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Project Description:
Building on Minnesota's long history of developing innovative programs to support the healthy growth and development of children and families, Governor Arne Carlson, Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton of Minneapolis, business leaders, and community organizations have developed a comprehensive plan to meet the goals recommended in Starting Points. Their initiative has three areas of focus: expanding the capacity of family service collaboratives that are being implemented statewide to provide community-based, comprehensive children's services; the development of research reports and technical assistance resources to help spread model family support and early education initiatives statewide; and the improvement of child care programs to better meet the needs of ethnic minority families.
In its Starting Points project, Minnesota's Department of Children, Families and Learning will collaborate with Minneapolis Way to Grow, a public-private partnership organization that works in low-income neighborhoods in Minneapolis to ensure that pregnant women receive quality prenatal health care and to promote young children's healthy development and school readiness. The Way to Grow program model and its innovative financing mechanisms will be studied to determine if it should be adapted by family service collaboratives operating in fifty of the state's counties. Researchers from the University of Minnesota's School of Education will collect data on Way to Grow's effectiveness and the state will provide small grants to four community collaboratives to implement the Starting Points goals, based on the lessons from the Way to Grow program.
To improve quality and increase the supply of culturally sensitive early education and family support programs, two nonprofit groups, Cultural Beginnings and the Early Childhood Resource Center, will provide technical assistance to grassroots parent associations, train child-care providers, and evaluate several strategies to meet the needs of low-income minority families with young children.
The project will be jointly managed by the state's Department of Children, Families and Learning and Minneapolis Way to Grow. The project will also convene a steering committee of public and private sector leaders to develop technical assistance materials, training workshops, and policy seminars that will focus on ways to reform governance mechanisms, sustain financing, improve evaluation, and engage parents in developing effective programs for young children. The state and city are providing matching funds.
Major Program Components:
Contact:
Barbara Yates
Director
Department of Children, Families and Learning
Capitol Square
550 Cedar Street
St. Paul, MN 55101
Tel: 612/282-6669, Fax: 612/297-5695
E-mail: barbara.yates@statemn.usTene Jones
Director
Minneapolis Way to Grow
1220 7th Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55411
Tel: 612/377-1012, Fax: 612/377-1445
E-mail: N/A
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