OICF 2014 Preschool Collaborative Grant Funds Workshops
Thanks to a grant funded through the Orcas Island Community Foundation with additional support financed through our local ECEAP office, islanders will have equal access and increased accessibility to parenting education for all families of young children, regardless of preschool enrollment.
Our ECE programs, in highly unique ways, share the common goal of providing quality early education to toddlers and preschool children; this education fosters their cognitive, physical, social-emotional and language development. Part of our responsibility, as educators, is to ensure children have the best chance to succeed. Our programs understand that parenting education improves outcomes for children by helping parents gain the support, knowledge and child-rearing skills they need to approach parenting with competence and confidence. (Families experiencing financial hardships are at greatest risk.) And we know children who experience sensitive care-giving in the first five years have better social-emotional, language and learning outcomes. Our missions include supporting student and family to reach this level of success.
The benefits of sensitive care-giving in the early years extend into children’s later schooling and include positive behavior and academic success. Today, parents of preschool children on Orcas Island do not have adequate and consistent access to quality programs that support these critical years of young parenting. Early Learning Centers — Children’s House, Kaleidoscope, Montessori and Salmonberry — will collaboratively develop a series of seminars and workshops that target multiple dimensions of child well-being, school readiness, physical health, detection of developmental delays, prevention of abuse and neglect, social-emotional development and preventing behavioral problems.
Stay tuned for details and a schedule of these workshops beginning November 2014.
Early Childhood Education on Orcas Island 