Early Childhood Investment Corporation GREAT START Collaborative System Grant
A Great Start for every child in Michigan: safe, healthy, and eager to succeed in school and in life.
Michigan’s definition of a comprehensive early childhood system:
A single, interconnected and intertwined network of public and private programs, services and supports, working together in a community to accomplish better results for young children and families.
To assure a coordinated system of community resources and supports to assist all families in providing a great start for their children from birth through age five.
How will the Great Start Collaborative grant help our children be successful in school and in life?
Although Eaton County services have a great history of working together for the benefit of families and children, the current reality for most parents continues to be, “ a parent ventures out into the current service delivery world and attempts to access the potpourri of disconnected programs,… the experience cannot only be frustrating, but it can actually stymie their best efforts to get what they need for their child.” (ECIC TA, Oct. 06) Research shows us that, “The organization, structure, and financing of early childhood programs, services, and supports needs to reflect an understanding of the fundamental and determinative role of developmental trajectories for immediate and long term consequences…To provided appropriate health, child care, preschool, parenting education, family supports, and other services in a way that optimizes children’s development there needs to be a better way of coordinating and integrating the services from different sectors.” (Neil Halfon, UCLA)
This is, and will continue to be, the vision of Early Childhood Connections, Eaton County’s Great Start Collaborative: To ensure that every child in Eaton County enters school optimally prepared to learn and grow to the best of his/her ability, agencies, parents, caregivers, and the community commit to providing a supportive environment characterized by respect and by the provision of accessible and coordinated services.
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