News

Moving Children Forward Through Partnership

By Jared Boon

Wisconsin StriveTogether Partnership

One of the ways to bolster community success is to be aware of the needs of youth in the community. With this awareness we can remove barriers and put in place supports. To help achieve this vision, the four StriveTogether Organizations in Wisconsin (Achieve Brown County in Green Bay, Building our Future in Kenosha, Higher Expectations for Racine County, and Milwaukee Succeeds) formed a partnership to drive change at the community- and state-level through policy work driven by data and research.

Efforts to Improve Outcomes for Children

Each of the involved organizations are initiatives in their individual communities to improve conditions for youth. Higher Expectations in Racine County has done work to pilot full-day 4K for low-income students and is creating a collaborative effort among the local schools to improve third grade literacy.

Achieve Brown County and Building our Future in Kenosha are working collaboratively with local health systems and government programs to create standardized child wellness checks in their communities.The purpose of this initiative is to address any issue of children with a development delay not being screened or identified before beginning schooling and receiving treatment for the delay to set them up for success in school.

Also, Milwaukee Succeeds has worked to improve the quality of childcare for all families, while also decreasing the disparities among demographic groups, by creating the Quality Early Care & Education Network. The network has helped strengthen the connection between the community and schools to improve supports and resources for schools, families, children and the community overall.

All this work is improving individual communities, but there is still a need to identify and remedy barriers at the state level. This is where the Wisconsin StriveTogether Partnership comes in.

Addressing Policy Barriers Together

The primary focus of the Wisconsin StriveTogether Partnership will be to secure policy change that will increase access to high-quality early childhood education and supports.

The reasoning behind this is the identification of concerns through research in the early childhood space, which is an area in need of improvement in Wisconsin. As seen in the image below, a large percentage of Wisconsin children enroll in some form of pre-kindergarten programming. Even though enrollment in programming is not a concern, there is still a need to address the topic of accessibility (primarily for 3K) and funding for high-quality programs.

Alleviating these concerns within individual communities is creating significant change, but doing so at the state-level will create an even broader impact.

Learn More About Wisconsin StriveTogether Organizations

Members from each of the organizations are excited to see the success that will come from this partnership. By addressing these barriers together, we will be able to help move our state forward!

Learn more about Achieve Brown County’s partner organizations from the Wisconsin StriveTogether Partnership below:

https://www.buildingourfuturekc.org/

https://www.higherexpectationsracinecounty.org/

http://milwaukeesucceeds.org/

Another article that is covering the Wisconsin StriveTogether Partnership:

Wisconsin Partnerships Will Be Focusing on Education