NEWS

Professional Development Opportunity for New School Leaders and Center Directors

Early Learning Indiana, in partnership with McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University, is inviting new school leaders to grow their leadership skills through a three-part professional development series. This series is generously supported by Lilly Endowment Inc. Spots are limited. Visit this LINK to learn more.

4 Virtual Sessions
Tuesdays Sept. 17, October 1, 15, 29
6:30-7:30 p.m.
4 Weeks Long
Register here.

Annual Early Childhood Conference at Saint Mary’s College – “Joyfully Connecting with All”

October 26, 2024. Several workshop sessions will be delivered in Spanish and sessions will be presented that are designed specifically for early educators working with infants/toddlers/two year olds, preschoolers and administrators/directors. Training Certificate – 3 hours.

Registration opens late August. Contact Terri or call (574) 298-3353 if you would like to volunteer at the conference. Volunteering allows participation in all sessions, so please join us.

Conference Sponsorship Opportunities to assist with reducing the conference registration cost for early educators is a priority.  More info about how to be a conference sponsor here: 2024 EC Conference Sponsorship Info & Form

Information about the keynote speaker and her workshop topics can be found here:  Frequently Asked Questions – Early Childhood 2024 Conference

Beacon Health System received a $5.4 million grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration for the Healthy Start Initiative: Eliminating Disparities in Perinatal Health. The Healthy Start Initiative will aim to improve birth outcomes, promote health equity, and eliminate health disparities. As part of the initiative, the Michiana Family Journey program will bring together more than 25 nonprofit partners in Elkhart and St. Joseph counties. This initiative has significant alignment to the Building Strong Brains Coalition work focused on maternal and child health. We are thrilled for our region to have this opportunity for continued collective impact!

The Building Strong Brains Coalition continues to strategically learn together, develop, and implement action strategies, as well as identify ways to overcome barriers to progress. These diagrams show how the three action team focus areas are evolving to be more precise and focused on overcoming those challenges.

Maternal and Child Health Action Team

Quality Child Care and Early Learning Environments Action Team

Community Supports for Children and Families Action Team

• The Community Supports for Children and Families Action Team is researching and piloting findhelp, a search engine providing opportunities to identify and connect families to resources. To learn more about findhelp, visit findhelp.org and see the included information sheet below.

Caitlin Wynne, a member of the Community Supports for Children and Families Action Team who works as a school social worker at Bristol Elementary, reached out to ask if the Building Strong Brains network had a kindergarten readiness tool for public use.

Caitlin was seeking a tool that she could share with families to help encourage kindergarten readiness. When she approached Leah Plank, Senior Director at Horizon Education Alliance and Parent and Family Systems Acting Director for Triple P Elkhart County, the collective work began with making a connection with Sonya Overman, Growing Readers Supervisor at Elkhart Public Library.

Caitlin wanted a simple tool that was an easy-to-read resource that aligned with the state standards. She volunteered to lead the development of the tool and worked with Leah to develop a draft that she could share with the families at her school. This draft (with her consent) was then shared out with the action team. (Download a Spanish or English version in the upper right.)

Additionally, Triple P partner Emily Herriott wanted the tool translated into Spanish for an upcoming Triple P K-Readiness presentation she was leading. She collaborated with Goshen Community Schools translation services to ensure a high-quality Spanish translation. Andrew Hershberger, in his Director of Marketing and Communications role with Triple P/HEA, created the design for both the English and Spanish tools.

The tool was then distributed at Triple P workshops and with action team members. We are grateful for the collective effort that went into creating this valuable resource. It truly exemplifies the power of collaboration and innovative collective thinking.

Thank you to all who collaborated in developing, designing, providing feedback, and implementing the K-readiness checklist. This is exciting collective work!

Communications Support Team

• Surveyed the community to learn about Elkhart County early childhood messaging
• Conducted a branding workshop
• Launched social media. Follow Building Strong Brains on Facebook
• Developing and planning a website refresh

Data Support Team

• Reviewed Elkhart County and state dashboards
• Developed an inventory of existing (aligned and publicly accessible) data
• Met with the action team co-chairs to understand data and research needed to inform action work and measure progress
• Working with the Health System Alignment Team to provide data to inform the work and discussion
• Will support implementation of Visible Network Labs for network analysis and measure the strength of the Building Strong Brains coalition network to scale systems impact

Health System Alignment Team

Conversations among health care providers are focused on ways to increase early and adequate prenatal care. Complex problems require complex solutions. The Maternal and Child Health Action Team, the Health System Alignment Team, a subcommittee of medical providers, and organizations working directly with families are actively engaged. This is another example of where collective work can shift systems and produce better outcomes!

Steering Team 

The Steering Team continues to meet monthly to hear updates from across the system. They will offer feedback to a newly forming Design Team to launch a pilot project to serve new parents in several geographically defined locations – to test strategies. True to the coalition’s values, this effort will be informed, and “directed” by parents.

Leadership Table

The Leadership Table had the opportunity to review a strategy idea from one of the action teams at its May meeting. The Leadership Table shared its support, along with guiding questions for further consideration as the action team continues to develop the plan. After suggesting a pilot project at its February meeting, members of the table heard an update, offered feedback and guiding questions, and supported the approach. The Leadership Table requested a framework reflective of the coalition’s goals and strategies to use as they contribute ideas, challenges, and innovations.  The Leadership Table is scheduled to meet again in August.

• FREE Professional Development Opportunity: Intentional Teaching (earlylearningindiana.org)
• IU Early Childhood Center at the Indiana Institute of Disability and Community is hosting There is Always Hope: 2024 Early Childhood Relational Health Webinar Series. This multi-part series is completely free for all early childhood professionals in Indiana. Webinar topics include, Pediatric Behavioral Health: Insights into promoting well-being among our youngest learners. Early Relational Health (ERH): Strategies for enhancing school readiness through positive relationships. Classroom Resilience: Practical approaches to building resilience in early childhood settings. And more! Learn more and register here to secure your spot.
• Systems change is complex, innovative, and interconnected. To learn more about systems change and interconnected practices for impact, read this piece from Tamarack Institute.
• The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago—home to Parent Nation—is developing a powerful new survey tool that measures parents’ knowledge and beliefs about early childhood development. This tool, which is called SPEAK-CAT, will ultimately help researchers, clinicians, and other professionals understand what parents know about their children’s development—and how to best support them. TMW is seeking participants for a paid online study to help refine and validate the SPEAK-CAT tool.

If you are interested or know a parent or caregiver who is, please fill out or share the online survey (linked below) to see if you are a good match for the study. If you qualify, you will be invited to an initial study session, where you will complete a variety of survey items about your parenting beliefs and practices for approximately 40 minutes. If your child is old enough, you will be invited to two other sessions, which involve a brief recorded play session with your child with some additional surveys and activities (about 25-60 minutes) and an interview with a live researcher (about 30-40 minutes), both over Zoom.

As a thank you for your time, you will receive a $15 gift card following the first session. Participants who complete all three sessions, will receive up to $80 in total compensation.

If you are interested in participating, please complete the this screener.