It’s definitely a “big huge idea” – the establishment of an early childhood learning coalition within Fayette County.
And it will be a big, huge job for whomever is hired as its coordinator, as they will be expected to lead the charge to raise not only awareness, but help improve the situation regarding early childhood learning and its impact on the entire community.
The Fayette County Foundation, on Wednesday, named the awardee of its first-ever “The Big Huge Idea” grant, awarding $50,000 to Huffer Child Care Resource and Referral to help hire a coordinator and establish an early childhood learning coalition in Fayette County.
It’s going to take a special person to guide that coalition, and the development of a county-wide vision, goals, objectives and strategies to address the early childhood learning situation.
It’s a situation, based on data from the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee, that needs some help.
That data, for the 2016 year, shows figures such as only 9 percent of Fayette County children enrolled in known, high-quality early childhood programs, compared to 34 percent statewide; only 77 percent of children enrolled in kindergarten, compared to 90 percent statewide; 7 percent of children retained in kindergarten, and not sent on to first grade, compared to only 5 percent statewide – with the cost of that retention clocking in at $131,967 – and other factors.
Among the goal of the coordinator, who should be hired by the end of this year, will be to improve not only those figures, but the ones further down the road in a child’s life which are impacted by their early childhood, such as the percentage of students graduating from high school, the county’s percentage of adults with an associate’s degree or higher, and the percentage of adults in the workforce.
That’s going to take getting the entire community involved, said Katherine Good, program director for the Fayette County Foundation.
“The first thing that the coordinator would do would be a stakeholder meeting,” she said, adding that such a meeting would be to get ideas from those stakeholders on the factors impacting early childhood learning within Fayette County. The stakeholders would then find their own skin in the game by having to go out and research what the community needs to address those very factors.
It’s not just the standard “type up a comprehensive plan, and let it sit on a shelf in an office,” per Good.
“It’s up to the people who show up,” Good said. “That’s how the coalition organically forms ... I feel like a lot of times, you get to this point (ideas), and everything stops. That’s where this coordinator is going to have to have the support of EDG and business leaders in the community, to understand (why they should care).”
“That’s not what a coalition does,” she continued, again referencing things such as comprehensive plans sitting on shelves. “A coalition works.”
The entire community should care, Good added, because the youth of today are the future of tomorrow’s Fayette County community – its workforce, its elected officials, its business owners and others.
“That’s your workforce,” Good said. “It’s up to this person to educate everybody that this is why it matters. That’s why it’s our community’s project. It’s not the Foundation’s project.”
Liane Nickey, program director of Huffer Child Care Resource and Referral, the “Big Huge Idea” grant recipient, said that it is a “vicious circle” regarding the community, if it does not invest in its youth.
Those youth, without the needed early childhood education opportunities, can find themselves walking the same path as their parents before them, be it troubles in school, troubles finding work, troubles with the law, or other issues.
“Therefore, it costs the community, because they still can’t take of themselves,” Nickey said. “Hopefully, we’re going to improve communities (with this coalition).”
The idea of forming an early childhood learning coalition isn’t a new one, with several being created throughout Indiana and the Fayette County one to be modeled on an already-established and successful program in Muncie, BY5.
And the coordinator of the Fayette County program will be, in essence, “the glue between all those things (and organizations),” according to Good.
Buy-in from the community will be needed, however, for this to make an impact.
“We really need all those stakeholders to come out and give their input, because they have expertise in their field,” Good said. “The childcare providers, they have expertise. CASA, they have expertise. DCS has expertise. We need all that input brought forward. We hope everybody takes advantage of that opportunity.”
The business community also needs to get on board, Nickey added, because in the long run, early childhood learning does impact them as well.
“The economic piece is so big, and it’s really affected other communities and their business leaders because they had no idea,” she said. “They’re amazed when they start coming to these coalition meetings.”