Working Together: Successful Strategies to Build Strong Collaborations across Early Childhood Programs

Thursday, Oct. 15, 2015

3–4:30 p.m. EDT

Register Online Now!

Please join senior leadership of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Linda Smith, Rachel Schumacher, and Blanca Enriquez, for a special webcast on October 15, 2015, 3–4:30 p.m. EDT. Working Together: Successful Strategies Build Strong Collaborations across Early Childhood Programs will highlight lessons learned and promising practices from the Tribal Early Learning Initiative.

Topics for this webinar include:

•        Exploring strategies to support increased early childhood program collaboration with the aim of developing seamless services for children and families and increasing program quality

•        Discussing the importance of effective cross-program partnerships as a foundation for early childhood system development

•        Sharing examples of successful collaboration within the Tribal Early Learning Initiative (TELI), an ACF-sponsored effort to support partnerships across Head Start and Early Head Start, child care, and home visiting programs in tribal communities

Who Should Participate?

This webinar will benefit an array of audiences, including: Head Start and Early Head Start family services and health staff, directors, and managers; home visiting state, territory, and tribal administrators; child care state, territory, and tribal administrators; T/TA staff; professional development providers and consultants; Head Start State Collaboration Offices; and other state and local community stakeholders interested in supporting strong early childhood systems.

How to Register

Select this link to register for the webinar: https://goto.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1076701

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

Office of Child Care

This week the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education released a policy statement highlighting the importance of making sure that all young children with disabilities have access to inclusive high-quality early childhood programs. The policy statement sets a vision for States, local education agencies, schools, and public and private early childhood programs to strengthen and increase the number of inclusive high-quality early childhood programs nationwide. As the country continues to move forward on the critical task of expanding access to high-quality early childhood programs for all young children, it is imperative that children with disabilities be included in these efforts.

You can find more information about the policy statement here and can read the full policy statement attached. The policy statement and executive summary will also be posted on the Early Childhood Development Web site.

OCC heart logo.

 

Office of Child Care

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Aerospace Building, Fifth Floor East

370 L’Enfant Promenade, S.W.

Washington, DC  20447

General office number: (202) 690-6782

Fax: (202) 690-5600

General e-mail: occ@acf.hhs.gov

Web site: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/occ

 

KIDS COUNT News

Kids of color will represent a majority of children in the United States by 2018, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections. The latest data from the KIDS COUNT Data Center show that since 2000, the largest increases in the population were seen among children who identified as two or more races (a 100% increase), Asians or Pacific Islanders (up 67%) and Latinos (up 41%). Explore new demographic data available for the nation, states and the District of Columbia

The Louisiana Children’s Trust Fund Board is seeking a self-motivated, dynamic, proven, visionary leader to facilitate child abuse and neglect prevention programs for the State of Louisiana as Executive Director of the Louisiana Children’s Trust Fund.

For the full job announcement, click here.

Deadline to apply is June 30, 2015.

The focus of this month is to promote and encourage positive family relationships. A positive family is more likely to have healthy, confident children. Spending time together is a key component in promoting family bonding. The facts prove that a family that eats together communicate better and have fewer conflicts. Remember how important it is to spend time with your children and tell them how much you love and support them. Click here to read more and find a list of 15 fun family activities.

Publicly funded preschools across the country are largely segregated by race and income, and poor children are typically enrolled in the lowest quality programs, according to a new report released Wednesday by researchers at the National Center for Children and Families at Teachers College, Columbia University. While states more than doubled their investments in preschool between 2003 and 2013, when 1.3 million three- and four-year-olds were enrolled at a cost of $5.4 billion, most classrooms were economically segregated, the researchers found. Click to read the full article.

Get Ready for National Child Abuse Prevention Month

Each year in April, time is spent acknowledging the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to promote the social and emotional well-being of children and families.  To help you plan for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, you can access:

• The Protective Factors in Practice interactive tool, and use different scenarios to educate yourself on how multiple factors support and strengthen families, and share what you’ve learned with families and your community
• Three new tip sheets to share with families and caregivers —in English and Spanish— and access to over a dozen more that can be distributed to parents and caregivers. The three new tip sheets this year are "Feeding Your Family," "Human Trafficking: Protecting Our Youth," and "Support after an Adoption"
• Three activity calendars to help plan and engage with families through events—one each for prevention programs, parents, and community partners

Bookmark the 2015 National Child Abuse Prevention Month website, and check back in April!

Partnering for Prevention

Please join us for a meeting to discuss ways in which to strengthen families, prevent child abuse and improve the outcomes for children in your region of   the state.  

 O Discuss needs in your community,

O Hear how to stay connected during the upcoming legislative session,

O Get information and materials that you can use in your program,

O Meet and network with others working on behalf of children  and families, and 

O Learn how you can be a part of the COLOR a Brighter Tomorrow for Children Project!

We hope that you will attend the event in your area!

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Louisiana Partnership for Children & Families and the Louisiana Children's Trust Fund.

Dates and locations of the meetings:

March 9 - Northeast Louisiana Region in Monroe

March 10 - Northwest Louisiana Region in Shreveport

March 10 - Central Louisiana Region in Alexandria

March 13 - Southeast Louisiana Region in New Orleans

March 16 - Florida Parishes Region in Mandeville

March 23 - Bayou Parishes Region in Gray (Houma)

March 25 - Acadiana Parishes Region in Lafayette

March 26 - Southwest Louisiana Region in Lake Charles

March 30 - Capitol Parishes Region in Baton Rouge

Download  a statewide flyer or go to the Louisiana Partnership's Calendar of Upcoming Events for more information

A report to Congress from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) project is now available on the OPRE website at MIHOPE Report to Congress.

February is National Parent Leadership Month!  The FRIENDS Parent Advisory Council (PAC) is excited to offer you the following resources to recognize and celebrate the parents in your state, community and local programs!  These materials are available in both English and Spanish..

• National Parent Leadership Month certificate:  A customizable award that you can download and fill in for the parent leaders you are recognizing throughout February  (English) (Spanish)
• A Recipe for Growth:  An example of how to nurture and develop parent leaders (English) (Spanish)
• Tips for Practitioners:  Insights and wisdom from the PAC on what has helped them grow in their leadership role as well as suggestions of how parents and practitioners can join together to support parent leadership (English) (Spanish)

In addition, the FRIENDS PAC encourages you to consider these links to other resources to assist you with supporting, recognizing and celebrating parent leadership:

The FRIENDS NC for CBCAP website offers materials, information and resources to support parent engagement and leadership.  Use the link below:

http://friendsnrc.org/cbcap-priority-areas/parent-leadership-and-involvement

You may use the following link to explore a variety of materials available for print or scroll down to the list below to click and view the various parent support and leadership print resources FRIENDS has available for download.

http://friendsnrc.org/print-materials  

Parent Support

Meaningful Parent Leadership: A Guide for Success
Promising Practices in Parent Involvement Annotated Bibliography
The Role of Parent Mutual Support
Parent Education
Parent Leadership Ambassador Training Guide

Parent Leadership Ambassador Training Participant Guide
Circle of Parents (English)
Circle of Parents (Spanish)
Core Principles of Parent Support Groups
Parent Engagement and Leadership
Parent Leadership Development Checklist
Successful Strategies of Parent Leadership
Circle of Parent Leadership
Families as Primary Partners in their Child's Development and School Readiness
Successful Models of Parent Leadership

Additional resources including Public Service Announcements, media strategies and talking points are available by clicking the link to the Parents Anonymous NPLM toolkit:

http://parentsanonymous.org/assets/NPLM_TK_All.pdf

If you, or someone you know, is hosting a parent leadership event during February including  recognizing individual parent leaders, let the FRIENDS PAC know by emailing parentlove@yahoo.com.  The PAC will be highlighting your National Parent Leadership Month activities and recognized parents  in an upcoming Parent /  Practitioner newsletter!

MaryJo

MaryJo Alimena Caruso, M.Ed.

T/TA Coordinator

FRIENDS NC for CBCAP

Phone: 724.591.5448

mjcaruso@friendsnrc.org

www.friendsnrc.org

FRIENDS is a service of the Children's Bureau and a member of the T/TA Network