Education Begins at Birth

Project Great Start Challenges Michigan to Take Action for Children From Birth to Age Five

Adapted from the Project Great Start Question and Answers, www.greatstartforkids.org.

Q: What is Project Great Start?

A: Governor Jennifer M. Granholm launched Project Great Start in her first State of the State address in February 2003. The governor described this new initiative as a movement that challenges us all to recognize that education begins at birth, not when a child enters school. Project Great Start (PGS) seeks to coordinate both public and private efforts to achieve common objectives and measurable results for Michigan’s youngest children.

There are many existing early childhood initiatives and programs that accomplish the day-to-day work in promoting early childhood development. These initiatives can identify with Project Great Start by accepting the challenges of systems building, collaboration, and common objectives.

Q: What is the Children’s Cabinet and the Children’s Action Network?

A: The Children’s Cabinet was appointed by the Governor to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of programs that serve children and their families. The Children’s Cabinet will also provide leadership to the Children’s Action Network and other state-led initiatives related to children that involve citizen, advocacy, and similar groups; share knowledge and research about emerging issues related to children; review and evaluate the outcomes of child-focused programs and services and recommend improvements; and reach out to communities, foundations, legislators, advocacy groups, and others to understand local priorities and resources; and share best practices.

The Children’s Action Network is a work group of the Children’s Cabinet and will: provide a unifying voice for early childhood initiatives in Michigan, implement a coordinated birth-to-five system by 2007, integrate birth-to-five services with Family Resource Centers in priority schools, and integrate birth-to-five services with other community services throughout Michigan.

Q: What is the Great Parents, Great Start Program?

A: The new 2003–2004 Great Parents, Great Start Program grants are supported through Section 32(j) of the State School Aid Act. Grants totaling $3.3 million were distributed to intermediate school districts for collaborative community efforts to develop parent involvement and education programs. The programs are designed for the families of children from birth to age five. Four components are required:

• Information on development of children from birth to age five.
• Methods to enhance parent/child interaction, including reading for 30 minutes each day.
• Examples of learning oppor- tunities to promote intellectual, physical, and social growth of children from birth to age five.
• Promotion of access to needed community services through a community-school-home partnership.

The program has been designed to build on the experience gained through the All Students Achieve Program-Parent Involvement and Education (ASAP-PIE) grants.

Q: How does the Great Parents, Great Start Program relate to Project Great Start?

A: Great Parents, Great Start is the first new program to be directly aligned with Project Great Start. The program is designed to promote collaboration, common objectives, and systems building at the community level, all of which are aims of Project Great Start at the state level.

Q: How does Project Great Start relate to local early childhood efforts?

A: Governor Granholm believes Project Great Start should create a movement that reaches every county in Michigan at the local level. To that end, she has asked Michigan’s 57 intermediate school districts (ISDs) to convene local partnerships to achieve Project Great Start’s goals of promoting reading to children beginning at birth and giving parents the tools they need to be their children’s first and most important teachers. Working with the local multi-purpose collaborative bodies, the ISDs will enlist diverse stakeholders including business, labor, faith-based, and philanthropic organizations to develop specific local strategies reaching out to the more than 130,000 families who welcome newborns into the world each year in Michigan.

Q: How does Project Great Start relate to the Michigan Ready to Succeed Partnership?

A: The Michigan Ready to Succeed Partnership (RTS) brings together leaders in business, education, faith, government, health, labor, media, politics, and philanthropy to promote the vision of every Michigan child ready to succeed in school and in life. The partnership’s position paper, State Government Leadership, Policy, and Services for Children, contributed to Governor Granholm’s early childhood initiative, Project Great Start. RTS, one of many Project Great Start partners, advances a broad, cultural change agenda to increase the public’s awareness of the importance of a child’s first years of life. Project Great Start provides an organized point of state government contact with RTS so that messages to the public about early childhood are mutually reinforcing.

Q: How does Project Great Start relate to the public awareness campaign, Be their Hero from age Zero?

A: Project Great Start is designing and delivering early childhood messages in coordination with the Ready to Succeed Partnership’s continuing Be their Hero from age Zero public awareness campaign. Guidelines for the use of the Project Great Start logo in conjunction with the “Hero” message and other taglines are available at www.greatstartforkids.org. The “Hero” campaign provides an early childhood message as well as print and broadcast tools for use by organizations working in partnership with, and as approved by, Project Great Start and RTS.

For more information, contact: Joan Blough, Great Start for Kids, 1738 Commonwealth Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49006, (269) 345-5968, (517) 484-6549 fax, info@greatstartforkids.org. The Project Great Start Vision and Blueprint can be downloaded at www.greatstartforkids.org.

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