Since I started at United Way of Sheboygan County two years ago, early learning has been a daily topic in the office. While United Way has been funding early learning programs for more than a decade, the need for more concentrated programming and community engagement around the topic kept coming to our attention. Early learning has not only been a hot topic here in our Sheboygan office, but among United Ways across the nation.

At United Way, we love to learn from our neighbors whenever we can. And, fortunately for us, we have found some great neighbors to the north with the Brown County United Way, who launched the Brown County Community Partnership for Children ten years ago!

They have mentored us as we began engaging representatives from interested organizations to talk about working together to establish a formal partnership earlier this year, and were so generous to present on June 23 to more than 100 attendees at UW-Sheboygan about the Brown County Community Partnership for Children and how to start one in Sheboygan County.

Since that conversation in June, a guiding coalition has been working on building the accountability structure and system of care timeline for the Sheboygan County CPC. These members include:

• Theresa Christen-Liebig, Sheboygan County Head Start
• Nick Dussault, Sheboygan County Head Start Board of Directors
• Jane Jensen, UW-Extension Sheboygan County
• Diane Liebenthal, Sheboygan County Health & Human Services
• Sara O’Hara, United Way of Sheboygan County
• Matricia Patterson, Family Connections
• Julie Perkovich, Sheboygan County Head Start
• Luann Travis, Family Resource Center of Sheboygan County

One of the highest priorities that the Brown County CPC suggested for us was to hire a coordinator. We will begin 2016 with a full-time coordinator thanks to the generous gifts of the John C. and Katherine B. Miller Charitable Fund of the Lakeshore Community Foundation and the Scott and Nancy Armbrust Fund of the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation. Because of the generosity and dedication to early learning of these two donors, this position is fully-funded for the next three years!

Next steps for the Sheboygan County CPC include strategic planning starting in January 2016 and the implementation of a Welcome Baby program in the spring. Welcome Baby provides parents of newborns with a visit from a Family Resource Specialist at birth. Staff at hospitals screen parents for needs and possible developmental delays. If needs are identified, the family is connected to voluntary community programs.

Sheboygan County is the smallest county in the state of Wisconsin that, until now, did not have a community partnership for children. We are so grateful for the support of the community and the participating organizations in kicking off this project.

The Sheboygan County CPC is a prevention-focused early childhood initiative. Its vision is that all Sheboygan County children will be safe, healthy and ready for kindergarten. To accomplish this, many community partners will have the opportunity to scale up and sustain a collaborative, coordinated System of Care that will make it possible to:

• Strengthen families
• Improve child health
• Promote optimal child development
• Reduce child abuse and neglect