What YOU Can Do

What can you do to invest in our community?

"It is widely recognized that the path to our nation's future prosperity and security begins with the well-being of all our children."

Early Education and Care: Laying a Solid Foundation

What You Should Know

  • A child with a solid foundation becomes part of a solid community and contributes to our society. Early experiences affect the structure of the brain. Children who participate in high-quality early education programs are 40% less likely to repeat a grade, 30% more likely to graduate from high school and more than twice as likely to go to college.1
  • Reliable, quality early education and care arrangements lead to reduced employee turnover, lower absenteeism, increased productivity and positive business relationships.2
  • Public-private investments in early childhood development and intervention programs yield an estimated 16% for every dollar invested.3

What You Can Do

  • Understand your employees' needs regarding early care and education. Offer a financial benefit to your employees to help fund high quality early education and care for their children.
  • Celebrate the birth of a child to an employee by establishing an educational individual development account that may only be used for higher education.
  • Become an advocate for universal, high quality, early childhood education for all Massachusetts 3, 4, and 5 year olds by signing on to support the work of the Early Education for All Campaign at www.earlyeducationforall.org.
  • Advocate for public policy that recognizes early childhood development as a critical investment and fund early childhood programs at levels that make a difference in the lives of children.
  • Provide scholarships and support for early childhood educators to access higher education by supporting the QUEST program. Administered by the Preschool Enrichment Team in Springfield.

School, College and Career Success: Investing in Our Future School Success

What You Should Know

  • Family involvement results in improvements in school attendance, grades, test scores, and graduation rates; increased motivation and better self-esteem; and greater enrollment in post-secondary education.4
  • One adult in a warm respectful relationship with a youth makes all the difference. Youth that have an ongoing mentor have better school attendance and performance.5
  • Fourth grade reading scores are a key predictor of future academic success, a reliable indicator of a child's school readiness and a measure of whether or not children's needs have been met between birth and fourth grade. Students who read proficiently by fourth grade attend classes more often, have higher self-confidence, and perform well in school; academically and socially.7

What You Can Do

  • Encourage employees who are parents of school-age children to participate in the education of their children. Develop policies that are flexible in allowing family members to attend parent-teacher conferences, volunteer at the school, or get involved with their kids' education in whatever way possible.
  • Develop a program at your place of work which allows employees to get involved in tutoring youth. It is particularly important that we make sure that children can read by grade 3 and that youth have supports to complete algebra and higher level math classes.
  • Adopt a school and work with faculty on a work plan to improve the school through services that can be provided by the business community and general community.
  • Sponsor a Summer Learning Program in a school, with a focus on reading in the elementary grades and experiential approaches to math, science, and English Language Arts for middle school.

Youth Development

What You Should Know

  • Working Parents who know their children are supervised by adults in a safe, secure place during out-of-school time are able to be more productive, work more hours, and move into better jobs.8
  • Children and youth that attend afterschool programs have better school attendance, are more engaged in learning, and have better relations with peers, adults, and families.9
  • Children who have the opportunity for enriching opportunities in the summer return to school ready to learn and with improved outcomes. Summer programs can help close the achievement gap and reduce summer learning loss, which can equal 3 months of reading and math skill.

What You Can Do

  • Send ONE child to a program for the whole summer for an average of $1,200 by contributing to the Hampden County Summer Fund. Join to increase access to summer programs beyond the 20% that now attend. Or serve as mentors and reading partners in summer programs.
    • Call Maura Geary, United Way of Pioneer Valley; 413-693-0219 or mgeary@uwpv.org.
  • Provide teen summer jobs. Teens are hungry for real world experiences. The summer offers the perfect opportunity for them to explore various career pathways through supported work experience.
    • Call Kathryn Kirby, Hampden County Regional Employment Board; 413-755-1359 or kirby@rebhc.org.
  • Contribute to the WestMOST Network scholarship fund so that afterschool leaders can take college level leadership and administration courses.

College and Career Preparation

What You Should Know

  • Increased education provides economic benefits for individuals, as well as for our communities. According to the 2000 US Census, median incomes for individuals were: $46,925 for a bachelor's degree; $31,275 for high school completion; and $25,273 without a high school diploma.
  • The Massachusetts state government benefits economically as well. The difference between high school graduates and dropouts in annual taxes paid and fewer needed government supports presently exceeds $450,000. The difference between high school dropouts and four year college graduates is projected to exceed $1 million.10
  • Internship and work experiences help teens to gain general and personal work experience and personal insight; acquire knowledge and attitudes relevant to future learning; and develop personal maturity. It helps employers to develop a quick, reliable source of skilled labor; improve the quality of life and skills in the community; and influence curriculum development to meet industry requirements.11
  • National research has shown that minority and low-income youth that work in high school are more likely to graduate from high school than their peers who do not work. Students with jobs that offer work-based learning opportunities are also more likely to see the relevance of school curriculum to future job performance and remain more committed to their schoolwork.12
  • In 2000, there were a total of 52,675 youth aged 16-24 in Hampden County. Of these only 29, 081 (55.2%), were enrolled in school of any kind. Of those enrolled youth 14,295, (27.1%) also held a job. Of the 23,594 youth not enrolled, 8,028 were also not employed.13

What You Can Do

  • Host a young person by offering a paid or unpaid job opportunity through summer or year round internships.
  • Partner with Holyoke and Springfield Achievement Initiatives to increase rate of college attendance and completion.
    • In Holyoke, contact Isolda Bustamante-Ortega, Enlace; 413-552-2847 or iortega@hcc.mass.edu.
    • In Springfield, contact Tim Allen, Step Up Springfield; 413-693-0207 or tallen@uwpv.org.
  • Encourage employees to mentor high school students to prepare for work and keep in school through an employer Dropout Prevention Program. (Contact Hampden County Regional Employment Board).

Adult and Family Literacy: Insuring Economic Development

What You Should Know

  • Providing quality literacy services to adults improves the workforce, increases employment rates, and builds the economic well-being of adults and families14. However, there are currently over 900 people on the waiting list, with 400 in Holyoke alone, for adult basic education.
  • Immigrants and those who are limited English proficient represent the largest increase in the local workforce. To have economic growth it will be critical to prepare all workers to read to their potential. Also, adult literacy programs are a stepping stone to participation in higher level educational programs.15
  • Literacy ability has a generational impact on families. Research consistently shows that better educated parents have better educated children. When adults enter literacy programs and improve their literacy skills, their children have improved health and nutrition, improved graduation rates, and improved employment rates.16

What You Can Do

  • Advocate to your state legislators for increased funding for Adult Basic Education services to change the current situation where only 3% of those who need services can access them.
  • Provide financial support to Literacy Works to increase access to services.
    • In Springfield, contact Marie Grady, Literacy Works; 413-755-1357 or mgrady@rebhc.org.
  • Become a literacy tutor.
  • Give children books of their own: adopt a classroom for $30 which will give a child one book per month of his/her very own, through the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

1 Early Education for All. High Quality Pre-Kindergarten: An Economic Development Strategy (May 2007).

2 Shellenback, K. Child Care and Parent Productivity: Making the Business Case, Cornell University Press (December 2004).

3 Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return (March 2003).

4 Michigan Department of Education, What Research Says About Parent Involvement in Children's Education In Relation to Academic Achievement, Retrieved the 23rd of October 2007 at http://www.michegan.gov/documents/final_parent_involvement_fact_sheet_14732_7.pdf.

5 Hawkins and Catalano, Communities That Care, Retrieved the 23rd of October 2007 at http://casat.unr.edu/bestpractices/view.php?program=23.

6 Grossman and Tierney, Does Mentoring Work?: An Impact Study of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program (1998).

7Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, Getting Ready: Findings from the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative; a 17 State Partnership (Feb. 2005).

8 Miller, B., Critical Hours, Nellie Mae Education Foundation (May 2004).

9 Miller, B., Critical Hours, Nellie Mae Education Foundation (May 2004).

10Khatiwada, I., McLaughlin, J. and Sum, A. The Fiscal Economic Consequences of Dropping Out of High School: Estimates of the tax payments and transfers received by Massachusetts adults in selected educational subgroups, Northeastern Center for Labor Market Studies (January 2007).

11 Bremer, C. and Madzar, S. Encouraging Employer Involvement in Youth Apprenticeship and Other Work-Based Learning Experiences for High School Students, Journal of Vocational and Technical Education V.12, N.1 (Fall 1995).

12 Niziolek, M. and Sum, A. Expand Work Opportunities for Youth, Business West (April 2007).

13 Harrington, P. and Stoia, J. Disconnected Young Adults: The Out of School and Out of Work Young Adult Population in Springfield and Hampden County, Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University (December 2003).

14 Literacy Works of Hamden County. Retrieved the 23rd of October 2007 at http://cherishspringfield.org/pages/our_partners/lieracy_works.

15 ProLiteracy America. U.S. Adult Literacy Programs: Making a Difference, A Review of Research on the Positive Outcomes Achieved by Literacy Programs and the People They Serve, U.S. Programs Division of ProLiteracy Worldwide (March 2003).

16 ProLiteracy America. U.S. Adult Literacy Programs: Making a Difference, A Review of Research on the Positive Outcomes Achieved by Literacy Programs and the People They Serve, U.S. Programs Division of ProLiteracy Worldwide (March 2003).



READ

Helping parents support their children's early literacy skills is the work of the W.K. Kellogg-funded Talk/Read/Succeed program. Watch the videos below to learn more...
Effort to Boost Skills
Outreach Efforts

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