Birth to Five/Ingham Great Start Collaborative 
Vision Statement: “Every Ingham County child ready to succeed in school and life”

Meeting AGENDA – Wednesday, February 13, 2008  1:00-3:30pm

Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 549 E. Mt. Hope in Lansing

*PLEASE NOTE: New start time of 1pm

 1:00pm - Part I Opening
- Introductions - All
- Approval of GSC Previous Meeting Minutes (1/9/08)
- ECIC updates
-  GSC Coordinator Report (Michelle)
- Advisory Groups (Early On, Jump Start, Great Parents Great Start - grant app)

1:30 pm - Part II Action Agenda (~15 minutes each of six Goal areas)
          1) Physical Health (Lisa - Infant Mortality; Carol - Safe Sleep)
          2) Soc-Emotional Health (Fran & Barry - KEEP)
          3) Early Care & Ed (Marcia - QI, Tom - Kindergarten Transition)
          4) Basic Needs (Michelle - Ad Hoc Transpo, Ken - Lead Coalition)
          5) Family Support (Sharlina - Parent Coalition; Beany - Early Literacy)
          6) Infrastructure (Operations Committee, Public Awareness)

 
     - Reports on Progress with Action Agenda Strategies & Objectives
     - Discussion of related workgroup and agency upcoming activities and ideas
     - Discussion on next steps, additional resources needed, etc

3:00pm - Part III – Action Agenda, Building Links – featured Agency/Programs
Tobacco Use & Smoking Cessation – Amy Moore (ICHD)

3:30pm - Reminder next regular GSC Meeting 3/12/08, discuss April Meeting Date (4/9 or other alternative).  GSC Meeting officially ends.

Birth to Five/Ingham Great Start Collaborative 
Vision Statement: “Every Ingham County child ready to succeed in school and life”

Meeting MINUTES – Wednesday, February 13, 2008  1:00-3:30pm

Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 549 E. Mt. Hope in Lansing

Present:  Carol Buzzitta - EPO, Lisa Chambers – ICHD/Jump Start/MIOP, Shera Emmons - Parent, Ashweena Gonuguntla - MSU Pediatrics, Rona Harris - Parent, Fran Jozefowicz – CMH, Barry Kaufman - CMH, Keri Keck - ICHD Teen Parenting, Laurie Linscott- MSU Child Development Lab, Sophia Martinez - Peckham, Amy Moore - ICHD, Tom Mumby - Lansing School District, Michelle Nicholson - Ingham ISD, Stephanie Peters - Ingham ISD Early On, Yvonne Phillips - Mayor’s Office on Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, Sharlina Pye-Mack - GSC Parent Coordinator, MC Rothhorn - Parent, Marcia Rysztak - LCC, Mindy Smith - OYC, Ken Sperber - Ingham GSC, Beany Tomber - WKAR, Kellye Wood - MSU Child Dev Lab, Karen Woodman - Head Start, Jamie Yeomans - Parent (GPGS), and Cherie Ross-Barber - ECIC

Introductions
Ingham GSC meeting called to order at 1:06pm.  Operations Committee members continue chairing the GSC meetings.  Today, Stephanie will be chairing the meeting, and Fran will be acting as the timekeeper.  Members proceeded with introductions and new participants Amy Moore and Sophia Martinez were introduced and welcomed by all. 

Approval of 1/9/08 Minutes

The Minutes from the previous Ingham GSC meeting were approved without correction.  The meeting Minutes will be posted to the Ingham GSC website www.cacvoices.org/birthtofive .

ECIC updates

Cherie reported that on March 5^th & 6^th ECIC is sponsoring training by the Visions Corp for GSC Coordinators focusing on ideas to create diverse Collaboratives.  May 6-9, 2008 is the annual Smart Start Conference, but there are no sponsorships by ECIC this year.  Save the date - the 2^nd Annual STAR POWER Rally will be at the Capitol on May 21, 2008. The new ECIC GSC logos are ready.

 
The ECIC has sent out a RFP for 10 new Great Start Collaboratives (plus Macomb County).  These eleven additional GSCs will be starting in April 2008 with 6-month Start-up Grants, then move to Planning Grants, and finally Implementation Grants.  The Governor has proposed GSC statewide coverage by October 2009.  There will be an ECIC Quarterly TA meeting June 24-25, 2008 (it will not be in St. Ignace as previously announced, but in Petoskey).  GSC Coordinators, Parent Liaisons, and Parent Members are invited to attend.

Advisory Group Reports (Early On, Jump Start, Great Parents Great Start)

The Ingham ”Great Parents, Great Start” application for continuing services was previously sent to the Ingham GSC via email.  Michelle brought additional copies of the grant application and budget sheet for the GSC review.  The GPGS grant application is for the continuation of $157,700 of targeted high intensity (home visit) services and general universal services (parent-child play groups, READY Kits, Keys to Success).  The budget continues funding some travel, salaries and supplies. 

The Ingham GSC voted unanimously to approve the application and recommended that the Power of We also approve the submission of this GPGS Application to the MI Dept of Education.

Action Agenda

The GSC meeting has been re-organized to enable monthly reports from the workgroups and GSC members on progress on the Ingham Children’s Action Agenda.  Time was also allowed for questions and discussions in each of the six Goal areas.

1) Physical Health

• Lisa reported that the Infant Mortality Initiative has chosen 2 priorities for the coming year - smoking cessation for pregnant woman, and access to pre-natal care.
• The Safe Sleep Coalition and the Infant Mortality Coalition are discussing combining their efforts by having one joint monthly meeting instead of two separate meetings.  Yvonne reported using the Safe Sleep Tool Kits in churches with nurseries, and sharing the Monthly Focus articles on Safe Sleep. 
• Head Start will be sponsoring the Miles for Smiles fundraising walk on April 19^th to help address issues in dental care.  WKAR is developing some short dental spots with Head Start and working on nutrition spots with the Junior League.  A flyer was circulated promoting the Health Resources Support Parent Trainings on March 11 (Foster Community Center) and April 19 (Holiday Inn West). 
• Shera announced that Williamston Community Schools received a grant to promote healthy foods and nutrition.  She will find out more about the grant and report more details at a future meeting.          

2) Social-Emotional Health

• Barry reported that the KEEP Task Force will be meeting tomorrow 2/14/08 and discussing how the KEEP Task Force can help plan and implement the goals and objectives in this area of the Action Agenda.  Barry also shared flyers for Proud Fathers classes, Free Legal Clinics for Fathers (a new offering on custody and child support), and KEEP Program brochures.  The winter KEEP training series for child care providers has enrolled 46 providers, another new series will start in the spring. 
• MiAIMH is sponsoring a Fatherhood Conference April 21-22 in Okemos.  The GSC Operations Committee has asked the ECIC to be one of the agency sponsors. 
• LCC is offering a class in Developmental Discipline as a “hybrid” section - that is part on-line as self-paced study, and 4 on-campus Saturday sessions.

           
3) Early Care & Education

• The Quality Initiatives workgroup has been developing the first three articles in the Quality Early Learning series.  Val Getter at the Ingham ISD has created a layout and added graphics and rendered them as PDF files.  Ken has posted them to the Ingham GSC website. 
• The early childhood professional development conference “Coming Together for Children” sponsored by OYC, LCC and CMAEYC was held on 2/9/08 and drew 240 participants. 
• Tom announced that the Lansing School District Kindergarten Orientation dates have been set for March 3/26/08 from 4-7pm and 3/27/08 from 1-4pm.  The Transition Committee has been recommending that the Lansing School District continue to schedule only half-days for the first week of kindergarten in the fall, so that teachers can do home-visits, evaluations and contacts with the families.  Parents offered to help advocate to keep this positive transition strategy in the coming year school calendar.  MC brought up some of the parents’ concerns related to safe routes to schools.
  
  

4) Basic Needs

• Michelle and Ken reported on their work with the Power of We Ad Hoc Transportation Committee.  The first meeting was convened by the Tri-County Office of Planning and had good representation from CATA, Eaton and Clinton Transportations systems, Dean Transportation, and human services agency staff.  Over 20 people were at the first meeting.  The next meeting will be on 3/24/08 at the Ingham Human Services Bldg, in the MSU Extension Conference Room.  Participants were asked to bring data to review at the next meeting.
• Ken reported that the Lead Coalition will now be meeting on the 2^nd Wednesday of each month at the Ingham Human Services Bldg, in Conference Room B.  The event for toy testing for lead, which was scheduled at the LCC Health Fair, had to be cancelled because of the snowstorm.  Another toy testing event will be re-scheduled in the Spring.  Yvonne has been helping promote the City of Lansing Lead Abatement Program, which helps pay for renovations by matching home-owner funds.

5) Parent Ed & Family Support

• Beany reported that the Early Childhood Literacy Coalition is planning for family literacy events in the Malls in October.  Beany mentioned that since there will not be the same outside funding as last year, the ECL Coalition will have to do some fundraising to support the event.  MC and Jaime expressed interest in joining the ECL Coalition.  The ECL Coalition has agreed to take the lead on Action Agenda items: A.1&2 - Library displays, and newsletter articles; B.4 - Literacy events; and B.5 - Promote family literacy programs.  The ECL Coalition also agreed to look at the Eaton GSC Action Agenda to better coordinate and promote regional services. 
• Yvonne and the GPGS staff have been at the Faith United Methodist Church while families are waiting for items from the Food Movers to begin offering family support and parenting information. 
• Ken, Michelle, and Lori Axelson met with Haven House to plan beginning a GPGS parent child play group at the Haven House (crisis shelter for families). 
• Sharlina had the 7 members of the Parent Coalition in attendance at the GSC meeting stand up, be recognized, and applauded by all.  The Parent Coalition is developing an Action Plan in synch with the Ingham Children’s Action Agenda.

6) Infrastructure

• At the Operations Committee meeting on 2/4/08, the Action Agenda - Goal VI Infrastructure was reviewed.  The Committee chose Strategy A - to increase GSC membership as highest priority.  The Committee began working on Objective A.1 - Developing an orientation packet, and a mentoring system for new members.  The Committee endorsed the idea of holding Quarterly Orientation luncheon meetings for new members.  The quarterly Orientation meetings will be scheduled for 11:30am - 12:30pm, before the monthly GSC meetings on March 12, June 11, September 10, and December 10, 2008. 
• The Committee discussed renewing Letters of Commitment with agencies whose representatives have not been attending regularly and trying to bring in additional representatives from early education and care programs like MSRP and area child care centers.  Michelle explained that is also timely to have the required organizations (from original GSC application) renew their Letters of Commitment.  Michelle will develop a template for the agencies with a copy of their original letter.
• At the Operations Committee reviewed some of the other Action Agenda Infrastructure items for Year One that the GSC has already made progress in.  These include the development of an outreach database, alignment of the Workgroups, and beginning the development of a Speakers Bureau. 

Action Agenda, Building Links – featured Agency/Program:
Tobacco Use & Smoking Cessation – Amy Moore (ICHD)

Amy Moore from the Ingham County Health Department showed a power point presentation about the dangers of second hand smoke.  The slide show, “The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke” is available at GSC website: http://www.cacvoices.org/birthtofive/minutes/2ndhandsmoke

Amy also shared lots of other materials that are free and promote smoke-free homes and smoking cessation.  Additional materials are available by contacting Amy at amoore@ingham.org or calling 887-4315.

Next Meeting Dates

The GSC was reminded that next regular GSC Meeting will be on Wednesday 3/12/08 with our new start time of 1pm.  Due to the conflicts related to spring break, it was decide to try and re-schedule the April GSC Meeting from 4/9 to 4/15/08.  The GSC meeting officially ended at 3:40pm.

The next Ingham GSC Meeting will be March 12th, 1pm-3:30pm at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church,
 549 E. Mt. Hope in Lansing (1 block East of Cedar).  Child Care will be available by Reservation Only - Call 371-1347.