Children and Child Well-being
Too many children are not ready to enter school and fail once they enter, are physically unfit, engage in negative behaviors, make poor personal choices, or are a victim of abuse and neglect. These children come from poor families and well-to-do families; from families with little education, to those with advanced degrees.
Research clearly shows that society reaps the greatest return on its investment in young people when investments are made consistently from pre-school through adolescence. Thus, the Partnership has a large early childhood department which focuses on assisting child care providers of children birth to age 5, in offering high quality care and education, as well as staff who focus on implementing programs for pre-school children through early adulthood. Of particular interest to the department is increasing the number of high quality infant/toddler slots available to families in our community, as well as increasing the quality of child care being provided. In addition to the work with the child care community, our staff provides resources, information, referrals and training to families on a variety of parenting topics. A majority of the funding is provided by the State Department of Social Services EduCARE contract, HB1519, the U.S Department of Education and other local grants and contracts.
Community Partnership supports, promotes and utilizes best practice frameworks designed to build healthy, resilient, successful children - the 40 Developmental Assets model or "Building Blocks" developed by Search Institute, and the 5 Promises from America's Promise Alliance for Youth. As a 2008 third time winner of the 100 Best Communities for Youth award from America's Promise Alliance, Springfield-Greene County and the Partnership understand that when resources - time, talents and treasure - come together for youth, more children will succeed.
In our work with children, we are making a difference.