I am the mother of two boys, ages 7 and 4. Both have had the benefit of quality child care since they were three months old and quality preschool beginning at age three. We are blessed to have the resources and many child care/preschool providers in our town that allows our family the ability to have choices. It also doesn’t hurt that I have been working in human services for over 10 years with connections to key agencies and staff who have helped me inform these decisions. 
 
In Michigan, more and more families do not have the same luxury. Child care and preschool choices are often severely limited by the lack of resources, availability of providers, and lack of flexibility and supports in order to transport children from one place to another (if full day care is not provided and transportation is limited). Parents also must complete a variety of forms often at several different locations to increase their children’s chances of gaining access to publicly funded programs such as Head Start and the Great Start Readiness Program.
 
There are many communities across Michigan working hard to ensure an easier process for accessing preschool. These joint recruitment and enrollment efforts ease the burden on families while maximizing the number of available preschool slots for children in the community. Streamlined processes also ensure that children are linked with the most appropriate setting based on their needs. One such example is in Midland County which is featured on the Great Start website this week.
 
Working together across these organizations and systems is not easy work. In many communities preschool programs are not working on joint recruitment and enrollment due to fears about losing children to other programs. In Midland, as in other areas where this process is in place, this is not the case. In fact, they find that overall more children are linked with preschools and their numbers increase. 
 
Joint recruitment and enrollment not only helps programs identify more children, but families are better served and more children gain access to quality preschools. 
 
Isn’t that what this work is all about?