TESTIMONIALS FROM PROFESSIONALS
“I have known Dr. Haiman for almost two decades. He is one of the true pioneers in contributing to innovative and effective ways to design programs to serve low-income, low-education families and their very young children. He developed a unique programmatic format (which later became a prototype for inner city programs for infant development and family life education) at the Hough Parent and Child Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This center became prominent as an example of what can be accomplished in a successful Parent and Child Center program. Dr. Haiman’s physical energy, kindliness, cheerful, considerate personality and considerable professional skills contributed significantly to the success of this pioneer effort.
Dr. Haiman’s further contributions on a national basis to the welfare of minorities in this country lie in the work he did outstandingly in gathering and analyzing data in Cleveland for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission’s 1967 Report “Racial isolation in the public schools.” This significant contribution to the field of psychology helped the ever accelerating process of the next decades toward increasing equality and integration of public school experiences.
On a more personal and practical level for the lives of minority families, I consider that the set of five child-rearing pamphlets developed by Dr. Haiman have been invaluable in programs that serve low-education minority families. One of the booklets is titled “Soul Mother.” These easy-to-read, lovingly illustrated pamphlets made it possible for low literacy families to be served with important and critical information for improving child rearing skills. These pamphlets had national dissemination. We used them in our own pioneer intervention project, The Syracuse University Children’s Center and Family Development Research Program in helping to enhance the lives and the parenting skills of the low-income adolescent mothers we served.
A further impressive contribution of Dr. Haiman’s has been his work as Principal Investigator at the Far West Regional Laboratory in San Francisco, where Dr. Haiman initiated and conducted a study of participatory decision making in social service programs. This project described for the first time the process by which adult recipients of service acquire a sense of personal ownership, which can increase the effectiveness of a social service program in changing attitudes and behaviors of adult participants. This significant area of impact has too often been neglected in state and national projects that purport to serve disadvantaged persons.
Dr. Haiman has, over many many years, served as a consultant and trainer to many projects serving children and families – including Head Start and U.S. Coast Guard programs. He has trained trainers for these projects as well.
He is one of the true pioneers in contributing to innovative and effective ways to design programs to serve low-income, low-education families and their very young children. He developed a unique programmatic format (which later became a prototype for inner city programs for infant development and family life education) at the Hough Parent and Child Center in Cleveland, Ohio.This Center became prominent as an example of what can be accomplished in a successful Parent and Child Center program. Dr. Haiman’s physical energy, kindliness, cheerful, considerate personality and considerable professional skills contributed significantly to the success of this pioneer effort.
The work that Dr. Haiman has accomplished in empowering low socioeconomic families, and enhancing the lives of parents and young children in special model projects … make it clear that he has already made several significant contributions on a nation-wide basis to the field of psychology.”
Alice S. Honig, Ph.D. Professor of Child Development
Child, Family & Community Studies
University of Syracuse
“I am pleased to provide a letter of reference for Dr. Haiman. I have known him since 1968. At that time I was employed by Family Service of Cleveland to provide administrative oversight for the grant the agency had received from the Head Start Bureau, HHS, to develop, implement and oversee a new program thrust, called Parent and Child Centers. This new program direction was breaking new ground to provide comprehensive services to children from 6 months to Head Start age, with heavy involvement of the total family. Thirty three centers were funded nationally as Demonstration Projects.
As we began to assemble a staff that would be completely new to the agency, the name of Peter Haiman came up repeatedly from community leaders in the field of education, child development, social services and health. Interviewing Dr. Haiman some 37 years ago, I was impressed by the broad range of his intellect, his ability to clearly conceptualize ideas, his intense and sincere commitment to services for the children and the total family. Above all, his genuine warmth as an individual came through. I have treasured his friendship over the ensuing years although our employment paths diverged many years ago.
He was the first person employed for the demonstration project. He rapidly became our “resident genius.) We learned from him the pluses and minuses of the groundbreaking parent and child center concept that he developed on a small scale at Western Reserve (now Case Western Reserve University). His thinking and conceptualizations were seminal for the national development of this new Head Start program initiative. With all due modesty, I share the fact that we in Cleveland were the first Parent and Child Center to become fully operational. With Dr. Haiman as Educational Director, Richard Johnson as Director and the rest of the quality staff, the Center became a focal location for staff from other cities as well as University personnel from all over the country to visit, learn and observe. (Mr. Johnson subsequently was chosen to head the Parent and Child Center programs in the Head Start Bureau in Washington.)
In those early days we observed Dr. Haiman’s genuine ability to interact with parents of all levels of ability and background, with members of the staff from various professional disciplines, with visiting University Professors who came to the Center, as well as with the infants and children whose development was the focal point of the demonstration project. He had the capacity to recognize problems in their early stages and to work toward solving those problems in a timely and effective fashion. He was always a team player concerned about the ideas of others and their participation in decision making.
His groundbreaking work on the national standards for the Head Start program cannot be minimized. As I became a National Consultant for Head Start and Parent and Child Centers in 1970, I was able to see the wide-ranging effects of Dr. Haiman’s thinking and creative ideas in the many programs that I dealt with over the years in all areas of the United States.
Others who were concerned with children and their parents recognized Dr. Haiman’s expertise. Because of his work, he was chosen to be a member of President Clinton’s People to People Ambassador program to Cuba in February 2001.
Peter Haiman is a man of great intellect, an empowering teacher, an effective communicator, a wonderful and warm human being.”
Robert J. Meresko
Clinical Psychologist,
Berea, Ohio