BY ALYSSA SCHNUGG
Staff Writer
With Oxford being a certified child-friendly community, members of the LOU Excel by 5 coalition reached out to the community to gain insight on its long and shortterm goals, and priority projects and brainstorm for new ideas during a town hall-style meeting Tuesday at the Oxford Conference Center.
“Now that we’re certified, we have to stand on our own and continue with our goals,” said Kathy Sukanek, certification manager.
Oxford received its certification by the Excel by 5 state program earlier this year after a two-year process.
Excel by 5 emphasizes the importance of early childhood education in children ages birth though 5 and sets forth a variety of standards involving parent training, community involvement, child care and health and safety to help communities focus on supporting toddlers and their families. The certification process identifies available resources and existing best practices to help children excel by age 5. Before a community gains certification it must meet a long list of requirements.
The certification lasts for three years before the community has to go through the recertification process.
During the town hall meeting, those attending were divided into small groups, first to review the coalition’s goals and then make any changes or additions.
While the main short-term goal is getting more people involved in the coalition, the long-term goals include having all parents/families develop safe, stable and nurturing relationships with their children, beginning at birth; making sure all pregnant mothers have adequate prenatal care; provide support to childcare providers and foster strong relationships between the daycares; and making sure the community as a whole knows about the coalition and its programs and goals. Most of the groups liked all of the goals but some thought a couple were a bit too hefty and suggested changing the word “all” to “most” in the goals and provide ways to measure if a goal can be obtained.
The second part of the meeting involved more group work, focusing on four areas — the family resource center; interventions and strategies to address kindergartner’s identified vulnerabilities; health and safety initiatives; and an annual communitywide event.
The Family Resource Center, located in the parking lot of the old Oxford Mall, is open for parents and providers to use reading and learning games, books and other materials and check them out for a period of time.
The Excel by 5 coalition formed the center and partnered with the Mississippi Child Care Research & Referral Network to keep it going as part of its certification process.
One of the main goals presented for the center was getting more volunteers involved with the center so it can be open for longer — and more predictable — hours. The group suggested working with college students and senior students for the center.
Other suggestions were to do a health survey; improve and increase parent cafés where the coalition meets with parents to explain the necessity for early childhood development; expanding on a communitywide celebration once a year to promote the coalition; and to piggyback onto familyfriendly events where a lot of people are already attending, like Party in the Park and the Health Fair.
After each group met for about 15 minutes, the entire group ranked all of the suggestions to come up with three top initiatives:— More programs to enrich early language environment;— Using more volunteers at the Family Resource Center, building on the community event; and — Utilizing a collegebased program called Jump Start where students are trained in child care.“ The steering committee will review all of these suggestions and see which are feasible,” Sukanek said. “Essentially, we will meet and price them out.”
For more information, visit www. excelby5. com or call 2364265.— alyssa@oxfordeagle.com