour schedules based on the average needs of real infants. Like real babies, they cry to be fed, burped, changed or when they’re tired.
The question particularly struck Blanchet when Luker added that instead of baby simulators, “I’m sending home sacks of flour.”
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“That’s what got it all started,” Blanchet said. “We saw a great need.” And that need will be fulfilled after Blanchet learned that the task force was awarded an $8,000 grant from Maine’s Children’s Trust to buy more infant simulators. The Children’s Trust is a child abuse and neglect prevention organization. Ten simulators and the training it takes to program them, will be available this fall to any of the middle or high schools of Franklin County. Blanchet will order 10 more the following year.
The “Baby Think It over” program of using the simulators to give teens a little taste of the responsibilities of parenthood with an aim towards preventing teen pregnancy is not new. Mt. Blue Middle School used a set for years in its life skills classes, but those dolls are no longer in use due to years of use.
New, however, is the additional push for the proper care and child abuse prevention of real babies with specialized infant simulators. Blanchet has also ordered a Shaken Baby Simulator and a Fetal Alcohol Simulator.
“The shaken baby simulator comes with a clear head so you can see what shaking does to the brain,” Blanchet said. The fetal alcohol simulator shows the effects of abusing alcohol during pregnancy.
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Typically, students are assigned a “baby” over a weekend and need to feed, burp, rock, change diapers and so on. Sensors not only record those typical parenting activities, but also rough handling, abuses or simple lack of response on the “parent’s” part. When the simulators are returned to the classroom the information is downloaded into a computer software program that analyses the data to measure a student’s competency as a parent.
“Teen pregnancy is up for the first time in 15 years,” Blanchet said. “This program will help identify risk factors for abuse when you put a simulator baby into the arms of a student.”
To learn more about this program or any of the family programs offered , contact Blanchet at the Children’s Task Force at 778-6960
