Summary Report

Community Conversation

Follow-Up - January 24, 2004

1. INTRODUCTION/STRUCTURE

   The follow-up session to Mansfield’s Community Conversation on Early Care and Education was held on Saturday, January 24, from 8:30-11 AM.  The planning committee had decided that by offering it on a weekend it might provide an opportunity for individuals to attend who were not able to come to the first evening session.  Approximately 60 individuals attended the event; many of them “walk-ins”, and more than half of the attendees had not come to the first conversation.

   The event began with a continental breakfast and opportunity for social interaction prior to the start of the program.  The program began with a viewing of the video “Why Childhood Matters”, which makes a strong case for the value of providing quality early care and educational services to young children.  A summary of the first conversation was then presented, explaining how the planning group had come to identify the key themes and issues to focus on in this follow-up event.  It was noted that the emphasis on this day’s event was to move from conversation to action planning, with the goal being to emerge from this day with commitments to specific action plans and tasks. 

   Participants had previously identified their interest in one of four topic areas, and were assigned to small facilitated groups to work on these issues.  It was explained that the task for the small group sessions would be to develop realistic, workable action plans that addressed the goal and objective identified for each topic area.  The small group process included:

   • creating a number of “strategies” that would support the achievement of the identified objective
   • naming (and ideally, committing) individuals or organizations that would work on this strategy
   • identifying the resources that would be needed, and committing to a timeline for the accomplishment of this strategy. 

   Group members were told that they would be given time to brainstorm solutions that may be somewhat ambitious and far reaching.  It was then the responsibility of the facilitator to help the group prioritize these ideas and identify those steps that would be both easily accomplished and necessary to any future work on this goal.  Members were told that strategies could include such things as collecting more information, getting answers to key questions, and identifying work that may already have been done on this topic.  One group member, not the facilitator, was then asked to make a “brief” presentation to the larger group on their action plan, and to also use this as an opportunity to solicit other individuals who may be willing to commit to working on the strategies identified.

2. SMALL GROUP REPORT-OUTS

   The small groups were given 45 minutes to identify strategies and develop an action plan, utilizing a tool that included identifying a responsible partner(s), resources needed, and expected outcomes.  In retrospect, it was clear that this was not enough time to accomplish this task.  When the groups came together there was a strong interest in continuing the “conversation”, and facilitators found it difficult to move the group from discussion around the issues to developing specific action plans.  In reviewing the evaluations it appeared that some participants were frustrated by the fact that this task was not accomplished.  The following information identifies each group, their objective and questions to consider in the development of their plans, and the results of each groups’ work:

   1. Group 1- Full-Day Kindergarten

      Facilitator: Kevin Grunwald

      OBJECTIVE: EXPLORE FULL-DAY K AS A VIABLE EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION OPTION.

      QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

      • Have we identified what we mean by Full-day K; what will it look like?
      • What work has already been done on this issue by the Superintendent’s office and the Board of Education?
      • What is the process for making a decision about Full-day K; including how this will be financed?
      • Are there models available and research that has been done that speak to the advantages and disadvantages of Full-day K?
      • Who are the “experts” on this topic that need to be included in the decision-making process?

      Issues and Questions Raised:

      • What is the need; what are we responding to?
      • Mansfield has unique aspects that need to be addressed
      • It’s important to support choice and options
      • We should distinguish between an educational program and daycare

      Strategies Identified:

      • Survey families re: needs; disseminate results
      • Give parents an opportunity to learn about options, (parents and educators)
      • Look at existing extended-day programs in Mansfield
      • Develop and examine models; what would it look like, how would it meet the range of needs?
      • Define a range of options to choose from
      • Review & disseminate the research

      Action Steps:

      • The survey is being done; make the research available first, perhaps in an article in Chronicle
      • Create a structure for parent representation on visits (1 or 2 parents); Use the PTO’s; look at Hebron as one of the available models
      • Organize through the BOE
      • Get information from the Superintendent’s Office re: the genesis of the idea for full-day K
      • Need more information; look at models
      • Post information that is collected on the Web
      • Encourage more parent involvement in the BOE
   2. Group 2 - Assessing Needs and Promoting Resources

      Facilitator: Sandy Baxter

      OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE HOW TO BEST ASSESS NEEDS OF FAMILIES IN THE COMMUNITY AND PROMOTE ACCESS TO AVAILABLE RESOURCES.

      QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

      • Is there already information that has been collected that will help us to understand what the needs of young children are in this community?
      • What are the existing mechanisms that are used to disseminate information to families regarding programs and services?
      • Is there a central organization that should be responsible for collecting this information and making it available to the public?
      • What would the most effective and efficient system be for getting information out to the public; particularly young families?
      • Have we identified what information we need to collect to identify needs, and what it is that families need to know?

      Questions and Issues Raised:

      • What information/data has been collected?
      • Have the needs of the ESL community been assessed?
      • Have faith-based groups been approached?
      • How can we use the Family Fun Fair at the Library to assess early care needs of community
      • Who should be responding to early care needs (University or Town)?
      • Will the survey assume that affordability is not an issue; if only ask what is your choice about full day K? (yes or no)
      • How can we find data on how many children there are and what childcare families are using before they are in the School System? (US Census Fast Fact- answers of socio-economic community data; it is based on the 2000, census four yr. old)
      • Whose needs are being considered?  Child or parents?  Sometimes child is not ready for outside the home care, but parents need the coverage to work.

      Strategies:

      • Gather information about needs
      • Information on early childcare goes into packet done by the Town to families who have a newborn or infant/young adoptee.
      • Packets include:  library information, medical practices information, real estate, welcome wagon, hospital packet information, Infoline 211, town website
      • We have to go to parents where they are:  library, orientation for new employees at UConn, Human Resources at UConn., faith-based groups, we are a resource- talk to each other about issues of early care and education, even if we are not involved in it,
      • Talk to newcomers.
      • Define, measure, analyze, implement, control process.  Seems like we are still in the define and measure (maybe close to analyze) part of the process.  Have to move carefully through each step so we don’t miss anything.

      Action Plan:

      • Engage a small group to study census and local needs
      • People who are willing to work on needs assessment or local data gathering:  Jane Goldman, Judy Heald, Martin Sommer (via email only, works in Boston), April Holinko, Maureen Crowley will work with Sandy on US Census website.
      • Tresca Marr-Smith volunteered to work on a group to welcome newcomers and visit stay-at-home moms of young children.
   3. Group 3 - Financing Early Care and Education

      Facilitator: Nancy Cox

      OBJECTIVE: EXPLORE OPTIONS FOR FINANCING THE COST OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION.

      QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

      • Who should be responsible for financing the cost of early care and education?
      • Is the general public aware of the programs that currently exist that provide financial assistance for needy families; how is this information publicized?
      • How can we support the School Readiness program, which is partially funded and having difficulty enrolling eligible children?
      • What is the role of families, taxpayers, employers, the school system, and local government in funding early care and education?
      • Are there untapped resources that could support funding for these programs?
      • Are there creative solutions to funding these programs that have not yet been tried here (e.g. surtaxes, etc.)?

      Questions and Issues Raised:

      • What is this going to cost?
      • Who pays?
      • What monies are spent now?  By whom?
      • Is there fragmentation?
      • What are we going to do?
      • Only 8 of 15 slots in State School Readiness grant are being used because the State did not approve the funding until October.
      • On 75% of the funding was approved for this year and only 50% will be approved next year, and 25% the following year because of state cuts.
      • Full-day early childcare $7,000/year
      • Additional costs would be;  $800,000 for construction, $500,000/year other additional costs.
      • Is this realistic?

      Strategies:

      • Advocacy Training/Empowerment; is this covered in another area?
      • Total number of children – can we do a census?
      • What % of eligible children attends public kindergarten?
      • What % attend private and where?
      • Will those attending private change to public if full-day kindergarten is available?
      • Census idea was dropped because it would cost money and require people
      • Check on the real numbers on cost for public full-day kindergarten, universal preschool
      • Check on current numbers on private cost
      • What source of revenue is involved in funding that real number
      • Possible resources:  CCM, NLC, UCONN
      • How is full-day kindergarten paid for in other communities? US Wide? CT Wide?
      • What is UCONN doing?
      • For how many?
      • What does it cost?
      • Study group looking at expanding Child Labs
      • What kind of financial coordination is possible?
   4. Group 4- Supporting Parents and Increasing Options

      Facilitator: Mary Francis

      OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE HOW TO BEST PROVIDE SUPPORT TO PARENTS BY IMPROVING ACCESS TO A VARIETY OF EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION OPTIONS.

      QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

      • Is the general public aware of the range of options that are available to parents in Mansfield; and are there options that need to be developed?
      • What are the needs of “stay-at-home” parents; how will we find out, and how can we best support them?
      • What are the needs of “in-home” early care providers; how will we find out, and how can we best support them?
      • In general, what kind of support and assistance do parents need to learn about and access resources that are available to them?

      Questions and Issues Raised:

      • Is the general public aware of what is available?
      • “Clusters” of folks are “in the loop” in certain areas
      • If there is a need they will seek out the information (library, web)
      • Two times a year a list of providers is available on library website
      • UCONN Provost’s Childcare committee’s initial goal is to provide childcare for UCONN employees
      • What is the Demand?
      • What is Available?
      • How to increase capacity?

      Actions:

      • Survey – what is the demand (deadline –end of the semester), target employees in the Mansfield area
      • Contact childcare providers
      • Develop website for information
      • Begin support at the “beginning”
      • Make initial contact at birth
      • Through birth centers/hospitals
      • When town is notified- use that information to contact families
      • Create a package of information to be given to new birth/parents
      • Having information available for “new” residents moving into town
      • Town Census:  where will $ come from?  How to conduct?  Use Sociology students (volunteers)
      • Reach out to other nationalities/families to get information out (use grant $ for resources)
      • 211 State Info. Line
      • Action:  Connect LWV survey (2001) with UCONN’s efforts (Karla Fox/Becky L.)
      • Newcomers club source of dissemination
      • How to reach less proactive parents?  Use person- to- person contact.  Create volunteer network to do home visits “Parent Mentor”, pull groups of ‘like’ parents to offer help/information in that setting then will be helping out with Isolation.
      • Census should be neighborhood-based, use charter channel to announce census, use local groups to help out with conducting survey

      At the end of the time for the small groups to meet all participants returned to the larger group.  Representatives from each group presented the highlights of their group discussion, with an emphasis on action steps and strategies.  As stated earlier, all groups noted that 45 minutes was not enough time to complete the small group tasks, and in general there was a strong interest amongst participants in continuing the discussion.  All of the material generated by the small groups was collected by the facilitators, with the intent of incorporating this into a report of the proceedings.

3. NEXT STEPS

   Based upon these two “conversations”, it appears clear that there is a great deal of interest town-wide in issues that affect young children.  The “Community Conversation” provides a forum for residents to come together around these issues and identify areas of common interest and concern, but it is clear that to sustain this participation we need to move to a point of taking action around some of the issues that have been identified.  To that end, we propose the following action plan:

   • Utilize the planning committee to support and sustain the initial steps taken in the two Community Conversations
   • Work with the Mansfield School Readiness Council to form a series of sub-committees that are given responsibility for specific tasks that have been identified in the small group discussions and larger conversation
   • Sustain interest in this initiative by publicizing any information, data and reports that are generated
   • Schedule a large follow-up meeting for late Spring to report on progress made and ongoing initiatives.