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Greetings

I am not going to spend a lot of time writing about the quality of child care in our state and nation. I think that the picture below is an eloquent illustration of how far we have to go to make sure that every child in child care is receiving high quality services. I am happy that our state has adopted a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) to improve child care in Washington State but the work is just beginning.

 

Education, training, better wages, benefits and an acknowledgment by society that child care is a vital and important part of our children’s development are necessary to move the process along.  We have to work together in order to  make a difference in the environments that many parents are forced to leave their children when they go to work. I hope you will all join me in this important work.

Jeanne

On April 10, 2000, the leaders of the Governor’s Commission for Early Learning incorporated the Washington Early Learning Foundation, later renamed to Foundation for Early Learning to reflect what the organization does- which is building the foundations necessary for early learning to flourish in Washington State. Mona Locke became the board chair and the founding board was comprised of Kathryn Barnard, Jim Sinegal, Jim Dagnon and Tom Vander Ark. The mission of the newly formed foundation was that every child in Washington State would enter school prepared to be successful. Eight years later, the Foundation for Early Learning is still working to make sure that every child in Washington enters school prepared to succeed. I have had the privilege of being the first Executive Director, hired in October 2000. It seems fitting for me to be writing this now as I will be stepping down in September and making way for a new Executive Director to take the Foundation to its next level of development and success.

 

A lot has happened in the past eight years, both for the Foundation and for the field of Early Learning. We now have quite a few partners and funders who are focused on Early Learning, a governor who has made it a priority, Nobel Laureates in Economics preaching the value of investing in young children, and presidential candidates talking about early learning as a vital part of the education continuum. It hasn’t always been this way and I am proud that the Foundation for Early Learning has played and continues to play an important role in the evolution of the early learning field. Below are some of the accomplishments the Foundation has over the years:

2000

• First grant given to support the “TEACH” program - a scholarship program for childcare providers to get their degrees and certifications
• Foundation funded first statewide public engagement campaign

 

2001

• First round of grants given
• Foundation starts the Affinity Group for Funders of Early Learning

 

2002

• Foundation, Project Lift Off and other partners receive a federal Early Learning Opportunity Act grant to link Family, Friend and Neighbor providers and start Getting School Ready® campaign in King County.
• Foundation and partners develop and distribute Getting School Ready® booklets

 

2003

• Foundation starts Early Care and Education Coalition (EC2) to create a statewide public awareness campaign. Kirlin Foundation and CHEF join EC2 as funders.
• First Leadership Luncheon is held with former Governor Jim Hunt of North Carolina as the keynote speaker
• Foundation joins Early Childhood Funders Collaborative (ECFC), a national group of funders
• Planning and implementation grants given to Clark County to establish Project SELF, a coalition of service providers in early learning.

 

2004

• EC2 becomes a public/private partnership with 20 members
• Foundation invests in Clark County to create the Clark County Early Learning Fund Honoring Rick and Sarah Melching (CCELF)
• First Leadership Luncheon held in Clark County to benefit CCELF
• Foundation hosts ECFC in Seattle; Gates Foundation and Kirlin Foundation become members of ECFC
• Foundation transfers the responsibility for the Affinity Group for Funders of Early Learning to Philanthropy Northwest

 

2005

• Foundation partners with Boeing and the State to ensure that Getting School Ready® booklets go out in Child Profile mailings
• Foundation, Gates Foundation and Talaris begin discussion re: a Public/Private Partnership dedicated to early learning in Washington State
• 2006
• Foundation board votes to allow EC2 become Thrive by Five Washington (TBF)
• Mona Locke joins TBF board Jeanne Anderson joins TBF Advisory Council
• Board develops a new approach in grantmaking for the Foundation - coalition building, technical assistance and support

 

2007

• New grantmaking strategy is finalized and publicly unveiled
• Mona Locke steps down as board chair after seven years; Marleen Alhadeff becomes new board chair

 

 

2008

 

• Foundation funds and provides technical assistance to Getting School Ready® coalitions in 23 Washington counties
• Foundation partners with 23 public libraries across the state to “bring the libraries to the early learning table”
• Foundation sponsors and participates in Seeds of Compassion

 

 

 

These are just a sampling of the Foundation’s accomplishments. When I look at what has happened these past eight years, I have a profound sense of pride and joy for what we achieved. Leaving this wonderful organization and the people associated with it is difficult but I know that it is the best thing for me to do - for the Foundation, the children, my family and me. I look forward to reading what the next Executive Director has to report eight years from now.

 

Thanks so much for your support

 

 

Jeanne

**Update**
A reader of this blog just told me of a wonderful resource in Seattle for children dealing with the loss of a loved one. It is called the Safe Crossings Foundation. All the services are free and they help children and their parents to get through the grieving process in a healthy and loving way. Please check them out.

-Jeanne

***

Last week a young woman who was a volunteer for the Foundation for Early Learning died. She was a single mother and left behind two sons under the age of five. A friend of mine knows of another young mother of two young children who is in the hospital struggling for her life. This woman’s husband approached my friend and asked him if he knew of any books that would help him explain to his children what is happening to their mother. He also wanted to know of any book that would help him explain death to his children if it comes to that.

My friend asked me if I knew of any resources. I naturally pointed him to the libraries and their staff, especially the Early Learning specialists many libraries now have. I also told him to look online.

After I talked with my friend, I started remembering things that I had long ago stored away in a very remote part of my brain. My mother died at the age of 36 and left behind five children ages eight, seven, six, three and two. I was the seven year old child.

The grieving that my two brothers (ages eight and six) and I experienced was very different than the one that our two younger siblings went through. We three remember vividly the events that surrounded our mother’s illness and eventual death. While we were overwhelmed and confused and sad and frightened, we were able to grasp to some degree what was happening and how our lives might change without our mother. We also had memories and experiences with our mother that the two youngest didn’t have. We remembered trips, our first day of school, picnics, building snowmen and going to the ocean with our mother. We grieved for the person and we grieved for the life that could have been.

In reading the literature about how children under the age of five deal with the death of a parent, I found out that it is a very different process. While my younger brother and sister were aware of our mother’s absence, they didn’t really understand why she was gone. Young children don’t grasp the idea of the permanency of death and have limited memory of experiences and events that happened with their mother. The relationship is at a very different level.

Losing a parent at a young age has a profound affect on a child’s life. The person who was supposed to be there as the child grows up and enters school, and goes on to adulthood is missing. Other people may come in to take that person’s place, but it is never the same.

When I talk with my younger siblings about our mother, they don’t have the memory of grief that my two other brothers and I have. They know something has always been missing but because they only have vague memories of this person called Mom, they don’t grieve for her as much as they grieve for what they never had, while my other two brothers and I grieve for our mother and for what we lost.

I found the following website to be very informative and helpful for people who have to talk to a young child about death. Additionally, Betsy Kluck-Keil, the Early Learning librarian at the Seattle Public library had these suggestions:

The Purple Balloon by Chris Raschka

Badger's Parting Gifts by Susan Varley

Lifetimes: a beautiful way to explain death to children by Bryan Mellonie Everett

Anderson's Goodbye by Lucille Clifton

These may be age appropriate...but as always, the adult should pre-read them to see if they would fit.

Betsy also recommends this website.

If you have any resources you would like to share, please post them. One book that I found especially useful to me as an adult trying to understand the impact my mother’s death had on me is called Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman. It helped me understand quite a bit about myself and one thing that stood out was the fact that many women who lose their mothers at a very early age never learn how to accessorize their clothing. A small point perhaps but I finally understood why I could never figure out what scarf went with which earrings, shoes, purse, etc. and I stopped worrying about it.

Let me hear from you,

Jeanne

The Department of Early Learning for Washington State recently contracted with Craciun Research Group to poll a sampling of registered voters in our state about what they know about Early Learning and the Dept. of Early Learning. Craciun polled 508 Washington voters (152 were parents of children birth to age five) during the period from December 17, 2007 and January 3, 2008. Craciun stated that the fact that it used registered voters tended to skew the number of respondents to older, Caucasians from middle to high income families. As you read these results, please keep this fact in mind. Below are questions that were asked and the answers the researchers got from the interviewees.

In your opinion, when do you think a child begins learning?

95% of those surveyed believe that children begin learning at birth or during the first year

What are the most important factors in kindergarten readiness?

• 84% of those surveyed believe that “Listening and following directions and getting along with other children” are major factors in kindergarten readiness

• Less than half (42%) considered physical readiness such as writing his or her name or using scissors or marking pens very important

What is the community’s responsibility to young children?

• 76% of those surveyed believe that it is a community responsibility to support the government in funding opportunities for children who do not currently have access to early learning opportunities

What is the most trusted source of parenting information for you?

• 70% trust only people with whom they have close contact

• 13% trust books and libraries

• 12% trust other parenting experts

• 6% trust their own instincts most of all

I found this research to be fascinating and encouraging for several reasons. The first is the percentage of the people polled who believed that learning begins at birth or in the first year. The second is that social emotional skills were considered much more important than cognitive skills when assessing kindergarten readiness. The third reason is for the fact that despite the internet and all the other media surrounding us today, parents are still turning to trusted friends, parents and siblings to get advice and information on parenting. Finally, I was happy to see that the majority of people surveyed believe that the government has a responsibility to make early learning opportunities available to children who may not have them otherwise.

Are you surprised with these results? It is a small sample and I don't think we can extrapolate the findings out very far but I see it as good information on how 508 registered voters in the state of Washington feel about Early Learning.

Let me know what you think.

Greetings

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting with Dr. James Heckman when he was visiting at Washington State University. Dr Heckman is much admired by the early learning community because of the work he did on the return on investment society gets for investing in children birth through age five. His findings are based on research results from two longitudinal studies done on high quality preschool programs that were offered to low income, at risk children.

According to Heckman's findings, for every dollar society spends on children from birth to age five, it saves $17 later on. The study shows that school dropout rates, teen pregnancy, joblessness, incarceration and a host of other negative issues are decreased when a child has the opportunity to attend a high quality preschool.

Imagine how exciting it was for me to be with eight other early learning people and Dr Heckman for an hour. The surprizing thing was that he saw it as an opportunity to learn things from us! In fact when the person escorting him around came to get him for his next meeting Heckman asked if he could have a few more minutes with us.

Heckman told us that his research has led him to believe in the power of non cognitive skills or social emotional development as the deciding factor in the successful development of a child. He stated that although the children in the study had the same IQ ten years after their preschool experience, they were much more successful then the control group because of their social emotional maturity.

Later that day, Heckman spoke to a crowd of over 300 students and facility in Economics and again praised early learning as the best investment we can make as a society. You gotta love this guy.

Let me know what you think.

Jeanne