Ounce of Prevention Fund - Campaign for Early Learning Newsletter

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Breaking Ground: Educare Family & Training Center

Dear Friends,

On June 3, we officially broke ground on the Educare Family and Training Center, bringing us one step closer to opening a new space that holds tremendous promise for enhancing the academic development of children and families across the birth-to-grade-three continuum. The Center, a 9,000-square-foot addition at Educare of Chicago, is expected to open this winter.

Generous support of our Campaign for Early Learning has been essential to helping the Ounce of Prevention Fund launch this new chapter in our efforts to prepare young children in poverty for success in school and life. The Center will allow us to enhance parent education activities and expand supports for children and families before and during their transition to the K-12 system. The new addition also will house the Birth-to-Five Teacher Training Center, where early childhood professionals from across the country can access state-of-the-art, cost-effective distance learning opportunities.

The Campaign is also supporting several innovative initiatives designed to promote the healthy development and well-being of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. This newsletter highlights three of those: our new doula program at Educare, the expansion of our Early Math Initiative, and an exciting new partnership with the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute that is giving Educare children a direct pipeline into some of Chicago's best charter schools.

We are grateful for the ongoing investment of our partners in these efforts and look forward to sharing future updates on our work. If you'd like to join our Campaign, please contact me at 312.922.3863.

Harriet Meyer
President, Ounce of Prevention Fund

Twenty-five-day-old Julian is nestled in his mother's arms. "Look at the way he looks at me while he's eating," says Mayra Rodriguez to her doula, Sonia Collins. "He stares at me so intently!"

"He's learning that you are his mom, that you'll feed him when he's hungry, and you'll always take care of him," says Sonia. "And he loves you as much as you love him."

Everything is new to Julian as he learns about the people and the world around him. And everything about Julian is new to Mayra, 18. That's where her doula from the Ounce of Prevention Fund comes in.

Ounce doulas are trained mentors who guide a young, new mother through pregnancy, childbirth, and into the early months of a baby's life. They promote healthy prenatal practices and help mothers and fathers develop strong bonds with their infants.

Mayra is part of a new program at the Ounce that links pregnant, young women on Chicago's South Side directly to Educare and our other center-based early childhood programs. Started this past February with Early Head Start expansion funds, the Educare doula program will expand to serve 30 women and their babies. This program is part of a network of 23 community-based doula home visiting programs the Ounce oversees statewide.

Mayra's high school counselor connected her to the Ounce doula program. Her mother had recently died and the rest of her family was not supportive of her pregnancy. "I was alone and I needed a lot of support," Mayra says.

During Mayra's pregnancy, Sonia taught her the value of talking to her baby. "It was weird to talk to my stomach," Mayra says, "but Sonia told me it would help him get more attached to me." Sonia also attended prenatal doctor visits with Mayra and together they created a birthing plan. Now Sonia instructs Mayra on the best ways to care for Julian, how to breastfeed him, and how to decipher the meaning of his cries. "Every day I usually call her about something," Mayra says.

Mayra plans to graduate from high school next spring and then study nursing in college. Her top priority is finishing her education so she can provide for Julian.

Sonia says Mayra has blossomed as a mother. "I think the program helped alleviate any doubts and improve her confidence," Sonia says. "She's doing a wonderful job as a mother."

Core Strategies:

Improve teachers' skills and abilities for guiding math learning, and use the results of child assessments to promote outcomes.

Collaborate with the Erikson Institute's Early Mathematics Education Project to develop approaches for promoting early math awareness among staff working with children ages birth-to-three, and families of children ages birth-to-five.

Document findings and share lessons learned from the Initiative to support other programs in promoting the math skills of a diverse group of children and families across Chicago.

Eight toddlers peer intently at trays of cheese slices, before eagerly following their teacher's instruction to gobble up the ones cut into the shape of a circle. And in a preschool class, teams of children egg each other on as they race to be the first group to correctly fit together the pieces of a new floor puzzle.

In each classroom, teachers are serving up a healthy dose of fun – while giving these young children an introduction to basic geometry concepts.

The lessons provide a glimpse of the Ounce's Early Math Initiative – a program launched in 2008 with support from the Louis R. Lurie Foundation and JPMorgan Chase Foundation to ensure that the young children we serve enter kindergarten with a strong foundation in math. Early math skills are an even better predictor of school success than language skills, and through a new four-year, $1 million commitment from the CME Group Foundation, the Ounce will seek to strengthen and extend the impact of this important program to benefit even more children.

For more information about the Early Math Initiative, please visit: ounceofprevention.org/earlymath.

"The CME Group Foundation is pleased to support the Ounce's Early Math Initiative to ensure that young children enter kindergarten with the math and critical thinking skills that are vital to their future success."

July 15, 2010 was a special day for five-year-old Keiara Keith. As her parents, grandmother and brother watched proudly, she joined her classmates in celebrating their "transition" from Educare.

August 26 will be another big day for Keiara. That's when she officially becomes a kindergartner at North Kenwood/Oakland Charter School (NKO), a highly regarded elementary school operated by the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute (UEI). Keiara, along with 11 other children, will represent the first cohort of Educare graduates moving into UEI kindergarten classrooms as part of an exciting new partnership between UEI and the Ounce.

Through this new collaboration, Ounce and UEI teachers and leadership staff are exchanging knowledge and establishing best practices for aligning curricula, teaching strategies, assessment, and family engagement.

For Keiara Keith, deciding to enroll her daughter at NKO was easy. "From the minute I walked in to visit, you knew that the school held the same values as Educare," she says. "They treated me, as a parent, with the same respect and they made it clear that they were as committed as I was - and as Educare is – to making sure my baby was going to be ready for college."

By providing families with access to a seamless "birth-to-18" high-quality school experience for their children, this new strategic partnership also allows the Ounce to explore longer-term, effective supports for at-risk children's learning.

Ongoing evaluation projects at the Ounce, such as the Educare Follow-Up study, underscore the importance of these types of supports for children and families like the Keiths in order to sustain gains made in quality early learning programs.

More than 650 business and philanthropic leaders joined event Chair Harrison Steans to hear author and early childhood researcher Dr. Alison Gopnik at the It's Good Business to Invest in Young Children Annual Luncheon on April 30, 2010.

"We believe in the important role parents play in their children's growth and education. That's why we are excited to support the Ounce's Family and Training Center, which we know will help parents nurture their children's educational development and well-being while also serving as a leader in the field for other programs and states across the country."