Archway Work Group: Early Childhood Community Coalition

August and September have been very exciting months for the Early Childhood Community Coalition (ECCC). The ECCC is a united voice of community partners who advocate, collaborate, strategize, and provide solutions to support healthy prenatal awareness and early childhood development by: (1) Engaging the community in prenatal to pre-k issues including the importance of emergent literacy, school readiness, and healthy lifestyle choices; (2) Empowering and providing all young children in the community with the best start in life by building parent and educator capacity;  and (3) Enhancing collaboration among organizations to maximize resources for the betterment of the children and community. The vision of this committee is to “prepare children, from birth to age five, for success in school and life.”

The ECCC is dedicated to supporting healthy prenatal awareness, as early and regular prenatal care increases the chances of a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. The committee members are currently in discussions with many different agencies to discuss the awareness of healthy prenatal care and solutions for providing prenatal care for women who are uninsured and may not have the financial means to pay for prenatal care.

This committee is also dedicated to early literacy and school readiness for young children. The ECCC is currently strategizing ways to bolster parent and educator capacity of early literacy and school readiness, as well as ways that the community can support early literacy and school readiness efforts. For example, Readers to Leaders along with White’s Pediatrics, the local library, and funding by faith-based organizations have begun the Reach Out and Read program. Reach Out and Read is a program that pediatricians discuss literacy milestones with parents and provide children a free book at each well visit from the ages of 6 months through 5.   The committee is in the midst of expanding this program with other pediatric offices in the community.

ECCC is also joining forces with Readers to Leaders to develop a community-wide grade level reading strategic plan, which is part of the national and state Grade Level Reading Campaign to increase the number of children reading on grade level by third grade. The ECCC will develop the Birth to Five literacy plan to support this community effort.