Ingham Great Start Collaborative

Birth to Five Subcommittee Meeting 

Birth to Five/ Power of We Subcommittee Vision Statement:

“Every Ingham County child ready to succeed in school and life”

AGENDA

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

1:30        Introductions - All

1:40        Agency Spotlight: CEI-CMH - Diane Weinberger & Barry Kaufman

PIP, KEEP, Proud Parents Proud Fathers, Adoptive Family Support Group/Adoption Connections

1:50        Community Needs Assessment update - Lori Brasic

               Community Report Card indicators and data update
 

2:00       Power of We, Community Data Indicators - Michelle Nicholson

2:10       Ingham Infant Mortality & Health Disparities - Michelle Nicholson

2:20       Parent Liaisons Updates 

2:40       Mini-Grant, GSC Budget, ECIC updates  - Michelle Nicholson

               Faith Summit summary, GSC Workplan submitted, Official GSC grant announcements

2:50       Advisory Sub-Groups - Updates
Great Parents Great Start, Early On, Jump Start

3:00       Workgroups - Updates

                Literacy Coalition                                                   Beany Tomber

                  Public Awareness                                                    Mary Clark

                  Safe Sleep/Infant Mortality                                     Lisa Chambers

                  Quality Initiatives                                                   Michelle Nicholson

                  Kindergarten Transition                                         Bev Phillips/Lucy McClintic

                  Parent Education                                                    Michelle Nicholson                                              

                 Operations Committee                                             Michelle Nicholson
                                              

3:15        Updates – All

Next Meeting will be November 8, 2006, 1:30-3:30 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.

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Birth to Five Subcommittee
Great Start Collaborative (GSC)

Meeting MINUTES

Wednesday October 11, 2006

Members Present: Lori Brasic - OYC, Mary Clark - CAYA, Joelle Crist - DHS, Wendy Duke-Littlejohn - Parent, Malcolm Echols - Parent, Beatrice Echols - Parent, Shera Emmons - Parent, Suzanne Hoekzema - ICHD Jump Start, Barry Kaufman - CEI/CMH, Teresa Kmetz - CAUW, Adam Longwell - Parent & Baker Donora Focus Center (BDFC), Lynne Martinez - Consultant, Lucy McClintic - CACS Head Start, Michelle Nicholson - IISD, Stephanie Peters - IISD, Bev Phillips - LSD, Sharlina Pye-Mack - Parent, Peggy Roberts – Power of We Consortium, Marcia Rysztak - LCC, Mindy Smith - OYC, Ken Sperber - Community Rep,  Beany Tomber – MSU/WKAR, Diana Torrez-Hrit - CAYA, Diane Weinberger – CEI/CMH, and Tracy Wennberg - Parent & Early On Family Committee

Michelle Nicholson chaired the meeting.  Michelle announced that the Parent representatives on the Birth To Five Ingham Great Start Collaborative (GSC) have decided to meet after each of the GSC meetings to de-brief, and have opportunities to ask questions in a smaller group.  This will mean that the GSC meeting needs to finish by 3:30pm.

Agency Spotlight: CEI-CMH

Each month at the GSC meetings a different agency(s) will be asked to share information about their programs and services. At this meeting, Diane Weinberger & Barry Kaufman gave an overview of the CEI Community Mental Health programs within the Early Intervention Services unit; and distributed service brochures.  These programs have their offices at a new location (838 Louisa Street) on the southwest side of Lansing. 

The Parent-Infant Program (PIP) provides assessment and intervention for high-risk families with children up to 3 yrs of age.  Services are provided in the community or at home by a Master’s level mental health therapist. The Parent Young Child Program (PYC) provides home-based assessment and interventions to help families that have a children between 3 and 5 years of age with social emotional or behavioral distress.  (PYC will not be able to accept new referrals until Jan 2007).  To request PIP or PYC services contact the CMH Access Office at 346-8318.     

KEEP (Keeping Early Education Positive) is a program to prevent preschool expulsions with early intervention services for childcare providers, families and young children.  Early childhood mental health consultants provide on-site consultations, referrals and follow-up services for help dealing with children with challenging behaviors.  For referrals contact Barry Kaufman at 887-5251.

Adoption Connections assists families with post-adoption adjustment, offering support groups, workshops, networking and meetings.  An Adoptive Family Support Group meets monthly on Tuesday evenings to share resources, problem solve and build relationships.  For the children there is free childcare (led by a recreation therapist) and snacks.  To enroll contact Julie Kaylor, Program Facilitator, at 641-4188.

Proud Fathers, Proud Parents is a 14-week series using a group-based Nuturing Fathers curriculum for developing attitudes and skills for male nurturance.  Proud Parents uses the Marriage and Parenting curriculum in a 10-week series to strengthen couples relationships through an exploration of parental attitudes and skills.  Open to all types of family configurations including grandparents and extended family members.  For information on these programs contact Jeff Keener 482-1504.

{Malcolm Echols also let the group know about the Father to Father support groups that will help build parenting skills through male support group and mentoring.  These groups are focused on enabling parolees to re-unite with their families and re-enter society.  For more information contact Malcolm at 485-0171 or email Malcolm.Echols@gmail.com.} 

Community Needs Assessment

Michelle reminded the GSC that the Power of We consortium is updating their report to the community, and they would like to include an indicator or benchmark to measure ongoing progress towards school readiness.  Michelle asked the group to keep this in mind as OYC staff presented the next run through of the data they have collected. Mindy Smith and Lori Brasic from OYC did a Power Point presentation of the data collected to date, meeting the requirements of the ECIC Community Report Card needs assessment.  In this presentation they focused on indicators #18-35.  OYC, with the help of the Ingham County Health Dept Data Analyst, was able to collect almost all of the data elements requested by the ECIC.  But the information presented raised many questions, and it was agreed further clarification will be needed from the ECIC before the data can be meaningfully analyzed, or presented for discussion of community action plans.  {For example, the number of substantiated cases of child abuse was high in Ingham County compared to other counties – but it is not clear whether this number indicates a better reporting and investigating system in Ingham County (compared to other counties), or that it means Ingham County actually has a higher incidence of abuse than other counties.  Each of these explanations would lead us to developing a different type of action plan to address the issue.  (Joelle Crist-Colon said she would try and get some additional information from Ingham DHS to help the GSC sort out the meaning of the child abuse data elements).  More discussions will be needed.} 

Parent Liaison Updates

Sharlina reported that she attended the last ECIC Board meeting.  At that meeting it was discussed that Parent Education needs to include fathers. The ECIC blueprint and statewide plan will also try and include extended family members.  There was discussion of a centralized 800 number for parents looking for early childhood services. Another issue discussed was the quality of care, and the importance to provide training to day care aides and relatives.  The discussions seem to have a real emphasis that Great Start services and programs should have universal access and be open for all young children.

Adam suggested that the GSC contact CATA to try and arrange free bus rides for any parent with a pre-natal or a child’s appointment with a Doctor.  Many members agreed that public transportation is a real issue in terms of health care access.  It was also suggested the issue be presented at one of the monthly CATA board meetings. GSC members suggested that it would be a good idea to re-visit this later in the planning process.  

ECIC Budget, Grant Revisions, and Updates

The Operations Committee worked with Michelle to develop a Transition Plan (to move Ingham GSC from a “Capacity Building” to a “Ready” Community).  The GSC reviewed the Plan and after a brief discussion there was consensus to submit the Transition Plan to the ECIC.  In addition, Michelle reviewed the draft of the Revised Work Plan that had been sent to all GSC members.  After Michelle’s explanations and a short discussion, the GSC committee approved the Plan to be submitted to the ECIC for funding. 

Part of the ECIC mini-grant was to underwrite the cost of a special event – a Summit of Faith-Based Organizations to help publicize the Faith-based toolkits and engage the community religious leaders in the GSC efforts.  The Faith-Based Summit was scheduled for September 28^th at LCC West, and Bishop Maxwell from the City of Lansing Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, and a Greg Roberts from the Governors Office of Faith–based Initiatives were confirmed as speakers.  Using the mailing list provided by Capital Area United Way, 116 invitations were mailed out, and follow-up telephone calls were made to 95% of the list.  Unfortunately, only one person from the clergy confirmed their attendance by the RSVP deadline, so the Operations Committee suggested that instead the time be used as a breakfast meeting with Bishop Maxwell to plan a future co-sponsored Faith-based summit that his office would help promote and organize with the GSC.  The meeting was very successful and Mary and Michelle are following up with Bishop Maxwell’s staff to set up some planning meetings. 

The $5,000 mini-grant from the ECIC payed for the Collaborative to reprint the faith-based version of the toolkits, and acquire translation services for several early childhood articles and posters.  But due to the changes in the Faith Summit and the September 30^th deadline for spending the money, not all of the grant was spent down.  Michelle estimated that the actual services provided will cost around $4,400, not the full $5,000 budgeted.

Updates

The meeting agenda was long, and items ran over their allocated time so several agenda items were deferred including: the Infant Mortality & Health Disparities report, Advisory Group Updates and the oral Workgroup Updates (written summaries were provided to all GSC members).  There was just a very short time for sharing at the end of the meeting.  Copies of the Early Literacy - Nov 4-20 Events brochure were distributed.  The updated Great Parents Playgroup schedules were shared with members.  The most recent Early On Part C data report was given to members.  Brochures for the “Laying the Foundation of Literacy in the Early Years” conference were handed out (also available on-line at the Birth to Five website).  GSC members were invited to join the October 15^th Baby Walk fundraiser for Tomorrow’s Child / Michigan SIDS.  For the event the Safe Sleep Coalition, a workgroup of the GSC, is sponsoring a team, named the “Safe Sleep Walkers”, participants and sponsors were invited to contact Diane Weinberger.

The next Birth to Five, Ingham GSC meeting will be on Wednesday, November 8^th from 1:30pm – 3:30pm at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 549 E. Mt. Hope, Lansing.  Childcare will be available on-site with advance reservation before 11/1/2006 at the Family Growth Center 371-1347.

Workgroup Summary Report