As part of its ongoing commitment to the health and safety of Michigan children 0-5, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation held a crib exchange Aug. 27, 2011, with licensed early learning and care providers giving up old unsafe cribs for new ones. About 2,000 new cribs were given out and old cribs removed from circulation and destroyed. Please view our photo gallery of the event.
UPPER PENINSULA - Cribs were on the move across the Upper Peninsula this week. Deb Dupras, program director of the Great Start Regional Child Care Resource Center, spent several days with volunteers driving a U-Haul across the vast expanses of the U.P. to deliver free, safer cribs to licensed early learning care providers who needed them. In total, the group traveled 450 miles - often in 20-30 mph winds - to deliver 59 cribs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Obama administration this week released the final application and selection criteria for the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grant competition. The grants will provide up to $500 million ($50-$100 million per awarded state) to help states improve their early learning systems.
Michigan’s youngest may not know it, but their small worlds just got safer. As of late last month, cribs sold in the United States are required to meet stricter federal safety standards, and cribs used by child care providers must have the new cribs in place by December 2012. But why wait?
In Sunday's edition of The Flint Journal, Dr. Thomas Teal, vice president for medical affairs for Memorial Healthcare in Owosso, authored the following commentary: "Most adults see the wisdom in Ben Franklin’s famous maxim, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and they practice what it preaches in their daily lives.Now there’s a new “ounce of prevention” for children who receive Medicaid that is proving its worth in Kent County, so much so that other cities and counties across Michigan may well want to adopt it."
LANSING – The Early Childhood Investment Corp. (ECIC) today announced that it will give away 2,000 cribs that meet new federal safety guidelines in a crib exchange with licensed early learning and care providers across Michigan.
High unemployment is shattering the economic security of children in Michigan with one in every eight children living in a household struggling with job loss and one in every 20 kids affected by foreclosure, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book released today.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- An independent evaluation of an innovative approach to children’s health care in west Michigan has found the program is succeeding in significantly reducing the number of expensive emergency room visits and hospital admissions while improving kids’ health.
Children across American have fallen further behind in many of the leading indicators over the past year as the country slowly climbs out of the recession, according a new report by the Children's Defense Fund. The report provides key child data showing alarming numbers of youth at risk: children are the poorest age group with 15.5 million youth—one in every five children in America—living in poverty.
LANSING - Graduates of the state's preschool program are less likely to be held back a grade in school than children who don't attend preschool, according to an evaluation of the program.
The evaluation looked at data collected from a cohort of 596 children (338 graduates from the state's Great Start Readiness Program and 258 non- GSRP students) from six districts followed from kindergarten through 12th grade and from a sample of 865 children (384 GSRP and 481 non-GSRP) assessed in preschool or kindergarten.
What started as a front-porch potluck for friends more than 30 years ago has evolved into fund-raising garden parties this summer involving hundreds of early childhood advocates across the state. And children are the better for it.
Early childhood advocates are intrigued by a judge's ruling in a recent lawsuit that may lead to universal preschool in North Carolina.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. issued an order Monday stating that the state cannot implement "any barrier or regulation that prevents eligible at-risk children from enrolling in the state's prekindergarten program, previously known as More at Four," according to the Charlotte, N.C., Observer. (Read the full story here.)
In his April address to the legislature on education reform, Gov. Rick Snyder confirmed the important role parents play as Michigan moves “toward an independent and successful future.”
Advocates for early childhood believe, like the Governor, that it is essential to engage parents in the work of developing Michigan’s early childhood system. That is why the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC) prioritizes parenting leadership as one of the key components of school readiness.
A new Pew Center on the States report makes a strong case for investments in quality preschool as a primary method of improving educational outcomes in America.
The Michigan Sandbox Party will play host to families and early childhood supporters at minor league professional baseball parks across the state throughout July.
Low birth weight, preterm birth complications, and learning difficulties, are just a few potential impacts untreated maternal depression can have on a child's development.
These facts are based on a recently released Zero to Three Research to Policy Project report on Maternal Depression and Early Childhood which also says that "untreated depression is estimated to cost society at a minimum $23,000 per year in terms of lost productivity for both mother and child and increased health care costs."
LANSING – Making good on his promise to refashion education in Michigan along a cradle to adulthood model, Gov. Rick Snyder today signed an executive order creating an Office of Great Start within the Department of Education.
“Let’s Move! Child Care” - First Lady Michelle Obama’s newest campaign urging child care providers to join the fight against childhood obesity - is welcome news in Michigan, where one in three children is considered overweight or obese.
NORTH CAROLINA - When the nation’s largest conference devoted to early education systems and strategies was looking for the latest ideas and innovations in early childhood they hit the mother lode in Michigan.
LANSING –State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan has named Joan Blough, ECIC vice president of Great Start System Planning and Evaluation, to head up the transition team for a new Michigan Office of Great Start.
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As part of its ongoing commitment to the health and safety of Michigan children 0-5, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation held a crib exchange Aug. 27, 2011, with licensed early learning and care providers giving up old unsafe cribs for new ones. About 2,000 new cribs were given out and old cribs removed from circulation and destroyed. Please view our photo gallery of the event.
UPPER PENINSULA - Cribs were on the move across the Upper Peninsula this week. Deb Dupras, program director of the Great Start Regional Child Care Resource Center, spent several days with volunteers driving a U-Haul across the vast expanses of the U.P. to deliver free, safer cribs to licensed early learning care providers who needed them. In total, the group traveled 450 miles - often in 20-30 mph winds - to deliver 59 cribs..JPG)
Michigan’s youngest may not know it, but their small worlds just got safer. As of late last month, cribs sold in the United States are required to meet stricter federal safety standards, and cribs used by child care providers must have the new cribs in place by December 2012. But why wait?
In Sunday's edition of The 
LANSING – The Early Childhood Investment Corp. (ECIC) today announced that it will give away 2,000 cribs that meet new federal safety guidelines in a crib exchange with licensed early learning and care providers across Michigan.
Children across American have fallen further behind in many of the leading indicators over the past year as the country slowly climbs out of the recession, according a new report by the Children's Defense Fund. The report provides key child data showing alarming numbers of youth at risk: children are the poorest age group with 15.5 million youth—one in every five children in America—living in poverty.
LANSING - Graduates of the state's preschool program are less likely to be held back a grade in school than children who don't attend preschool, according to an evaluation of the program. 
What started as a front-porch potluck for friends more than 30 years ago has evolved into fund-raising garden parties this summer involving hundreds of early childhood advocates across the state. And children are the better for it.
Early childhood advocates are intrigued by a judge's ruling in a recent lawsuit that may lead to universal preschool in North Carolina. 
In his April address to the legislature on education reform, Gov. Rick Snyder confirmed the important role parents play as Michigan moves “toward an independent and successful future.”
A new Pew Center on the States report makes a strong case for investments in quality preschool as a primary method of improving educational outcomes in America..jpg)
The Michigan Sandbox Party will play host to families and early childhood supporters at minor league professional baseball parks across the state throughout July.
Low birth weight, preterm birth complications, and learning difficulties, are just a few potential impacts untreated maternal depression can have on a child's development. 
LANSING – Making good on his promise to refashion education in Michigan along a cradle to adulthood model, Gov. Rick Snyder today signed an executive order creating an Office of Great Start within the Department of Education.
“Let’s Move! Child Care” - First Lady Michelle Obama’s newest campaign urging child care providers to join the fight against childhood obesity - is welcome news in Michigan, where one in three children is considered overweight or obese.
NORTH CAROLINA - When the nation’s largest conference devoted to early education systems and strategies was looking for the latest ideas and innovations in early childhood they hit the mother lode in Michigan..jpg)
LANSING –State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan has named Joan Blough, ECIC vice president of Great Start System Planning and Evaluation, to head up the transition team for a new Michigan Office of Great Start.