On June 23 from 2-4 pm, a small group of community members will come together for a conversation about children, community, and collaboration.  This conversation can lead to sustainable change in Sheboygan County, with a proven return on investment.

Brown County United Way will present information regarding the mechanics, challenges, and successes their county has realized because a small group of community members came together to have a similar conversation.   Small conversations spark big changes. 

Brown County United Way has been the backbone for a community collaboration that currently provides a coordinated system of care for families that includes: Welcome Baby Visits either prenatally or at the hospital, customized referrals to a full spectrum of local agencies, in-home visits, parenting classes, and structured play groups. Over 3000 families received services in 2014.

This System of Care is called the Community Partnership for Children (CPC). The CPC is a prevention-focused early childhood initiative and a Wisconsin state model. Its vision is that all Brown County children will be safe, healthy and ready for kindergarten. To accomplish this, many community partners have set a goal to scale up and sustain a collaborative, coordinated System of Care that will make it possible to reduce child abuse and neglect, improve child health, promote optimal child development, and strengthen families.  

Now, imagine instead of Brown County, we are talking about Sheboygan County implements a System of Care.

United Way of Sheboygan County aims to take specific evidence-based actions to improve the health and well-being of Sheboygan County’s children and prepare them to succeed in the 21^st century.  Sector leaders from business, health care, faith communities, government, non-profit, education, private funders, and parents will come together on June 23 to learn about working together and achieving this goal. These diverse individuals and groups can, if working together, achieve a collective impact that would be impossible for any of them to achieve alone.

Collective impact focuses the entire community on a single set of goals, measured in the same way.  Unlike most collaborations, collective impact initiatives involve a central infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurements, continuous communication and mutually supportive activities.  Our objective, in this case, is to coordinate improvements at every stage of a young person’s life, from cradle to career. 

If there is one thing we can do to change a child’s future for the better, it’s this: prepare that child for kindergarten. Babies are born learning, and the first years of a child’ life constitutes the greatest period of brain development they will ever experience.  Decades of scientific research have concluded that experiences in the first few years establish a foundation for human development that is carried throughout life.  

We have the opportunity to get it right. Right from the start.