April 2004

The Greater Richmond Early Child Development Coalition (ECDC) recently received a $1 million federal grant to enhance early childhood literacy.  The ECDC’s grant was the largest early learning opportunity grant issued by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in 2003.

“This grant will improve the health and early education of young kids by expanding home visitor nursing services in five low-income neighborhoods and enhancing the literacy component of home visitor services throughout the region,” says Carol Obrochta, acting executive director of Youth Matters, a founding member of ECDC.

The $1 million grant will fund ECDC’s Project EXCEL – Excellence for Children and Early Literacy.  “Project EXCEL is a comprehensive approach to ensuring that the more than 3,000 young children in these five neighborhoods will learn and thrive, supported by strong families and healthy, safe communities,” says Barbara Couto Sipe, coordinator of ECDC and United Way Success by Six.

Among the many components of Project EXCEL are:

• Additional staff hired in order to expand home visitor services in five targeted neighborhoods:  Blackwell, Fulton Hill and North Richmond in Richmond City; Harrowgate in Chesterfield County; and East Laburnum in Henrico County. 
   
• The creation of EXCEL Neighborhood Coalitions in the five targeted neighborhoods.  The coalitions consist of parents, community leaders, neighborhood school leaders and ECDC staff who identify local early development and literacy needs and develop action plans to address them.  Project EXCEL will have grants available to fund the plans.
   
• Training and on-site technical assistance for providers who include children with special needs into their programs.  This will make it easier to include kids with physical, emotional, cognitive or behavioral special needs in neighborhood programs. 
   
• Enhanced literacy component of home visitations throughout the region.  Project EXCEL is implementing Raising a Reader, a successful program that provides bright red book bags filled with quality children’s books to kids and their parents through the home visitation system.
   
• Improve the quality of childcare in the region by helping providers achieve national accreditation.  This is a continuation of ECDC’s effort that provides training, mentoring, improvement grants and more to help home- and center-based programs complete the rigorous accreditation process.
   
• An increase in the number of scholarships for childcare teachers who want to earn an associate’s degree.  These scholarships are provided through Voices for Virginia’s Children.

“The grant will fund many established and successful strategies,” says Susan Crump, vice president of United Way Services.  “But it will also give us the opportunity to try something new – the neighborhood coalitions.  We will see if we can develop new relationships to, for example, improve linkages so that child care programs can best prepare children for school.  Making that child care-education system link at the macro level is difficult, and the grant will allow us to try it at a neighborhood level, connecting principals with child care centers in their neighborhoods.”

Now with 155 members, the ECDC was established in 2001 by Youth Matters, United Way’s Success by Six, and Voices for Virginia’s Children. 

Each of the founding members of the ECDC brings a particular strength and role to the coalition.  Success by Six effectively implements the programs on a day-to-day basis and, Voices for Virginia’s Children brings its established and respected advocacy efforts.  The United Way’s Crump credits Youth Matters with uniting the community around the goal of having all students reading at grade level by 3^rd grade.  “The needs assessment research conducted by Youth Matters was key in bringing the community together around a focused goal,” she says.  “Plus, as a part of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Youth Matters brings the influence of the business community to the effort.” 

The ECDC has so far generated $2.7 million to secure better learning environments so Richmond Region kids enter school ready to learn. 

 For more information on this website about Youth Matters, click here.  For more articles on this website about reading by 3^rd grade, click here.