For the past two years, a team of service delivery providers and community members committed to advancing opportunities for children aged birth to 5 has been meeting monthly. I am so grateful to two of our community leaders, Betsy Lease and Donna Ormiston, who brought their shared concerns regarding the availability of comprehensive services for children aged birth to 5 and their families to my attention.
Our work began by pulling together a team of community members, including the parent of preschool-aged children, and birth-to-5 service providers to form the Brown County Birth to Five Steering Committee.
Together, we identified our mission: “The Birth to Five Steering Committee, in order that all Brown County children enter school programs prepared and ready to learn, will seek an early learning environment that is inclusive, affordable, and based on strong relationships between service providers and the community served.”
And we identified our vision which is, simply, to: “Provide services that are seamless, collaborative, supportive, and accessible to children aged birth to five and their families.”
Once we knew where we were headed, we set about identifying actions that the committee could take to advance the mission of our committee with the intention of realizing our vision. We have been working on two projects of significance that we hope will expand the awareness of opportunities in our community for families with children aged birth to 5.
The first project is one for which you may have already seen in a location across our community. Our team worked together with community providers to develop a list of fun things for families with children aged birth to 5 to do across our county and created a “rack card” for distribution. The rack card was developed to share fun activities taking place in Brown County in the late summer and early fall for young families. With thanks to our friends at the Brown County Community Foundation, this card was designed and ready for distribution at the Brown County Fair. We had many engaging conversations with families who sincerely appreciated the information contained on the card.
Because our first rack card was such a success, we are in the process of issuing a second rack card that lists services and resources for families with young children that happen throughout the year. From engaging activities at the Brown County Public Library, to early intervention services provided through First Steps, we hope that this rack card will be an important resource for families with children ages birth to 5.
Our second project involved the creation of a webpage offering a more expansive listing of resources, including contact information and detailed descriptions of the services that are provided. This webpage is currently housed on the Brown County Schools website and can be accessed using the website: browncountyschools.com/birth-to-five. We are happy to link this page to any other community websites. Should you be an organization willing to include a link to this page on your website, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Our committee believes that by providing comprehensive opportunities for children aged birth to 5, we are enhancing the quality of life of our community. During our “Ready Schools” process last year, one of the key themes that emerged from interviews with community members is that it is difficult to find high quality care and services for children in the birth to 5 age band. The schools are sincerely interested in increasing the number of young families who choose Brown County as their home and we hope that by advancing options and access, this demographic will increase.
Should you be interested in learning more about the work that the Brown County Birth to Five Steering Committee is doing for the Brown County community, and/or you are interested in participating, please contact me.
We are aware that only by working together will we realize the vision of this work. Simply, early intervention for children aged birth to 5 matters, and we stand ready to meet the needs of this truly valuable (and adorable!) demographic.
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County Schools. She can be reached at [email protected] or 812-988-6601.
