United Way’s Success By 6

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United Way of West Georgia, Inc.
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• United Way of West Georgias
• Success By 6 is an early learning community
• impact initiative that helps prepare our
• youngest children for learning
• when they get to school.

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• Local and state SB6s pursue multiple strategies
  
• including public awareness, parent/caregiver
• education, increasing quality childcare, and
• increasing access to services (like health care
• and literacy) to galvanize communities to help
• young children come to school ready to succeed.
• SB6 is the nations largest network of
• early childhood coalitions.

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Common Goal

• The common goal is to create a community
• where all children, by the age of 6,
• have the mental, physical, social and
• emotional foundation to grow into healthy,
• productive members of this community.

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Focus

• Success By 6 accomplishes its goals by focusing
  on the communitys energy and resources in four
  areas
• The promotion of quality and early literacy
• Parent awareness and education
• Community awareness and engagement
• Public policy

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Why should I care about childrens development?

• If we do not take action now, we will
• continue to create a permanent segment
• of society who cannot participate fully in
• community life.

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We will all face

• Higher taxes to support programs for
• dependent people
• An increase in crime, less personal safety.
• Decline in Americas ability to compete in
• world economy.
• A lower standard of living.

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Early Learning
What the research tells us

• 46 of kindergarteners are coming to school at
  risk for failure.
• Economically disadvantaged children enter
  kindergarten 1-2 years behind in language and
  other skills important to school success.

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.research also tells us

• 1 in 3 children is born into poverty.
• The typical middle-class child is read to 1,000
  to
• 1,700 hours before entering 1st grade,
  whereas a
• child from a low-income family is read to an
• average of just 25 hours.
• Young children whose parents respond to them
• verbally at a high rate develop greater
  vocabularies.
• These differences tend to persist over time,
• impacting school readiness and success.

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EARLY LEARNING IS CRITICAL

• Research proves that high-quality
• early learning matters.
• Experts say prevention is better than
  intervention,
• and starting early works best.

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Here are some of the reasons early learning is
critical

• Brain research has shown that nurturing in the
  earliest years is crucial for emotional and
  social, as well as intellectual development.
• While research shows that people continue to
  learn throughout life, there is no doubt that the
  earliest years are those of the greatest growth
• The first years of life do not dictate what a
  child will become, but they do lay the foundation
  for educational and life success.
• Bruner, Floyd Copeman for SECTAN, Seven Things
  Policy Makers Need to Know about School
  Readiness Revised and Expanded Toolkit

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• Nurturing, responsive, and individualized
  interactions build healthy brains that provide a
  strong foundation for future growth and
  development.
• We must close the gap between what we know and
  what we DO to promote the healthy development of
  young children.

Jack. P. Shonkoff, M.D. Beyond Neurons to
Neighborhoods Leading the Way from Research to
Policy
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• When adults verbally interact with young
• children talking, singing, and playing rhyming
• games they stimulate language and
• vocabulary development, building important
• foundations for learning to read.
• B. Hart T.R. Risley Meaningful Differences in
  Everyday Experience of Young American Children

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Words Heard by Children and Their Average
Vocabularies, By Socio-Economic Group
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Whats the Crisis Our Children and Georgia Face?

• Children are not developing the physical,
• emotional, social, imaginative and intellectual
• skills they need to become successful adults.
• Research shows if children do not develop
• properly when they are young, they are more
• likely to drop out of school, go to jail, become
  a
• teen parent and/or live on welfare.

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GEORGIAS CHILDREN ARE IN CRISIS and it effects
you, our economy, and the long-term future of our
state and nation. Consider some recent
statistics

• Did you know?
• 35 of children in Georgia live in homes where
  parents have NO full-time, year-round employment
• 21 of children in Georgia live in single parent
  households
• 34 of children from low income families
  typically enter kindergarten with a vocabulary
  85 smaller than needed to be successful
• Children who start behind, stay behind

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Investing in Our Future
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According to the 40-year High Scope/Perry
Preschool Study, every 1 invested in
high-quality early education produced a 17
return.
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Quality Early Learning REDUCES Crime
Rates Teenage Pregnancy Welfare Dependency Job
Training Costs Special Education Costs Grade
Repetition
Quality Early Education INCREASES Success in
School Graduation Rates Workforce Readiness Job
Productivity Community Engagement Lifetime Income
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Success In Life Success in Work Success in
School Quality Early Learning
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What can you do?
United Ways Success By 6 is closing the gap.

• Join us by
• Equipping parents and caregivers to support early
  learning through programs such as the Born
  Learning campaign.
• Increasing the quality of early education by
  supporting the development of quality rating
  systems for pre-k for all.
• Urge local lawmakers to include early learning
  among their priorities.

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For sources and other information, visit
national.unitedway.org
Look up Success By 6 under Our Work and choose
Early Childhood
Look up BornLearning when you choose Partners
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Thank you