Early Identification
Quality Care/Special Needs
Resources
School Readiness
TouchPoints
Training Calendar
Useful Links

What is Success By 6?

Success By 6 is a partnership of local businesses, community social service agencies, and county government that is focused on building a comprehensive early childhood system to address the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs of children birth to age 6.

• Success By 6 is not a program ~ it is a community-wide initiative, that depends on people in our community (i.e. you) to develop strategies based on local needs to ensure children are ready to learn when they enter school.
• Success By 6 is raising awareness about early childhood development. It is improving the delivery of critical services for very young children and their families. It is advocating for public policy that supports the community's youngest children.
• Through the approval of state funding, childcare providers will be allowed to send more staff to more training sessions. Better-trained staff results in lower turnover rates, which results in more stability and consistency of care to the children. Stability and consistency of care contributes to healthier development of children.

Areas of Focus for Community Engagement

The United Way of Wyoming Valley adopted the Success By 6® Initiative to begin to address the needs of children ages 0-6. Success By 6® strives to engage service providers, childcare providers, and the business community to improve the quality of services children receive in their most formative years. After a comprehensive needs assessment in 2002, the committee began to address those needs by developing the following focus areas:

• Quality Care
• Inclusion of Children with Special Needs
• Promoting and Improving Readiness for School
• Public Engagement and Promotion

At the base of these focus areas is promotion of the importance of quality early childhood education and childcare to the community.

Quality Care:
Success By 6® volunteers participate in outreach to the childcare community to provide services that address their barriers to providing the highest quality services. This outreach is the foundation of our work, because it is well established by research that a child's first 5 years of life are the most formative and provide the greatest opportunity for positive intervention and prevention of future risks.

Inclusion of Children with Special Needs:
The Success By 6® committee maintains the philosophy that providing the opportunities to include children with disabilities in typical childcare settings is critical to providing quality services. Therefore, the Success By 6® committee partners with Early Intervention to outreach to childcare centers and provide them with the tools they need to offer services for all children.

Promoting and Improving Readiness for School:
Readiness for school implies readiness for success in school. Based on an understanding of the current literature, a child's readiness for school has a direct relationship to their academic achievement. To support this transition, the Success By 6® committee works to develop relationships between childcare centers and school districts based on the notion that understanding each others' expectations will improve the transition to the district. The other side of this goal is to provide parents with tools to help them prepare their children for success in kindergarten.

Public Engagement and Promotion:
Supporting public awareness and education is the foundation of these services. If parents, the consumers, are not convinced that the quality of care their children receive in the first three years of life will ultimately affect their healthy development, than our efforts will not be as fruitful. One method to help reach parents is through providing training to employees of local companies.

Committees for Community Engagement According to Area of Focus

The committees, their programs and projects listed below are community groups that provide a collaborative base for the goals of Success By 6®. The Success By 6® Board comprised of public, private, and business leaders, overseas all initiatives of Success By 6®. The Director of Success By 6®, also known as the Community Engagement Coordinator, participates in the local committees listed below.

Quality Care / Inclusion of Children with Special Needs

Committees

• Quality Care/ Inclusion Committee
• Directors Network Group Committee    
• Touchpoints Team
• Early Identification of Children w/ Special Needs & Disabilities Committee
  - Media Campaign Committee
  - Physician Outreach Committee
  - Child Care Ed/Awareness Committee

Projects/Programs

-Quality Care Conference
-Mentor Program
-Training Program & Credits
-Directors Network Group
-Pediatric First Aid Training
-Promotion of Keystone Stars
-Early Identification Program
-Child Care Trainings
-Physician Questionnaires & Trainings

Promoting and Improving Readiness for School

Committees

• School Readiness Committees
• Head Start Transition Advisory Committee
• State PreK Counts/ Pre K Now Committees
• State Leadership Network for PreK Counts
   

Projects/Programs

-Kindergarten Readiness Guide
-Kindergarten Readiness Checklist
-Kindergarten Readiness Checklist Trainings
-Transition Event
-Promote relationships between        School Districts & Childcares
-Hospital Outreach
-Transition Social Story

Public Engagement and Promotion

Committees

• PA Key/ NE Region Key Committees
• PACCA Board
• Quest Steering Committee
• Intergenerational Coalition
• Youth Allocations Committee
• Community Impact Council
• School Campaigns
• Legislative Outreach
• Local Interagency Coordinating Council
   -Child Find Sub-Committee
   -Transition Sub-Committee

Projects/Programs

-Parent Training
-Legislative Advocacy/Outreach
-Campaign
-Early Childhood Action Day
-Conference Leadership Wilkes-Barre
- Keystone Stars Education
-Training Programs to Businesses
-Utilize UWWV web site
-Improve Barnes & Noble/ public
  library relations
-3 year ad campaign
-Report Card to the Community
-Books for Babies

To find out how you can be a part of this exciting endeavor, please contact:
Jessica Sabol, Director of Success By 6
United Way of Wyoming Valley
Phone: (570) 829-6711 Ext. 225
Email: jsabol@unitedwaywb.org

*Artwork provided by the students at Rainbow Hill Childcare Center