Down East Partnership for Children

1. Down East Partnership for Children Committed to launching every child as a healthy, lifelong learner • Founded in 1993 by citizens concerned about education and economic development • Focus on children 0-8 to maximize the impact on children’s development when they will benefit most from high quality educational opportunities • Implements a model focused on prevention vs. intervention • 90% of brain development occurs during the first 3 years of life • By age 8, children are no longer learning to read, but are reading to learn • Children have acquired their critical thinking and problem-solving skills

2. Down East Partnership for Children A coordinating entity and a financial intermediary to bring about community change • Strategically invest more than $7 million annually into the local economy to support 20 programs at DEPC and in 10 other agencies and organizations • Leverage investments from local, state, and national partners to launch every child as a learner by the end of 3rd grade • Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust – Development of the Healthy Kids Collaborative • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities Initiative • W.K. Kellogg Foundation – Evaluation of the impact of early care and family involvement

3. The Program Model A model of services built on proven, research-based practices • Supporting families to effectively parent and meet the needs of their children through evidence-based programs, including • Circle of Parents Support Group • Incredible Years Parent Education Curriculum • Ensuring access to high quality early care and education • Training and technical assistance to increase quality of child care • Coordinated Subsidy to maximize subsidized care, including Scholarship Program for 0-3 year olds and the More at Four Pre-Kindergarten Program • Facilitating smooth transitions to Kindergarten • Transition planning among early care providers and elementary schools • Early childhood contacts to implement a variety of home-school connections

4. The Program Model A model of services built on proven, research-based practices • Building “ready schools” that can successfully meet the needs of all children and families • Creating community-school teams for each elementary school • Supporting teams to complete a self-assessment to look at areas, including leadership; transitions; family, school, and community partnerships; respecting diversity; assessing progress; engaging environments; effective curricula; and teacher supports • Development of work plans to implement innovative strategies based on best practices • Collaborating to support “ready communities” that can advocate for and build systems that support the healthy growth and development of children • Leadership development and outreach to community leaders, including faith-based, civic, and businesses • Healthy Kids Collaborative to promote community-based solutions to create healthy kids who are more successful learners

5. Key Results from the DEPC Model Uses data to continually improve services and ensure positive outcomes • Through the DEPC Family First system, over 3,200 families have been connected to the comprehensive system of services available, ranging from basic needs to parent education • 70% of children now have access to quality early care and education • 16 of 19 elementary schools have participated in the Ready Schools Initiative and demonstrated improvement on modeling Ready Schools pathways • Local research has shown that children attending early care, including the More at Four Pre-Kindergarten program are outperforming their peers on school readiness measures and on end-of-grade performance at the end of Kindergarten • The network of community leaders committed to and engaged in early care & education has grown exponentially, working on areas from Healthy Kids Collaborative to Ready Schools

6. Economic impact Preparing future generations of the workforce while supporting the workforce of today • We support child care subsidies for more than 1,000 children a year, allowing their parents to work or pursue higher education and enabling businesses to have a stable workforce • Stable child care results in reduced absenteeism, cuts down on turnover, and increases productivity of employees • Child care problems can cause US businesses to lose as much as $3 billion a year • DEPC contributes funding directly to 86 positions and supports over 200 child care providers through salary supplements • We partner with the child care industry that provides 727 jobs in 165 businesses. • The direct economic impact is nearly $127 million a year

7. Invest in early childhood If you had $1 to spend, why you should invest it in early childhood • The early years are a critical time in children’s development – a window to build our children’s future that will never be open again • Of children not proficient in reading by the end of 4th grade, only 5% are proficient by the end of high school. Currently only about half of children grades 3-8 are proficient in math and reading. • National studies show that the return on investment in early childhood includes: • Increased student performance throughout educational career • Reduced retention – each additional year of education costs $8,500 per student • Fewer high school dropouts • Increased future earnings • As much as $7 saved in reduced welfare and crime costs for every $1 invested

8. Everyone has a role to play – what’s yours? Despite current challenges, we can all make a choice to be an active part of the solution • Invest your time, talent or resources to help launch every child as a learner by the end of 3rd grade. • Be engaged in the educational process as an involved parent, mentor or a volunteer. • Speak up – Advocate for sustaining the early education system that is essential to our current economy and is building the successful leaders of tomorrow. • For more information on ways you can help, visit www.depc.org and www.smartstart.org.