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First Things First received a grant for $25,000 from Akron Community Foundation to fund a Community Developmental Screening Project! The grant will allow the Special Needs and Early Intervention Group to implement their first strategy: Establish a system for regular developmental screenings for children from birth to age five.

First Things First in Summit County will address these five components: Early Care and Education, Health, Behavioral Health, Family Support, and Special Needs and Early Intervention.

Early Care and Education Enhancement PlanThis plan strives to address system gaps and to identify improvements needed to ensure young children in Summit County have the greatest opportunity for positive physical and mental health, early learning, and developmental outcomes, and to ensure families have access to needed support services.

The goal is to broaden the efforts that currently exist by expanding their scope or extending their focus to be more comprehensive. This plan supports partnerships and communication with service providers. Ultimately, families will reap the greatest rewards from this coordination of services in Summit County.

 

IN PARTNERSHIP with Summit Education Initiative, we are excited to make available “Kindergarten Registration Information for all Summit County Public Schools”.  This information can be found in printable “read only pdf format” by following the link listed below. 

There are several spreadsheets in this link: Suburban Districts, Akron Public Schools, and Community Schools. 

This information will be updated periodically as we know that school districts are reconsidering policies and practices regarding tuition based all day programs, cut off dates, and redistricting school boundaries.  We will rely upon the school districts to inform us of any changes for the remainder of this year.  We will annually update the entire database in the fall of each school year.
 

EXCITING NEWS

$25,000 awarded from the Akron Community Foundation!

With a $25,000 grant from the Akron Community Foundation, the next phase of Summit County Early Care and Education System Enhancement Plan has been launched. This grant will fund a Community Developmental Screening Project which will provide regular developmental screening and referral for young children in the community in a coordinated and collaborative systemized manner. First Things First will work with Child Care Connection to implement the grant as part of the Special Needs and Early Intervention Group.

The Community Developmental Screening Project will address two strategies from the Special Needs and Early Intervention Group’s work plan. The first strategy identified is to establish a system for regular, developmental screenings for children birth to age five.  The second strategy is to ensure that all screeners are trained to make an appropriate follow-up referral. Several organizations, individuals, and programs that are already screening children birth to five years with the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) have been identified to participate. These include: Help Me Grow, Help Me Grow Plus, Early Head Start, Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority (AMHA), Greenleaf Family Center’s SPARK program, local pediatricians and child care centers. There are approximately 178 child care centers in Summit County and some already have staff trained to administer the ASQ. This training can be used by the centers to earn credit toward their Step Up to Quality certification.