Learn, Be Healthy, and Thrive
New Hampshire’s Early Childhood Region 1
MUW’s Impact Monadnock was selected in September 2021 as the Lead Agency for New Hampshire’s Early Childhood Region 1 (ECR1), a 61-town region spanning the Greater Monadnock, Greater Sullivan, and Upper Valley regions of NH.
The ECR1 Coalition is comprised of experts from a variety of sectors including childcare professionals, schools, family support groups, behavioral and public health professionals, and families. The Coalition’s vision is that all young children can learn, be healthy, and thrive. One major goal is that all families of young children have access to a comprehensive, sustainable, and coordinated system of support.
A system that is simple to navigate and provides the right services at the right time, exactly when families need them.
In its role as Lead Agency, Impact Monadnock is drawing upon its proven collective impact record to forge new partnerships and a high level of collaboration with early education programs, schools, family support agencies, health agencies, and more across the expanded region. All are working together to improve the experiences of families with young children.
As a result of the coalition’s work:
- Children’s social-emotional, educational and health outcomes will improve.
- Families will have a genuine voice and role in the services that benefit their children.
- Families of young children will more easily access unduplicated services when they need them
This newly-formed coalition has already started building collaborative relationships throughout the 100-mile long corridor, listening to the needs of families and identifying solutions to implement together – and with the families themselves.
HISTORY
In 2015, Impact Monadnock (IM) launched with a vision of success for children and families in our region. A major goal was to attract new funds into the region to benefit those families. Since then IM has been sought out at the regional and state level because of our successful work in early childhood support programs like The Monadnock Alliance for Families, StartSmart, the Impact Monadnock Business Ambassadors, and Pyramid Model. Beginning in 2019, IM has successfully sought and attracted several Preschool Development Grants (PDG) which are is sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (Award# 90TP0060-01-00).
In 2019, PDG grant funding supported family engagement work included meaningful dialogue in the form of family listening sessions throughout the region with parents and caregivers of young children. The data that was gathered from those sessions has given us insight into their experience with NH's early childhood system and informed planning for improvements that would address identified challenges. Please click here to view the Executive Summary of those sessions.
IM was awarded an expansion and implementation grant for the 2020-2021 year. The funding from this one-year community grant was used to develop a cross-sector team of professionals and to implement Community Cafes to better support the needs of children and families in the Monadnock region. This community grant project builds on information gathered from the IM Family Listening Sessions project (2019).
The team included professionals from programs and agencies with a relationship to young children and families. The goal of the team is to share resources, develop projects, and move IM’s mission forward to benefit the children and families in the Monadnock region. Please click here to see a list of team members.
In late 2021, IM was granted $350,000 and named backbone agency for the newly-formed Early Childhood Region 1 (ECR 1). ECR 1 encompasses 61 towns, 25 school districts, 3 existing early childhood coalitions, and 5 Family Resource Centers, and encompasses the Monadnock region, the greater Sullivan County area and the Upper Valley.
Geographic Region
NH Early Childhood Region 1 encompasses 61 towns and 25 school districts with an area approximately 100 miles long along the border of Vermont and over 40 miles wide in parts. Within our region, Claremont and Keene are the locations for most regional services, such as family supports and home visiting, DHHS/DCYF Offices, Developmental Services Area Agencies, etc.). West Central Behavioral Health (Lebanon) and Monadnock Family Services (Keene) are the regional mental health organizations. The Connected Families NH project, with offices in Keene and Claremont, also serves this region.
According to the interactive map’s 2015-2019 data:
- A high concentration of towns in our region (13 of our 61 towns) are in the medium range (1.1%-3.7%) for children under 6 years old living below the federal poverty line. This appears to be the highest concentration across the state.
- Seven towns show high rates of child population for children under age 5, and 26 towns were in the medium range.
- Only 3 of our 61 towns scored in the high range on the Access to Licensed Childcare scale, 11 were in the moderate range, 44 were in the low range, and 3 towns showed no access at all. This indicates that 77% of our region’s towns have little to no access to licensed child care.
- Thirteen of our towns indicated 8%-29% of their children under 19 as having no health insurance, twenty-four towns were in the medium range (2.8%-7.9%) for children under 19 with no health insurance.
- Two of our towns show high populations of immigrants and nine are within the medium range for immigration.
For a list of towns, SAU’s, Family Resource Centers and Early Childhood Coalitions click here
Early Childhood Region 1
The State of New Hampshire was awarded a $26.8 million three year Preschool Development Implementation Grant (2020-2022). The goal is to strengthen the early childhood system to better support young children (prenatal through age 8) and their families. In order to do this, the state has been divided into 7 regions to enhance connections between early childhood care and education, schools and family supports. The regions will build infrastructure for cross-sector collaboration and alignment to coordinate resources and services. Monadnock United Way applied for and was awarded the role as backbone agency for Region 1. The newly-formed Early Childhood Region 1 encompasses 61 towns, 25 school districts, 3 existing early childhood coalitions, and 5 Family Resource Centers, and encompasses the Monadnock region, the greater Sullivan County area and the Upper Valley. The Preschool Development Grant is sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (Award# 90TP0060-01-00).
PROJECT WORK
The NH Early Childhood Region 1 is now accepting applications for Collaboration Through Mentoring, both for mentors and programs/organizations in need of mentoring support. Learn more here: https://buff.ly/3FeAqAt and here: https://buff.ly/3LLK6F0 and apply here: https://buff.ly/3MKp1uO
Collaboration through Coaching
As the lead agency for Region 1, Impact Monadnock received funding through the Preschool Development Grant for a regional implementation project. This funding is being used to build Practice-Based Coaching capacity in Region 1, which includes the Monadnock Region, Greater Sullivan County and the Upper Valley. Participating programs from the Monadnock Region include: Rise for Baby and Family, Antioch University, Winchester Learning Center, Monadnock Early Learning Center, Fall Mountain Regional School District and the Child Development Center at Keene State College. Coaches will support the beginning or increase of implementation of promising practices.