Goals

1. Design a communications campaign
2. Create programs to engage and empower parents
3. Promote initiatives to connect families to early childhood resources

History/Background

Enfield has multiple early childhood initiatives, most notably a seven-year Discovery Grant from the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund to explore and improve early care and education opportunities.  The Graustein Discovery funding helped engage multiple stakeholders and produced the Discovery/School Readiness Action Plan.

Through its participation in the Cities Supporting Parents of Young Children project, Enfield is hoping to better coordinate the initiatives and programming already in place.

Progress Toward Goals

Communication Campaign: The Enfield team focused its communications work on identifying business executives and other opinion leaders who can become messengers on the importance of early care and education.  Mayor Patrick Tallarita has committed to leading a public awareness campaign, and the CSP team has successfully secured support from the owner of the local Shaw's Supermarket.

NLC also connected the Enfield team with the Docs for Tots program - a nationwide network of doctors that advocate for policies that improve the well-being of young children. The city used this program to connect with a local doctor who committed to recruit other area doctors to join in the city's efforts by becoming advocates for children in their earliest years.  Enfield launched its media campaign on April 6, 2006, and they distributed Born Learning materials as part of their outreach effort.

Engage and Empower Parents:  The City of Enfield secured $90,000 from the MassMutual Insurance Company to select 15 parents to attend a Parent Leadership Academy. The Greater Hartford Leadership Institute, the providers of the leadership training, agreed to allow an additional five parents attend.  The aim of this program is to inspire and engage leaders for children.  If the training is successful, MassMutual will consider a 5-year investment to train 30 parents each year.  Parents have responded favorable toward the class sessions, which began on February 2, 2006. Child care services and dinner are provided.

In an effort to promote school readiness and parent engagement, the Enfield team and the public schools are collaborating with the local TGI Friday's Restaurant to engage families.  Each Tuesday, children who dine with their parents will eat free.  Additionally, families share puzzles, games, and books, which they can also take home, while they wait for dinner.  Fridays launched the initiative last Tuesday, and over 25 families visited the restaurant for dinner.  The response was overwhelmingly positive!

Connecting Parents to Community Resources:  Enfield hosted its annual Family Day on the Green on September 18, 2005. Family Day consisted of a number of fun activities for parents and children including music, contests, arts and crafts, and an early learning area for preschoolers. At the event, the city distributed parent-needs surveys. The Enfield team received over 100 completed surveys with the help of donated prizes from local messengers and businesses. Through additional assessment, these surveys will help the Enfield team evaluate existing resources and determine how the city can use these resources to better support parents.

Other Progress

The Westfield Shoppingtown mall has a play area that attracts many young children and their parents during the day.  At the request of the city, the mall enthusiastically agreed to display preschool artwork during the Week of the Young Child in April and to host the Showcase of Schools.  The Showcase allows schools to put student artwork and class projects on display for the community to see.  The mall also agreed to donate any available kiosks near the play area for displaying community and parenting information.  The mall will also provide this information and play informative parenting videos in its family lounge, which is used primarily by parents of young children.

The elementary school that houses the Alcorn Family Resource Center opened a Parent Resource Center.  The Parent Resource Center is connected to the adult education program, and is open to all parents in the town.  It provides a meeting space for parents, with an adjoining play area for children, and many free educational resources are available to parents.  The Family Resource Center has begun compiling a list of all local childcare centers for its website. The website will also include links to other parent educational resources, such as Born Learning.

To demonstrate support for successful early childhood development services, more than 150 Enfield citizens - including  state representatives, councilmembers, early education experts, school leaders, members of civic organizations, and business leaders - joined Mayor Patrick Tallarita on April 6, 2006, to officially kick off Enfield's early childhood success public education campaign entitled: Enfield Key Initiatives to Early Education (KITE).

Early care and education leaders also unveiled the new name and logo of the combined early education groups, a new kiosk, along with their "Early Learning Matters" educational pamphlets which are tailored to the diverse members of the community - religious leaders, health care providers, civic organizations, business, public safety, and schools. The event was a tremendous success.