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Prevention Works! Minutes |
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Meeting
of Prevention Works! September
10, 2001 http://www.preventionworkscc.org/ Jeanne Anderson, Executive Director of the Washington
Foundation for Early Learning gave the presentation. This group grew out of the Governor’s Commission on Early
Learning, in which Mona Locke and Melinda Gates were key members.
They felt the goals of the group to focus on early childhood should
be continued. The Gates
Foundation gave 10 million dollars for seed money.
The group began just about one year ago; as of this month they now
have a staff of seven in place. Garrison
Kurtz from the ECEAP program in Olympia has just been appointed to be the
new program manager. Jeanne passed out material on the vision, mission,
and goals of the Foundation for Early Learning: VISION: It is
our vision that everyone in the state of Washington will know that from
birth to age five, children experience an incredibly vital time of mental
and emotional growth, and that this period has a great impact on a
child’s readiness for school and society.
This knowledge and awareness will increase the value society places
on early learning. As a
result, parents and caregivers will have access to the information, tools
and programs they need, regional efforts will be coordinated, and
resources will grow through the thoughtful use of grants. MISSION: To support the profound learning children experience
from birth to age five. GOALS: Ensure
that all parents and caregivers in Washington State have access to the
information, resources and support they need to encourage learning in
children from birth to age five. The foundation has decided to give out money on the
basis of community based funding. They
want to come into the community and partner with other donors to support
programs in our county and work with the community to put into effect a
whole system of care for early childhood.
The funding guidelines will come out May 1, and hopefully will
actually be disbursed into communities by next spring.
There will be two kinds of grants, planning grants
(need to organize things, grant writers, get collaborations going) and
then program grants. The
Foundation is continuing to fund the TEACH program which is a program to
provide scholarships to improve the training of childcare teachers and
improver the opportunities for training.
The program is now in Spokane, Yakima and King County; next it is
expanding into Watcom, Snohomish, and some other counties.
The program will take another year before it is fully implemented.
The Foundation is interested in programs like PEPS in their hopes
to go statewide in a replication effort.
It will look at what each community is developing and how they can
help. They are sponsoring conferences around the state so
Jeanne encouraged Prevention Works! to let them know of their coming
community conference. Their
website is www.earlylearning.org.
The person to contact is Maria at maria@welfoundation.org
for information on sponsorship. Jeanne
can be contacted at Jeanne@welfoundation.org. This
summer the Foundation received a million dollar contribution to fun the
Yakima Children’s Fund for use in Yakima.
The donor wasn’t ready to spread it out among the services in
Yakima even though the funding is designated for that area.
He is also working to get others to contribute to this foundation.
This gentleman is available to come around the state to help others
begin this kind of foundation and to spread the word that beginning with
early childhood prevention efforts is the best source of help.
There are many donors who might give to a larger foundation rather
than to smaller programs. They
are starting an advisory council with this gentleman, Nick, serving on
that board. Boeing will have a conference on the September 19 and
they will give a big amount to early childhood with one of the donations
going to the Foundation.
Jane Vuillet, PEPS Executive Director, explained their program.
This is a support group for parents with children birth to three,
teen parents, Spanish-speaking parents, and fathers.
Because of requests to replicate the program, they are working on
expanding in the state as well as nationally.
Clallam County was one of the four sites selected to replicate
PEPES in a competitive process.
With all the research PEPS believes this is a great time to be in
this area. They can be
contacted through their new web site at www.pepsgroup.org.
The importance of what the Foundation is doing was underscored.
Jeanne spoke of Mona Locke as an exceptionally active board
chairman of Foundation for Early Learning.
She is really involved in this process. Jeanne, Maria, and Jane had met for lunch with
representatives from various agencies in town and had also visited several
agencies providing services to young children.
County issues of unemployment, funding, poverty, Spanish speaking
families, tribes, and issues of isolation were discussed at that luncheon.
Particular attention was focused on issues facing our most rural
areas of Clallam County. After the presentation, Jeanne answered questions and
stayed for our discussion on our coming conference.
Business Meeting The meeting of Prevention Works! Community Coalition
was called to order by the president, Jane Shefler. Everyone introduced himself or herself but due to the
large attendance, we missed several people. Those attending included Jane Shefler, Jeanne Anderson, Maria
Lamarca-Anderson, Jane White Vuillet, Kay MacDonald, Judy Kremquist, Mary
Jacoby, Pat Scannell, Betsy Caldwell, Nancy Martin, Renee Martinez, Dave
Robinson, Carol Huard, Joy Sheedy, Judith Moriris, Bill Jevnue, Chris
Borchers, Deb Stokke, Brenda Butterfield, Ellen Fetchiet, Pam Crosby,
Barbara Clampett, Jody Jacobson, Jennifer Charles, Yvette Cline, Tracey
Hosselkus, Anne Retchless, Jim Borte, Fiona Hert, Carol Flinn, Sandi
Machintosh, Nita Quan, Cherrie Reeves-Sperr, Rachel Anderson, Patty Hanna,
Kay Addington MacDonald, Connie Hyatt, Joannie Matter, Judy Croonquist,
Diana Assumpcao, Elna Kawal, Janice Laine, and Cynthia Martin.
(One of the attendance sheets was not returned so we may have
missed a few people. If you
know anyone we missed, please contact Cynthia at pwminutes@firstteacher.org
Minutes
of last meeting were accepted as part of the consent agenda.
Any correction to minutes should be sent directly to Cynthia Martin
(cynthia@firstteacher.org ) Big
Event: We
decided to discuss the Big Event at this time in order to have input from
Jeanne and Maria about sponsorship by the Foundation for Early Learning.
The issue was whether we should co-sponsor the coming OPAEYC
function with Judy Ford. Prevention
Works would be involved in the Friday night presentation she would give.
This would substitute for the Big Event that we no longer have time
to plan for this year. Jane
Shefler explained that we wanted to do something very family oriented,
broad-based on prevention issues and this topic with Judy Ford seemed to
meet that criteria. OPAEYC is
asking us participate. Judy
Ford will be keynoting this event that is the first week in March.
She will be coming on Friday night.
She will do this evening presentation on Love and Laughter.
She does a lot for Swedish Hospital and was on the Opra television
show. This would be a big
event for that Friday evening and OPAEYC has reserved the auditorium that
seats 1200 people. She
will be $500 for that night, plus travel, plus some minor expenses.
She will do question and answer plus book selling.
We could even do a follow up session after her talk or perhaps move
to the cafeteria and have tables with key counselors who would work on
specific issues of step parenting, discipline, etc. in a little more
informal presentation. On
Saturday she will be the keynote address at the OPAEYC Conference and then
three workshops. She sounds
like she is very inspirational. Diana
Assumpcao (whose e-mail address was incorrectly entered under the board
members on the agenda assumpcao@tenforward.com
moved and it was seconded that we work with OPAEYC to sponsor the Friday
evening portion of the conference. Carol
Huard spoke to the need to keep her topic, Parenting with Love and
Laughter, as broad as possible to attract more people, not just parents. We want to appeal to the entire community.
Joannie Matter from OPAEYC felt she would be cooperative on this.
Irene Smith asked about clock hours but it would be necessary to
plan ahead and to include both Friday and Saturday since at least 3 hours
of instruction was necessary to qualify.
The motion was passed unanimously.
Jeanne Anderson said get them something about the meeting so the
Foundation for Early Learning could help.
They need something that outlines the goals of the event for them
to help sponsor. She suggested the letter come from both Prevention Works! and
OPAEYC together. The next step was to establish the committee Carol
Huard, Jan Laine, Jane Shefler, and Renee Martinez volunteered to
serve on this committee. Jane
encouraged others to volunteer. September
18 will be the next OPAEYC and Renee will go to their meeting.
Anyone else interested in serving on this committee, contact any of
the committee members. COMMITTEE
REPORTS
We are hoping to go to all written committee reports to save on
time and duplication of efforts. The
detailed report will be given at the Board of Director’s meetings.
All chairman are encouraged to get reports to Cynthia so we can
send them to the west end in time for the next meeting.
Fiona Hert for the Parent Education Committee distributed one
report. TREASURER’S
REPORT: Chris
Borchers gave the committee report.
Not much has happened over the summer.
We have a balance of $4468
mostly in savings. We will
try to get these reports out for distribution before next meeting. EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE REPORT: Three
recommendations came out from the Executive Committee on changing the
bylaws, adopting a vision statement, and adopting a mission statement.
C.
Board of Directors (4) Roles
and Responsibilities of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee The
responsibilities of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee (v) To establish committees as necessary ·
Recommendation: Approval of
Vision of Prevention Works! Vision of Prevention Works!:
Clallam County is a community where all children and families are
healthy and safe. ·
Recommendation: Approval
of Mission of Prevention Works! The
mission of Clallam County Prevention Works! Community Coalition is to reduce child abuse and neglect, violence, and
substance abuse by assisting families with children from conception
through four years of age by: ·
Reducing risk factors, ·
Strengthening protective factors, and ·
Enhancing the resilience of children, youth, and families. These changes were presented to the group.
The first change needs to be voted on at the next meeting.
Today will be the first presentation.
It was moved, seconded and passed. The vision and the mission statement were presented.
It was separately moved, seconded, and passed that these
recommendations be accepted. PSA On Guns, Children and Violence--The issue of
endorsing a PSA on Guns, Children and Violence was brought to the group by
Joannie Matter. The American
Psychological Association and NAEYC produced the PSA. NAEYC is asking if Prevention Works! will endorse the PSA.
Two versions of the PSA were shown.
They were very powerful. The
question was about the use of the sound shot.
There were mixed feeling about the PSA.
It was felt we needed to know what would happen when people called
the number. Joannie will get us this information. Others were concerned about how upsetting this could be for
children. It was tabled until
we have more information Child Watch--Carol Huard read a brief report on Child
Watch for the group to consider for future meeting.
The goals are to raise awareness of child and family issues among
key community leaders, create new leadership for children, and inspire
action to improve the lives of children and families.
Special Reports ·
Family
Friendly Business Committee…Nancy Martin discussed what has been
happening in this committee. This
group will focus on businesses that are acting in ways that are friendly
toward families. There has
been interest from businesses. The
group is off to a very positive start.
We have over 1100 names of different business in Clallam County to
make contacts with. We are
still in the planning stage but we have a flyer we are working on to mail
out in the near future. The
next meeting of the Family Friendly Business Committee is on Wednesday,
September 26 at the Health Department at 9:00 a.m.
This is one of the real exciting things that have been happening at
Prevention Works! Anyone is
welcome to attend this meeting. ·
Brochure—The
brochure from Prevention Works! is ready to be printed now that we have a
mission statement approved by this group.
The handprints will be in color and it looks good. ·
Developmental
Assets Seminar will be on Thursday, September 27. Anyone interested in attending should sign up right away.
Contact Florence Bucierka at 417-2366 for more information. The
meeting was adjourned shortly after 5:30 p.m
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