Southington Family Resource Center to be “One-Stop Shop” for Families Preparing Children for Success in School
Foundation Grant Supports Community-Wide Early Childhood Education Effort
(October 15, 2008) The dream of every community – families, school teachers and administrators, community leaders alike – is to afford their children every opportunity to succeed in school and in life by providing the tools and resources necessary to get them off on the right foot.
Thanks in part to a $25,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain, those kinds of resources in Southington will be significantly boosted with the establishment of a Family Resource Center (FRC), a “one-stop shop” for families looking for programs, information and guidance in preparing their children for the challenges to come in kindergarten and beyond.
“Those first years of a child’s life before kindergarten are so critical,” said Moira Myers, co-chair of the Early Childhood Collaborative of Southington (ECCS), which received the grant to get the FRC off the ground. “Parents are a child’s first, most important and most influential teacher; if we can help them enhance what they are already doing to prepare their children, if we can continue raising community awareness of the importance of early childhood development, the benefits will be immeasurable.”
The grant is part of the Community Foundation’s First Years First early childhood development initiative, a $1 million, five-year commitment to help prepare area children for success by enhancing their early childhood education experience. The Community Foundation serves as the administrative agent for ECCS, which brings parents, educators, community stakeholders and others together to ensure that all Southington children enter school ready to learn. Major funding for ECCS is provided by the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.
The FRC, according to Sue Vivian, ECCS co-chair, will be fashioned in part after the State of Connecticut Department of Education’s FRC model. The fact that Southington is currently not among the more than 60 state-funded FRC communities throughout the state belies the local need, says Vivian.
“Every town can benefit from a coordinated approach to the provision of services, particularly in this important area of early childhood development,” said Vivian. “We’ve worked on this for several years; we’ve done surveys, we’ve sought community input. This is a parent- and family-driven project.
“What we are trying to do is connect families with their schools, while at the same time bring the importance of early childhood development to the forefront of our community.”
Importantly, added Myers, the FRC is intended to complement existing programs and unify the community’s preschool providers.
“We are not looking to reinvent the wheel; Southington already has some wonderful preschool programming,” she said. “But it can be difficult for parents, particularly new and hard-to-reach parents, to know what resources are available to them or what might be best for their child. We’d like to unify everyone offering programs and services for preschoolers, and be a kind of one-stop shop for Southington families.”
The FRC, said both Vivian and Myers, will initially focus on one of the primary components of the state’s FRC model, called Families in Training. Families in Training provides support services to expectant parents and parents of children under age 3, including playgroup offerings, parent workshops and other organized activities that bring families and children together.
ECCS expects to hire a director for the FRC within the next month, and have programming up and running by year’s end, if not earlier, said Vivian.
Aside from the Community Foundation’s funding, a key ingredient in moving the initiative forward, said Myers, is the Southington Public School System’s extraordinary support. Space is being donated for the program at Derynoski School.
“Dr. (Joseph) Erardi (Southington superintendent of schools) has really moved this agenda forward and helped clear the path for this initiative, and Karen Smith (Derynoski School principal) has worked with us and been encouraging from the start,” Myers said. “This is something the community is truly embracing and supporting.”
Established in 1941, the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain connects donors who care with causes that matter in Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington. For more information on the Foundation, please call (860) 229-6018 or visit www.cfgnb.org.
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