FROM CRADLE TO CAREER
New community initiative to open doors for kids
A community initiative involving more than 30 area organizations is aiming to radically change the approach to supporting children and their families from “cradle to career.”
ProsperUs is the first program of its kind in Canada and is based on similar concepts being used in 60 communities in the U.S. The initiative was launched Friday at Mackenzie Hall and is backed by many of the area’s most prominent organizations and community leaders. “This is a vision of the future of Windsor and Essex County,” said Tepperman’s Furniture owner Noah Tepperman, who co-chairs the initiative along with HotelDieu Grace Healthcare president and CEO Janice Kaffer.
“We want every young person to have the opportunity and support to achieve success from cradle to career.
“There are persistent gaps that trap the potential of young people.” The initiative has been about two years in the making.
The aim of the program is to identify issues and have various community partners better coordinate their responses to avoid duplicating services that consume precious funding.
“We’ll use data and research to dive into where we have issues in our community,” Kaffer said. “Then we’ll look at how can we bring our organizational efforts to bear to change where we see gaps in service.”
The program will focus on studying six milestones in a child’s life:
Ensuring children are ready for kindergarten;
Their reading level in Grade 3;
Their math ability in Grade 6; Completing high school, enter a trade and post-secondary preparedness;
Physical and mental health;
Financial and housing stability. Kaffer said the initiative is openended and new partners are welcome at any time. The organizations currently partnering in the program include those from local government, education, health care, financial institutions, labour, law enforcement, children/community services, philanthropists and the business community. The next step in the process is getting feedback from the community, specifically from families it’s designed to help. Consultations will begin this month. “Instead of isolating the child or family, it’ll bring the community together to respond and create solutions together,” said local resident Judith Obatusa, a member of the initiative’s leadership council. “When we arrived from Nigeria six years ago, we could’ve used something like this to save our family from some of the heartache and hardships we’ve encountered. There were organizations working to support families, but they weren’t working together to help a child to thrive.”
To do that, the ProsperUs initiative will feature three groups with distinct responsibilities.
The community group will consult with families to help identify what supports are needed and where.
The leadership council will identify what they feel are the community ’s most pressing requirements and those sitting at the “investment table” will help with the resources of time and funding. United Way CEO Lorraine Goddard admitted local organizations had no choice but to consider new approaches.
“The evidence is clear: there are millions and millions of dollars being invested in our community, but the trend lines are going in the wrong direction,” Goddard said. “We had to press the pause button. Let’s connect our resources, stop doing what’s not working and do something new.
“Let’s support the things we know are making a difference and let’s agree to do that.” Goddard said the initiative is an attempt at proposing long-term solutions and will be ongoing. Goddard admitted the new strategy will require a significant change in direction and vision from the United Way. No longer will the organization design its own strategy and decide where to invest its money.
The evidence is clear: there are millions and millions of dollars being invested in our community, but the trend lines are going in the wrong direction.
“We’re going to work with the community to decide what the solutions and interventions are,” Goddard said. “That will be designed by the community, United Way, other corporate partners, philanthropists, donors and government. We’ll pool resources to make sure (identified solutions) happen.
“It’s lifting the decisions to the community level rather than just our organization.”