County Funding Early Childhood, Parenting Programs

Community Advocates 728 N. James Lovell St. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County officials announced approximately $800,000 in funding Thursday for early childhood programs around Milwaukee.

Six projects, ranging from behavioral intervention for children to new parent education, were awarded grants.

“Now if you’ve heard me speak before, you’ve heard me speak about my vision for Milwaukee County: that by achieving racial equity, we can become the healthiest county in the state of Wisconsin,” County Executive David Crowley said during a press conference at Community Advocates downtown headquarters. “And in accomplishing that, we know that we need healthy families, healthy babies, healthy children and healthy communities.”

The county’s Children, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) worked with the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute to review grant applications. De’Shawn Ewing, policy institute outreach and engagement manager, said the grant winners proposed “incredible projects that were quite varied.”

Early childhood is a critical intervention period for children with developmental delays and disabilities, said Kelly Pethke, CYFS administrator. One in six children in the U.S. have a developmental disability, she said, and that number is twice as high among children that are incarcerated.

“Our goal here is to impact that at an earlier stage of life,” Pethke said.

The funding comes from the county’s federal American Rescue Plan Act grant.

Program Grantees

• Jewish Family Services will use the funding to support two levels of classroom interventions. The first level will provide “wellness-based, psychoeducational services that promote social-emotional learning” for an entire classroom. The second will be tailored for smaller groups and teach them to “identify and regulate intense emotions, find focus, and build relationships using interactive and expressive activities.”
• The Parenting Network will use the funding for a new program that prepares first-time parents for the first year of child-rearing, focusing in communication and relationship skills.
• Penfield Children’s Center will fund professional development for the organization’s Early Education & Care teachers, focused on their understanding of neurodevelopment and strategies for supporting social and emotional well-being.
• United Community Center is creating a new parent education class and increasing parents’ access to one one-on-one mental health counseling.
• The Wisconsin Alliance for Infant Mental Health will use the grant to support early childhood mental health consultation.
• Wisconsin Latino Chamber of Commerce will use its grant to support a program called Futuro, which provides training for opening and running a childcare center. The chamber hopes the program will lead to the creation of 50 new childcare centers.