The Great Start Collaborative and Great Start Parent Coalition are teaming up with the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum, Grand Rapids Public Library, PNC, and First Steps to throw a free community party for young children on Tuesday, May 8. Parents or other adult caregivers are encouraged to attend Star Power – a day-long celebration to show children that they are the “stars” of our community.

There will be games, crafts, face painting, free gifts, and story time with Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and other local leaders. Kids will have an opportunity to check out the PNC Mobile Learning Adventure – a traveling exhibit full of fun activities, including the famous “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” photo station. Children will get to take home a photo of them dressed up for the career of their choice.

WHO: Children ages 5 and younger and their parent(s) or other adult caregiver(s)
WHAT: Star Power Celebration
WHEN: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
WHERE: In front of the Main Library in downtown Grand Rapids (111 Library St. NE)

This is the sixth annual Star Power gathering. The first five all have been at Michigan’s State Capitol, where thousands of advocates have talked with lawmakers about the importance of early childhood and the benefits of investing in quality services for young children and their parents. This year, organizers decided to keep it local, holding dozens of events in local communities across the state.

“Star Power will be a fun and festive celebration, but it also carries an important message,” explains Sean Welsh, PNC regional president for West Michigan, speaking on behalf of The PNC Foundation. “Young children are our future. When we invest in them, we also are investing in a stronger, more prosperous community.”

For more information about Star Power, visit www.greatstartforkids.org/star-power. For more information about the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County, visit www.greatstartkent.org.

First Steps, Grand Rapids Public Schools, and the Great Start Collaborative are expanding their work to make sure that young children enter kindergarten ready for school success by opening a new Early Learning Communities hub in Harrison Park School.  A kick-off is planned for Tuesday, April 24, during the Week of the Young Child—an annual celebration that focuses public attention on the needs of young children and their families and recognizes quality programs that meet those needs.

What:                  Celebration of the newest Early Learning Communities hub

Where:               Harrison Park School, 1440 Davis, Ave. NW, Grand Rapids

When:                 Tuesday, April 24th, 9-11 a.m.  Remarks at 10 a.m.

PNC, funding partner of Early Learning Communities through its PNC Grow Up Great Initiative, is sponsoring the kick-off celebration.  Sean Welsh, PNC regional president for West Michigan will make remarks at 10 a.m. regarding the importance of investing in early childhood.  Puppeteer and author Kevin Kammeraad will perform for the Early Learning Communities participants following Welsh’s remarks.  The celebration also will include games and activities for the children.

The Early Learning Communities initiative provides quality early education experiences for young children and training and professional development for early childhood caregivers and educators.  The initiative, which already serves families in the neighborhoods around Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Academy and Burton School, just completed its first year.  An independent evaluation found that participating caregivers and parents report that their skills and knowledge have improved – particularly around promoting early literacy – and that the children in their care have shown significant developmental gains.

As part of Early Learning Communities, in-home caregivers and parents have the opportunity to attend Play & Learn Groups with literacy-based activities for children.  The curriculum for the Play & Learn Groups is aligned with Michigan Department of Education expectations for kindergarten readiness.

“Many of our children enter kindergarten without previously attending a preschool,” explained Joanne Kelty, Director of Early Childhood for GRPS.  “Early Learning Communities offers a quality early learning experience that strengthens children’s language and literacy skills as well as their social skills – all of which are critical to success as they begin school.”

In addition to First Steps, Grand Rapids Public Schools, and the Great Start Collaborative, the Early Learning Communities partnership includes the Grand Rapids Public Library, Kent School Services Network, human services agencies, and neighborhood churches.  It is funded by PNC Grow Up Great, Sebastian Foundation, Stranahan Foundation, Heart of West Michigan United Way, Grand Rapids Public Schools, and the Great Start Regional Resource Center.

The supplies will be distributed through Welcome Home Baby, a free program that provides new parents with information about infant health, safety, and child development and connects them to early childhood services in the community.  The sleep sacks will be distributed as part of a tool kit that also includes a thermometer, a DVD about infant soothing, children’s books, and a guide book for parents.  The cribs will be provided on an as needed basis, if a Welcome Home Baby nurse determines that the newborn does not have a safe place to sleep.

“This investment by the March of Dimes Michigan Chapter will further both organizations’ efforts to improve the safety and health of newborns in our community,” said Maureen Kirkwood, Director of Health Initiatives at First Steps.  “We are finding that many babies do not have a safe place to sleep and are forced to share a bed with other family members or sleep in a ‘makeshift bed’ like a dresser drawer, both of which could lead to serious injury or even death.  That should not happen in our community, and we can prevent it by providing families with basic equipment and education about safe sleep.”

Kara Hamilton, State Director of Program Services and Public Affairs for the March of Dimes, says “The March of Dimes Michigan Chapter is proud to support First Steps.  Safe sleep practices can make the difference between life or death.  It is so important to bring awareness around these messages.  First Steps not only provides education, but actually arms parents with tools.”

The Kids Count in Michigan Data Book “Health Matters” focuses on child health and the role that the social and economic factors in children’s lives play in good health. The annual report from the Michigan League for Human Services provides detailed profiles for Michigan and each of its 83 counties. Counties are ranked on 16 measures of child well-being.

Children age five and younger are more likely to live in poverty than are school-aged children – particularly concerning since research shows that the impact of poverty is most profound and long-lasting during this critical stage of development.

While the Kids Count report documents the significant needs of young children, its release is an opportunity to highlight the community’s response to those needs. First Steps and the Great Start Collaborative are working with many other community partners to develop a coordinated system of support services for young children and their families in Kent County.

“Children’s experiences and environments in their first few years of life have a tremendous impact on their long-term health and success,” said Rebekah Fennell, executive director of First Steps. “There’s no question that the needs of children and families continue to increase. As a community, we are working to make sure that we have the support systems in place to meet those needs and give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential. ”

An adequate supply of diapers costs about $75 a month—simply out of reach for many families.   Local food pantries rarely have enough diapers on their shelves.  One of the agencies that received diapers from the Diaper Drive  tells the story of a pregnant mother who was living in emergency housing with her toddler after leaving an abusive relationship.  She turned to the resource center for help and said the promise of diapers and other support “changed her world.”

Diapers collected by the Great Start Parent Coalition are given to local food pantries and resource centers to distribute to families in need.  People are being asked to drop off unopened packages of disposable diapers at drop boxes around the community, including:  any Walgreens stores or YMCA in Kent County, or any Kent District Library branches.  The Great Start Parent Coalition also will accept monetary donations by check or through PayPal on its website www.diaperdrivekent.org.

An independent evaluation of an innovative approach to children’s healthcare in Kent County has found the program is succeeding in significantly reducing the number of expensive emergency room visits and hospital admissions while improving kids’ health.

The Children’s Healthcare Access Program (CHAP) is a collaborative, community-based project to improve the health of low-income children while better utilizing existing resources and decreasing costs.  First Steps launched the project in 2008, in partnership with the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, Priority Health, the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County, the Asthma Network of West Michigan, Cherry Street Health Services, and numerous healthcare practices and human services agencies.

The independent evaluation by SRA International shows that CHAP is working.  Visits to the emergency department have decreased 14% for children receiving care with participating healthcare providers, while inpatient hospital admissions are down 12%.  The decreases are even more significant among children with the most significant needs:  35% decline in emergency department use and 62% decline in hospitalizations.  There’s a 40% increase in families who have a specific plan to manage their child’s asthma – the most common chronic disease in children and one of the leading causes of hospitalization.

The evaluation includes a cost benefit analysis conducted by a nationally-recognized economist.   It takes into account the societal benefits – such as fewer school days missed – and found that the immediate social benefits exceed the costs by 20%.  That is a conservative analysis and can be expected to increase over time, since the benefits of good health in childhood are compounded as people age.

“The Children’s Healthcare Access Program is focused intensively on prevention and early intervention,” said First Steps Executive Director Rebekah Fennell.  “Both the children and the community benefit when we invest our resources in prevention.  Children stay healthy, and we avoid the unnecessary emergency department visits and preventable hospitalizations that increase healthcare costs for everybody.”

The percentage of Kent County children enrolled in Medicaid increases every year – it’s now about 40%.  For a variety of reasons, children with Medicaid often have limited access to preventive health care.  CHAP is working to address that through a variety of strategies, including health education and support services for families as well as important changes within health plans, primary care providers, and human service agencies.  Some of the changes are obvious to families, such as extended evening hours that allow them to take a sick child to the family doctor rather than the emergency department.  Others – like a simpler referral process for mental health services – are not as recognizable but greatly improve access to the care children and families need.

“There’s no one silver bullet or quick fix,” explained Tom Peterson, MD, Executive Director of Safety, Quality and Community Health at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and Medical Director of CHAP.  “CHAP is much more than a program or service.  It’s a new approach to pediatric care that brings together all aspects of the healthcare system to coordinate our efforts and ensure that we’re doing all we can to improve children’s health and make the best use of limited resources.”

Based on the promising results in Kent County, other communities are adopting the model.  A group in Wayne County (Detroit) received a $1 million grant from the Kresge Foundation to launch the Wayne Children’s Healthcare Access Program, while there’s work in Kalamazoo and Calhoun counties to implement the model within the next year.  The Lansing-based Early Childhood Investment Corporation is coordinating efforts to replicate the success of CHAP across the state.

A guiding principle of CHAP is that all children should have a consistent, high-quality medical home—a doctor’s office or clinic where they always can go for regular checkups, immunizations and treatment when they are sick.  The medical home concept is based on family-centered, coordinated care, with a strong emphasis on prevention.  As part of Priority Health’s involvement in CHAP, it has offered financial incentives to healthcare providers to improve medical home access and quality.

”This program demonstrates that providing children with access to pediatric primary care, as recommended in the medical home model, can help keep them healthy while reducing overall health care costs,” said Jim Byrne, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Priority Health. “By receiving care in the appropriate setting such as a doctor’s office instead of the emergency room, children have a better experience, more consistent delivery of care and we’ll see a reduction in overall costs.”

Grand Rapids Public Schools, First Steps and the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County are launching a new program to ease the transition to kindergarten and prepare families for school success.  KinderCamp is a free, week-long program that introduces children and their parents to their elementary school and helps them adjust to the routines and expectations of kindergarten.  It is for children who will be in kindergarten during the 2011-2012 school year.

KinderCamp runs from August 15-19 at Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Academy and Burton Elementary Schools.  The program goes from 8:30-11:30 a.m. every day, with classes for both children and parents.  KinderCamp is free to families and is being funded through an early education grant from the Early Childhood Investment Corporation and Grand Rapids Public Schools Title I funds.

Research clearly shows that children who start kindergarten ready to learn are likely to have success throughout their education, while children who start behind often stay behind.  KinderCamp is based on similar programs across the country that have proven effective at improving children’s readiness to learn, in part by easing the anxiety children may feel as they begin school.

“Many of our children have not had a preschool experience, so the concept of a classroom is new to them,” explained Joanne Kelty, Director of Early Childhood for GRPS.  “Helping children feel comfortable in school and getting them excited about learning will prepare them to thrive from day one.”

Children who participate in KinderCamp will receive backpacks and other supplies for school.  Their parents will receive home organizers, parenting information and other tools that will help them ensure that their child’s education gets off to a great start.

KinderCamp is open to incoming kindergarteners who live in the neighborhoods around Burton and Martin Luther King, Jr. schools.  Families can register by calling 819-2111.

Kent County has an exciting opportunity to improve the early learning experiences of young children so that they arrive at kindergarten ready to learn and succeed.  The Great Start Collaborative, in partnership with First Steps, the Heart of West Michigan United Way and Kent Regional 4C, is pleased to announce the new Great Start Early Childhood Scholarship Fund.  It will provide scholarships to vulnerable three year old children to attend a high quality child care center or preschool. 

The following school year, the children will be enrolled in a publicly funded, tuition-free preschool (Head Start or the Great Start Readiness Program), providing them with two years of quality early education prior to beginning kindergarten.

“We know through scientific research that as much as 90% of a child’s brain is developed before he or she starts kindergarten,” explained Judy Freeman, Director of the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County.  “It is critically important that children have access to high quality early education before they get to kindergarten.  We will follow the progress of the children who participate so that we can document the impact of this program on their readiness for school success.”

The scholarship fund is made possible by a $400,000 grant from the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC), which awarded a total of $3 million in scholarship funds to Great Start Collaboratives across the state.  Each community is required to secure a dollar-for-dollar match in private investment.  In Kent County, that commitment is led by a $300,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  The Heart of West Michigan United Way and several local foundations also are contributing to the scholarship fund.

“Children from low-income homes need the same access to quality early education as anyone else, so we’re pleased to help the collaboratives offer these scholarships,” said Karen Roback, director of the Great Start Child Care Quality Program for the ECIC, which oversees the collaboratives.  “But in these tough times it’s also crucial to stimulate continued private investment in early childhood at the local level, and the matching fund aspect of these awards helps the collaboratives do that.”

The initial $400,000 from ECIC will be used in the 2011-2012 school year, providing scholarships to approximately 100 three year olds from low-income families.  The remaining $400,000 will be used to serve another group of three year olds in 2012-2013.  During that time, partners will evaluate the impact of the scholarship program and, if the evaluation shows promising results, work toward sustainable funding.

The child care centers and preschools that will participate already have been selected.  They all are in or near underserved neighborhoods of Kent County and meet the scholarship program’s quality standards.  Kent Regional 4C is actively recruiting families for the program.  Information can be found at www.greatstartkent.org.

Release issued by ECIC — The Early Childhood Investment Corp. (ECIC) announced that 31 Great Start Collaboratives across the state have been awarded a total of $3 million in grants to stimulate private investment in local early childhood efforts and to pay for child care/preschool scholarships for vulnerable 3-year-olds.

The grants ranged from $3,000 for the Ionia County Great Start Collaborative on up to $400,000 for the Kent Great Start Collaborative.

The collaboratives receiving grants will establish local matching funds and challenge local businesses and foundations to contribute to the fund, thereby creating an ongoing pool from which to boost local early childhood efforts.

In addition, collaboratives will spend their original “seed” grants from ECIC on child care/preschool scholarships for the most at-risk 3-year-olds from low-income families, creating an immediate benefit.

In Michigan, the cost of quality child care is often prohibitive for families. The average cost of full-time care for an infant or young child in a family child care home or center in Michigan is between $6,400 and $8,900, according to a study by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.

Early childhood advocates say quality child care is among the supports that children need to boost their chances of being ready to thrive once they reach kindergarten. Research has shown that early childhood supports increase the chances of life success, cut government costs and stimulate local, state and national economies.

“Kids from low-income homes need quality care the same as anyone else, so we’re pleased to help the collaboratives offer these scholarships,” said Karen Roback, director of the Great Start Child Care Quality Program for the ECIC, which oversees the collaboratives. “But in these tough times it’s also crucial to stimulate continued private investment in early childhood at the local level, and the matching fund aspect of these awards will help the collaboratives do that.”

In the last four years, Michigan’s Great Start Collaboratives and ECIC have leveraged over $23 million in funds from public and private sources. There are 54 collaboratives in the Great Start system, covering every county in Michigan.

The grants, which are funded through a combination of public and private sources, were awarded following a proposal process to collaboratives that met specific funding criteria and had a demonstrated history of strong performance, according to ECIC. In future years, local communities will help decide how contributions to their matching funds are used.

Local collaboratives will identify the most appropriate local fiduciary – a community foundation, Chamber of Commerce or Intermediate School District – to receive and administer the funds.

The child care scholarships will be awarded to licensed child care homes and centers beginning in late summer 2011. For a full list of local awards and local contacts, please see the attached documents.

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The Early Childhood Investment Corporation is a public/private initiative working to restructure Michigan’s investment in children from birth to five through state and local community efforts.

For more information about ECIC and its efforts, visit http://greatstartforkids.org/

As the organization recognized for its work to integrate and coordinate Kent County’s system of care and education for early childhood, First Steps worked with its community partners to build a gateway for entry into that system.  By providing education and support to families in the earliest days of their baby’s life, this gateway then connects them to a system of resources to ensure that their child reaches kindergarten ready to be successful in school and life.

Welcome Home Baby is available to all first-time parents and parents 25 and younger who live in Kent County.  There is no cost to families who choose to participate in the program.

New parents are introduced to Welcome Home Baby in the hospital, typically a day after the birth of their baby.  They are offered a visit from a maternal child nurse who will meet with them in their home a few days later.  The nurse visit provides an ideal opportunity for parents to have their questions answered in the comfort of their own home.  Learning how to care for a baby takes time and practice; a visit from a nurse eases the transition into parenthood.  During the home visit, the nurse:

• Assesses the health of the baby and mother.
• Shares information about parenting and child health, development and safety.
• Connects the baby and family to their medical home (pediatrician or family doctor).
• Links families to helpful services in the community, if needed and desired.

“After being released from the hospital and settling at home, we still had questions in regard to caring for our son,” explained new mother Trinity Clemens.  “The questions were answered during our visit with the Welcome Home Baby nurse, leaving us feeling confident and excited about our new role as parents.”

Welcome Home Baby provides support to families at a time when it can have the greatest impact—the earliest days of their child’s life.  A child’s brain is 80-90% developed by his or her 4^th birthday.  The first few years of life are when children learn how to think, solve problems, cope with stress, communicate and be creative.  Research clearly shows that quality early childhood programs—beginning with parenting education and support—are critical to preparing children for school success.

“Parents are their child’s first and most influential teachers,” said Rebekah Fennell, First Steps Executive Director.  “Welcome Home Baby provides parents with the support, information and tools they need to give their child a great start in life.  A strong early foundation ultimately leads to greater success in school and beyond.”

Welcome Home Baby is a collaborative effort involving all three of the major health systems in Kent County (Metro Health, Saint Mary’s Health Care and Spectrum Health), the Great Start Collaborative of Kent County, the Kent Intermediate School District, Kent County government and numerous human service agencies.  Funding is provided by several private foundations (Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation, Mike and Sue Jandernoa, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Frey Foundation and Steelcase Foundation), the Early Childhood Investment Corporation and the Heart of West Michigan United Way.

“Kent County is blessed with wonderful programs for young children and their families,” said Sue Jandernoa, member of the First Steps Commission.  “Unfortunately, prior to Welcome Home Baby, many parents were unfamiliar with the resources that are available and didn’t connect to them.  It is inspiring to see how service providers and health systems have come together to create a universal and consistent system to support our community’s most valuable resource—our youngest children.”

“Welcome Home Baby is a coordinated and intentional approach to reach all new parents in Kent County and introduce them to our community’s system of care,” explained Dianna Baker, Public Health Nursing Supervisor at the Kent County Health Department.  “Service providers have worked together to develop this program, which holds all of us to high standards to ensure that we are being responsive to the needs of young families.”

Welcome Home Baby is modeled after similar programs in Cleveland, Ohio, and Durham, North Carolina.  As with all First Steps projects, it is being rigorously evaluated by an independent evaluator.