Wexford Missaukee Early Childhood Workgroup

And Local Interagency Coordinating Council

MINUTES

Date: Friday,August 7,2015

8:30-10:00 am

Location: WMISD General Education Building Room 516

Collaborate to enhance services for families with young children in our community

8:30Welcome-

Leader:Niki

Choose Timekeeperand Recorder- Niki

Review of last month’s minutes

Additions to the Agenda

Fun Activity – Niki SchultzCommunication without speaking

Inspire Award- Ashley Mattiuzzo- Cadillac Area YMCA for opening up their doors too all community members during power outage

8:40Introductions & Agency Updates-

Bobbie V- Parent

Dena V- Parent

Joanne V- Parent

Samantha R- Parent

Sue Browder- NMCAA

Terri Colasacco- NMCAA, finishing up higher for all the classrooms. Looking to fill all slots, there openings available.

Kim Stebleton- DHHS, still getting use to the name change form Department of Human Service to Department of health and human services. A lot of new staff throughout the agency. Fully staffed as of Sept 7th.

Brenda Wilson- Love Inc. Evart United Wayholding a 5k walk/run for Higher Grounds program. Pantries are all gearing up, backpack and school supplies will be available. Higher Grounds program starting back up on Sept 28. Register Now for Cadillac and Evart Call 779-1888

Karen Smith- Grandma

Amber Mackenzie- OASIS/FRC, new higher in parent education dept. Title- Parent Aid

Krystal- Parent

Maria Reynolds- WMISD

Brandi-Parent

ParisPhilo-NorthwestResourceCenter, Every county in Michigan is covered by a resource center. Primary focus is early care and education. Provide trainings and professional Developments for parents and providers. All open to public and free of cost. August training on "Helping children to manage their own behaviors".

Susan Parcell- Early On

Ashley Mattiuzzo- Great Start Collaborative

Mike Acosta- Great Start Collaborative

Niki Schultz- Great Start Collaborative

9:00Early On Update – Maria introduced Susan Parcell as new Coordinator. She started last week.

9:15GSRP Update – GSRP was awarded 67 less slots than last year. Waiting to hear from state if we get our slots from last year reinstated. 3 new locations interested in collaborating with GSRP. Audit went well.

9:30Great Start Collaborative (GSC) –Ashley, Family meetings being planned for this upcoming school year. They will be held during the day on a Friday from 11am-1:30pm at the ISD. Sept 25th will be the first, topic of Nutrition on a budget". Niki, Great Start will be sponsoring a Breakfast with Santa this year. Collaborating with the Masonic Lodge. November 28th from 9am-11am. Looking for different agency representatives to come to Chamber Breakfast (Rise Up!) that is held once a month to speak about what their agency does for community. Mike, Grant/ workplan info should be released Aug 15th and we will have until Sept 15th to have it updated and submitted. Starting 3rd year of strategic plan so starting in Oct we will work to start developing new.

Took time as whole Group to look over current workplan and see what we have accomplished and where we want to focus for the next year. Identified some areas in which are hard to quantify and track. The state prescribes performance measures and we fit planned activities in accordingly. GSC collaborates very well with ResourceCenter. Networking nights have been key component.

  • Diversity Data- we need to figure out what we are specifically looking for and how we can track it.
  • School Readiness- Summer Institute came out of this requirement
  • ASQ-SE (Ages and Stages Social Emotional Questionnaire) Who in the community is administering this? DHS, OASIS, HS, WIC...but we need to figure out how to track this better.

Reminder to add to the agenda for future meetings to contact Ashley for childcare and for mileage reimbursement.

Next meeting (September) and October meetings will be moved to the second Friday.

9:55Evaluations

  • Best Part- Agency updates (X2), going over goals, talking progress, school readiness info, fun activity (X3), lots of parents
  • Could have been better by: More people (X3), explaination of acronymns
  • What info was useful: What agencies administer ASQ, The back to school backpacks and supplies from Love, Inc (X2)
  • What info do you still need?: Wondering about creating an app for smart phones for parents, grandparents, etc.

Next meeting: September 11 -8:30-10:00 @ WMISD General Education Building Room 516