May, 2015
Governor Brown Proposes Only Minimal Increases in Quality Early Childhood Education
Last week, Governor Brown released the May Revision to his proposal for the California 2015-16 state budget. Despite the $6.7 billion growth in revenue that includes $5.5 billion in Proposition 98 funds, which support preK-14 education, the governor’s proposal includes only minimal increases for young learners from birth to age 5.
Since 2008, $1 billion has been cut from the early learning and care system in California. As a result, far fewer of our vulnerable infants and toddlers are enrolled in programs that support their healthy development. Plus, only minimal reinvestments have been made; only 6% of income-eligible children under age 3 are served by any publicly supported programs. Additionally, the demand for new preschool spaces funded in last year’s budget was more than eight times the number of spaces available, and the California Department of Education acknowledges the need is likely much greater.
Assembly Democrats, the California State Women’s Legislative Caucus, and Senate leaders have made this issue a top priority. However, the governor’s proposal holds funding virtually steady for the early learning system in California despite the clear need for quality early learning opportunities for our state’s youngest children and working families.
First 5 Alameda County is a member of several coalitions who are working to respond to the Revision. “California’s steady economic recovery is an opportunity to invest in early childhood—a move that is supported by countless studies, has the clear public support and makes fiscal sense. The current budget doesn’t reflect children as a state priority.”
Read more about the May Revision here. Read the response issued by the ECE coalition here. We’ll keep you posted on how First 5 Alameda County is involved in this ongoing work and what you can do to support the fight to keep young children a top priority in California.
F5AC Proudly Presents the 2015-17 Grantees
After deliberation by First 5 Alameda County staff, community partners, and commissioners, we are proud to announce 2015 – 2017 Grantees in the categories of Targeted, Community Support, and Neighborhood Partnership. We’re excited to extend relationships with groups we’ve funded in the past, but looking forward to working with some new organizations we’ve never funded before. We’ll be giving snapshots of some of our new grantees in future FYIs.
Every three years First 5 Alameda County (F5AC) awards grants in 3 categories: Targeted, Community Support, and Neighborhood Partnership. The 2015-17 Grant Cycle will begin July 1,2015. The full list of 38 grantees was approved by our commission and is now available for review at www.first5alameda.org/community-grants-initiative.
Co-Learning: Innovative Alameda County Initiatives Connects Parents and Providers to Help Vulnerable Children with Social-Emotional Challenges
A new report by Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services’ Early Connections initiative demonstrates that parent-provider partnerships are the key to improving early childhood mental health.
Trusting partnerships between parents and providers are pivotal for supporting healthy children. If treatment plans do not reflect parents’ strengths and expertise, satisfaction with services decreases which leads to increased costs to the system—whether from missed appointments or longer duration of treatment. The report “Co-learning: Alameda County’s Approach to Deepening Parent and Provider Partnership in Early Childhood Mental Health” makes it clear: when providers are not able to engage parents in trusting relationships, children go without the supports they need.
Co-learning is an approach that promotes parent engagement and trusting parent-provider relationships. In Co-learning, a group of parents and providers come together at least once a month and practice partnering as members of a facilitated “Co-learning Team” where they jointly plan and create culturally responsive resources that support children’s well-being. Childhood agencies then use the resources created in these co-learning teams to strengthen workforce development and parent engagement.
“Building trusting partnerships between parents and providers in public systems is much more complicated than it seems, particularly in light of how parents’ knowledge and voices have been historically marginalized,” said Beth Sauerhaft, M.Ed, CPC, pioneer of Co-learning and the Coaching and Capacity Building Coordinator at Early Connections, Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services. “The cost of not engaging the expertise of parents is steep.”
Read the full report, executive summary and 8-minute bilingual video featuring parents and providers at thecolearningproject.com.
Scaling What Works - Help Me Grow's Joint County Expansion
First 5 Alameda and Contra Costa County were recently awarded a grant from the Thomas J. Long Foundation to expand Help Me Grow in both counties. Help Me Grow promotes early detection of development delays in young children and one of our strategies promoting school readiness.
As part of the initiative, our two agencies will be training pediatricians and early care and education providers to use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) to monitor and check children’s developmental progress. We’ll also being reaching out to parents about the importance of early screening and how to access it.
As screening services expand, it is anticipated that more children will be identified with moderate delays not serious enough to qualify for state-funded intervention services, yet still in need of help. To fill this gap, Help Me Grow Alameda County will implement new Mid-Level Developmental Assessments and provide resources to families that need the support.
"Early Identification of developmental and social-emotional concerns can vastly improve developmental outcomes for children and better prepare them for school entry We’re thrilled to expand our services with this grant and make developmental screening a routine part of early childhood,” said Janis Burger, CEO of First 5 Alameda County.
Expect to hear more from Help Me Grow Alameda County about its efforts to promote and expand early identification and intervention for children locally. If you have questions about Help Me Grow, please email helpmegrow@first5alameda.org.
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