What is the Great Start Parent Coalition?
We are a group of parents with the mission of ensuring all children enter school ready to succeed. To support our youngest learners and citizens, we…
- educate parents and legislators about the spectacular brain development that occurs from birth to school age;
- talk with legislators about the programs and services parents and children need to be successful;
- offer our experiences and voices to the Great Start Collaborative so that the leaders of our community know what parents truly need;
- support each other in our journeys as parents.
Who are the members of the Washtenaw Great Start Parent Coalition?
We are a supportive network of parents who
- Work with other community leaders to develop a system of services to meet the needs of infant, young children and their parents
- Receive free training on how to talk to public officials and others about important issues facing young children and their families in our community
- Attend bi-monthly meetings in child friendly places
- Organize and attend community events to share information on the importance of early childhood programs
- Know that our voices matter when it comes to supporting our county’s youngest citizens
What does the Washtenaw GSPC do?
The Washtenaw GSPC has been very busy this year reaching out to our legislators and candidates to make sure that they understand how critical state support of early childhood programs is to making sure that all children are ready to succeed in Kindergarten.
We have also reached out into our parent community to make sure parents are aware of all of the great programs and services that are available to help them in the toughest job in the world – parenting well!
A small sample of the activities we are involved in…
- Touch a Truck – an enormous community service fair with over 20 trucks for children to explore and just as many agencies for parents to learn about. Held at Briarwood Mall in May, Touch a Truck introduces parents to services from the Imagination Library program to Health Care Advocates. And it introduces kids to trucks from the local school bus to the 10 ton farming combine.
- Pre School Expo – a community fair of local preschool programs setting up displays to explain their different programs, enrollment procedures and financial supports available.
- Bi-Monthly Parent Meetings – every other month we choose a topic and a fun location (Jungle Java, Zoobilee) and gather to share our experiences. At these meetings, we always make a point to send a message to our legislators about what is important to us.
- Star Power – every year we set aside one day to go to Lansing and personally tell our legislators how important their support of early childhood programming is to our children.
