Goals

1. Establish or expand family-friendly workplaces
2. Connect families with early childhood resources

History/Background

In Bryan, Texas, the city's Youth Services Coordinator is a member of the Executive Management Team, and an advisor to the Mayor, City Council, and City Manager on children and youth issues.  Three years ago, the Youth Services office merged with the Neighborhood Services program to work within communities and improve the quality of life in Bryan.  This merger allowed for increased outreach to families, and new opportunities to meet parents' needs. 

While the City of Bryan successfully built an infrastructure for parent outreach and implemented community-wide programs focused on youth, city leaders seized the opportunity to join NLC's Cities Supporting Parents of Young Children initiative to extend their reach to parents of young children.

Former Mayor Pro-Tem Paul Madison led a team from Bryan at the Cities Supporting Parents of Young Children Leadership Academy in the spring of 2005, and he continues to support the effort as a member of the City Council.  He also attended the YEF Institute's 2005 National Summit on Your City's Families.  His leadership has been a driving force in Bryan's goal to identify programs, strategies, and tools that will improve the quality of life for young families.

Progress Toward Goals

Establish or expand family-friendly workplaces

With the support of a strong group of local stakeholders, the City of Bryan co-hosted a day-long family-friendly workplace policy event on April 19, 2006. The program highlighted successful family-friendly workplace policies, and Mayor Ernie Wentrcek challenged attendees to make family-friendly workplace policies a priority in their communities.

The Bryan College Station Chamber of Commerce, the Brazos Valley Human Resource group, and Texas A & M University (the area's largest employer) joined the city in planning this event. Mayor Wentrcek invited other mayors from the region, along with regional business executives, elected officials, and human resource managers, to increase their interest in adopting family-friendly policies. As a piece of the event, The City of Bryan, Texas A&M University, and the United Way of the Brazos Valley launched a new business recognition award to encourage businesses to adopt and promote family-friendly workplace policies.

With NLC's help, the event has drawn national support. Corporate Voices for Working Families (CVWF) highlighted a best practices toolkit for employers, a workplace flexibility report, and unveiled their new Early Childhood Statement - a document outlining the business case for why employers should invest in early care and education. The event featured the National Born Learning Campaign.

Connect families with early childhood resources

The City of Bryan has helped lead a collaborative effort to update the Bryan Parent Resource Guide. The resource guide, which ties to United Way's 211-hotline system, includes tips for parents of young children. The city helped underwrite the costs of the publication.  The update to the guide was released early in the year and the city distributed copies at the April 19th family-friendly workplace policy event.

Other Progress

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education awarded the Bryan Independent School District, in partnership with Texas A&M University and the City of Bryan, a grant of more than $2.7 million to implement the Early Reading First program.

This program, which is part of the President's "Good Start, Grow Smart" initiative, seeks to prepare young children to enter kindergarten with the language, cognitive, and reading skills necessary to ensure school success. The grant is helping the city implement a prevention-based, three-tiered early language and literacy model in seven preschool classrooms over a three-year period.

City leaders are looking at Enfield, Conn., as a model for community engagement in early care and education. To accomplish this goal, the city is planning a Community Plunge. Mayors, councilmembers, state senators, presidents of banks, and corporations will be invited to ride on a transit bus to visit local programs.

The hope is that leaders will better understand the importance of services being offered and how organizations are funded. In the past it has been an eye opening experience for leaders that has potential to gain some new supporters for early care and education.