The Great Human Race is tomorrow, April 6^th, and we hope you are planning to walk or run with us!  Donations to the Partnership's Great Human Race fundraising campaign are still being accepted. We can reach our goal of $1,000!  Don't forget that for every $10 you contribute, one more child will be equipped with the tools they need for proper dental health.  Donate now to help give a kid a healthy smile and a happy life.

If you’re joining the Partnership team tomorrow, here are a few final pieces of helpful information:

• The Volunteer Center is expecting all walkers to be at the Main Stage (at Northgate Mall near Sears Automotive) by 8:15 am for Opening Ceremonies (We will be there holding up our Partnership sign and wearing these lovely bright blue shirts)
  
  
  
  
• If you are running, be at the Start line by 8:30 am
  
  
• After the race, you can enjoy entertainment by The Durham Divas, Bull City Sliders Line Dancing Club, and a live DJ.  Children can meet Wool E. Bull, McGruff the Crime Dog, Booker the Fox and the Chick-fil-A cows.  Kids will also be able to explore a real Fire Engine and Sheriff's patrol car. Other activities include face painting and crafts.  

If you have any questions, please contact Krissy Dunn at krissy@dpfc.net or (919) 403-6960.  Thank you to each of our supporters and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow!  It should be a fun, rain-free event.

The Volunteer Center of Durham is hosting their 18th annual Great Human Race on April 6th, 2013.  Community members will participate in the 5k walk/run to raise funds for their favorite area nonprofits.  The race will start at 8:30am at Northgate Mall and proceed through the historic Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood. 

The Partnership’s mission for participating this year is to address the crisis of poor dental health in young children.  All funds raised for the Partnership will go toward providing children with educational dental health kits.  We invite you to support us in our efforts to raise $1,000. Your backing will bring us one step closer to our goal of providing kits for 100 kids in Durham County.  

There are many ways you can get involved:
-Joining us in the community walk
-Registering for the competitive run
-Fundraising for our cause
-Making a donation
-Helping us spread the word 

Please keep in mind that for every $10 raised, one more child will be equipped with the resources for a healthier smile and happier life. 

» Click here to explore our fundraising page, where you can donate, raise money for us, or share our message. 

We look forward to seeing you on race day!  If you would like to walk or run with us, or if you have any questions, please contact Krissy Dunn by phone at (919) 403-6960 ext 230 or by e-mail at krissy@dpfc.net.   

There are still openings to attend the annual El Futuro Conference, ¿Y Ahora Qué ? 2013 - Sueños, Retos, y Oportunidades: Reflections on Latino Behavioral Health, which will be held this Friday and Saturday at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

Formed by a group of mental health professionals to serve the Latino immigrant population in North Carolina, El Futuro focuses on supporting entire family systems by offering quality outpatient therapy and psychiatry services for all ages.  Providing such services – mental health evaluations, substance abuse treatment, social skills classes – addresses critical needs within this underserved population.

As El Futuro executive director Luke Smith notes, the Latino community is a child-bearing population. Research shows that children who have a parent with a mental illness are more likely to show developmental delays, lower academic competence, and difficulty with social relationships, and are more likely to have mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood. The loss and stress of coming to a new country amplifies many of the disorders that El Futuro sees in families – depression, anxiety disorders, insomnia, and more severe conditions. 

The organization was featured yesterday on WUNC’s The State of Things, where Host Frank Stasio discussed Latino mental health with Luke Smith and Karla Siu, clinical manager at El Futuro.

Excerpts from the show:
“These [Latino families] are struggling with illnesses, they are struggling with the new culture, with the changes all around them,” said Smith. “We find ourselves oftentimes being advocates for people in the classroom, talking with teachers and administrators. Going into environments that psychiatrists and therapists wouldn’t normally go into.”

Karla Siu expressed how this should be a shared community effort and the conference will emphasize that ambition.  “With the conference, we are trying to really have everybody understand some of the same issues that we are facing. Part of what we’re doing is coming together with other experts who have experience with some of this because it touches all our institutions in the community.”


Topics at this year’s conference include: Complex Trauma; Legal Issues; Sex Trafficking; Labor Trafficking; Perinatal Depression; Family Systems; Compassion Fatigue; and Psychology & Spirituality.  To view the complete conference flier to see all topics and speakers, click here.

To register click here.  FOR MORE INFORMATION visit the El Futuro Web site, email ywilliams@elfuturo-nc.org or call (919) 688-7101.

Something that is perhaps not obvious to the non-teaching world is just how much ongoing education it takes to equip early educators with the skills of their field.  The credentials required by the state are not even the tip of the iceberg.  Topics for education include child development, atypical development, health and safety, behavior management and first aid trainings, among others.  A number of the Partnership’s funded programs invest in the formal education and in-service training of our early education workforce.
 
One of these programs, the Early Childhood Outreach Project (EChO) of the Exchange Clubs’ Family Center, provides consultation, support and referral services to Durham child care providers and families when a child’s behavior presents a challenge in the classroom.  Additionally EChO helps providers learn strategies to foster social-emotional development of all children.  Recently EChO invited Partnership staff to sit in during a training.
 
The CSEFEL Pyramid Seminar is one of the most valuable courses in which an early educator can participate.  Taught by Aviva Starr, EChO Program Manager, this free, eight-session seminar that began in September is unique in that it engages both teachers and site directors on classroom strategies to reduce challenging behaviors in young children.  Participants implement strategies in their classrooms between each seminar session – putting the lessons learned into action.
 
During the session we attended, which focused on the importance of building positive relationships with children, families, and coworkers, we were honored to sit among a room filled with highly-qualified child care site directors and early educators. With a strong focus on the why of building positive relationships, Aviva put it into a context easily understood by working adults.
 
“Close your eyes and think about the best boss you’ve ever had.  Now, think about the worst boss you’ve ever had.  Friday at 4 pm rolls around and both bosses come to ask you for a favor.  What is your response to each request?  Who are you more willing to help?  That is the difference between a positive and negative relationship.”
 
In the preschool classroom, a child hears an average of 50-60 commands every 30 minutes.  Favor after favor is being requested of these young learners.  Children need to learn to follow a teacher’s directions, but this happens with greater ease when a child feels the nurturing care of their providers.
 
“We will only have success if we have strong relationships with the children in our care,” said Aviva.  “Similarly, families are only able to hear a provider’s concerns when they know the provider sees the child’s strengths as well.”
 
Practical strategies for building positive relationships with children, parents and coworkers were shared.  Some of our favorites include:
 
With Children

• Show children that you are happy they are there.
• Follow a child’s lead during play.
• Speak to children at their eye level.
• Give children individual attention –in play, reading a book, talking about their interests or simply a hug.
• Give children specific praise when they are on task.

With Families

• Make naptime calls – call or send an email sharing a sweet story about their child’s day.
• Greet families by name and ask about their day.
• Have notes and materials sent home translated into family’s language.
• Schedule regular parent/teacher conferences to share information about children’s development and plan together to respond to any challenges.
• Create a family welcome area.

With colleagues

• Address disagreements outside the classroom.
• Model positive social skills and interactions.
• Find ways to show appreciation.
• Respond in a positive manner consistently.
• View other colleagues and professionals as supports.

 
The expertise shared in this training series will no doubt help create a smoother day for children in the care of early childhood professionals.  Congratulations to the EChO team on engaging the community in another successful seminar!

Welcome Baby, one of the Partnership’s funded programs, is turning 25 this month and we want to celebrate alongside this wonderful organization! Beyond offering a variety of parenting classes and educational and emotional supports to families, Welcome Baby is also known for its Car Seat Safety Program, the Giving Closet and the Cribs for Kids Durham program.

Cribs for Kids© is a nationwide support program for families that is managed at the local level by Welcome Baby. Through donations, they are able to distribute cribs to families referred through agencies providing in-home services and nurse home visiting programs. Not only do the cribs provide a safe sleep environment for newborns, but families given cribs also receive safe sleep education. The goal of the program is to decrease SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and to ensure that every parent has a crib that needs one.

To celebrate 25 years of service, Welcome Baby would like to purchase 25 pack ‘n’ plays for the program.  To meet this goal and to help bring awareness to SIDS, the organization will be accepting donations throughout the month of October. Any donation is graciously accepted and is tax deductible; a $50 donation will purchase one Pack 'n Play crib for a Durham family in need.

If you wish to donate, please make checks payable to Welcome Baby and note Cribs for Kids in the memo line.  Checks can be mailed to Welcome Baby, 721 Foster Street, Durham, NC 27701.  You may also donate online at www.welcomebaby.org.

>> Read more about Welcome Baby and its programs.

On March 24, 2012, Partnership staff and volunteers participated in the 17th Annual Great Human Race. The race is an annual 5K walk/run held by the Volunteer Center of Durham that allows nonprofits to fundraise for their cause.

We asked our supporters to donate to the Partnership team to support children birth to age 5.  With the donations we received, the Partnership purchased resources that foster healthy and active learning environments for young children. At the beginning of August, we began distributing these resources – including athletic balls, hula hoops, jump ropes, rain barrels, soil and gardening equipment – to child care centers across Durham, promoting physical health and nutrition as part of healthy development.

These donations would not have been possible without the kindness of our generous supporters. We thank all those who championed for young children in Durham!

VIEW OUR VIDEO! 
See what the children thought of their new health & wellness equipment in this short video. (Click below)

View more photos on Facebook.

Michele Rivest opened up Tuesday’s Faith Initiative Lunch & Learn, “Connecting Children to Nature in Faith Settings,” by asking participants what favorite outdoor activities they remembered from childhood. Rivest, who is the Early Childhood Education Coordinator with the Natural Learning Initiative, says that today’s children are no longer having the same outdoor experiences as generations past. Many children are experiencing what experts call “Nature Deficit Disorder,” in that they have a general lack of outdoor contact. Exacerbating that deficiency is the fact that historically, the outdoors haven’t been thought of as a valuable place for learning. 

Research shows that children who spend more time in the outdoors achieve longer spans of concentration, have fewer illnesses, have better gross motor development, and experience more diverse play activities.  According to Rivest, the benefits of nature play include: holistic child development; opportunities for math, reading, science and art; increased curiosity and creativity; a nurtured sense of wonder about the world; and a learned respect for living things.

Here are some suggestions for how to bring nature back in a meaningful way, specifically on playgrounds and outdoor learning environments: 

• Add natural elements into the playground landscape, things such as shrubs, groundcover, logs, rocks, and sand. This can be done at very low cost and research shows that playgrounds are most effective when they offer a mix of both natural elements and artificial playground equipment.
• Plants and shrubs attract birds, butterflies and insects that foster a love for science.
• Adding edible plants increases healthy nutrition options as well as an understanding about local food sources.  Kids will at least try things they’ve been growing themselves (green beans, peas, etc).
• Logs and wood items can be used as benches, balance beams, cookie stepping stones, and toddler pull-up bars.
• Rocks and boulders are great for climbing, balancing, path edging and active science play.
• Sand provides countless opportunities for digging, measuring, exploring, carrying, and moving.  If you implement a sandbox, try to include comfortable benches around the perimeter so that adults will have a place to sit.
• Water can be a great addition to the playground. By adding a hose to an arbor, you can create a simple misting station for hot days. 
• Let children take monthly “field trips” around the center to hunt for and collect loose parts such as leaves, twigs, pinecones, and acorns.

Additional resources:
www.ncchildrenandnature.org
www.ChildrenNatureAndYou.org
http://naturalearning.org/greendesk
www.EatSmartMoveMoreNC.com

Check out some footage from Lunch & Learn participants:

Above: Lunch and Learn participant Dorothy Graham (a leader in early care and education in Durham County and statewide for more than 25 years and currently a Friends of State Parks board member), shares her favorite childhood memory of playing outdoors.

Above: Lunch and Learn participant Nancy Rozak, Director of Christian Education at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Durham, talks about the intergenerational garden developed by the church, which is an exemplary model of engaging youth in the outdoors. Both children and adults help to grow and maintain the garden, while proceeds from garden sales go to the Food Bank of NC. Sales have generated $5,000 since the garden was implemented three years ago.

Durham’s Early Childhood Faith Initiative is a collaboration between End Poverty Durham and Durham’s Partnership for Children. The Faith Initiative is supported by donations from individuals, multiple local congregations, through Duke’s Community Care Fund, the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and the Walmart Foundation. For more information, please contact the Partnership at (919) 403-6960 or visit www.dpfc.net/EarlyChildhoodFaithInitiative.aspx or www.endpovertydurham.org.

“Research indicates that when children play and learn in nature, they do so with more vigor, engagement, imagination and cooperation than in wholly artificial environments and that symptoms of attention deficit and depression are reduced.”  - National Wildlife Federation

Join us on Tuesday, September 11th from 11:30 am to 1 pm for “Connecting Children to Nature in Faith Settings,” a free Lunch & Learn training session offered by the Partnership’s Early Childhood Faith Initiative. Michele Rivest, Early Childhood Education Coordinator with the Natural Learning Initiative, will present information on the benefits of connecting young children to nature by creating natural outdoor learning environments. With examples from early childhood environments across North Carolina, Michele will share easy and affordable ways to naturalize the outdoor play space, provide new opportunities for physical activity and nutrition, and strategies for supporting young children’s healthy development.

The Lunch & Learn session will be held at Westminster Presbyterian Church (3639 Old Chapel Hill Road, Durham) and is free and open to public. Congregation staff including faith educators, children ministry directors, and volunteers/parents that work with young children in faith-based environments are encouraged to attend. Bring a lunch; beverages will be provided. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to Winnie Morgan at (919) 732-1524 or winniewmorgan@juno.com.

» Check out: “Nature Play at Home: A Guide for Boosting Children’s Healthy Development and Creativity,” a recently released publication from the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Learning Initiative that shows parents and caregivers how they can turn an uninspired outdoor environment into an entertaining and exciting play area.  Download the guide here.
 

Durham’s Early Childhood Faith Initiative is a collaboration between End Poverty Durham and Durham’s Partnership for Children. The Faith Initiative is supported by donations from individuals, multiple local congregations, through Duke’s Community Care Fund, the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and the Walmart Foundation. For more information, please contact the Partnership at (919) 403-6960 or visit www.dpfc.net/EarlyChildhoodFaithInitiative.aspx or www.endpovertydurham.org.

Check out this infographic by the Institute of Medicine: "Obesity: Complex but Conquerable."  It illustrates quite dynamically the obesity problem that lays before this nation.

Today’s Herald-Sun featured a guest column by Melanie Busbee (Communications Manager with the Partnership) that focuses on childhood obesity and what parents should expect of high-quality child care centers in regards to health and wellness practices that help prevent this serious problem.  As mentioned in the column, nearly 10 percent of infants and toddlers have excess weight and almost a third of children are overweight or obese. Research tells us that excessive weight gain in infants and toddlers is more likely to lead to overweight children. And evidence indicates that for children under the age of six with a high Body Mass Index (BMI), adult obesity is likely to follow.

>> The Herald-Sun guest column can be read in full here.

According to the YMCA, a swimming pool is 14 times more likely than a motor vehicle to be involved in the death of a child 4 or under.  Yet, most drownings are preventable.  New evidence shows that participation in formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning by 88% among children aged 1 to 4 years.  The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that parents should decide whether to enroll an individual child in swim lessons based on the child’s frequency of exposure to water, emotional development, physical abilities, and certain health conditions.  They encourage parents to participate in all activities and remind us that even a child who knows how to swim needs constant supervision. The AAP Web site offers some helpful swimming safety rules as well.


Formal swim lessons available in Durham

» YMCA Swim Lessons (Visit the YMCA online)

Parent/Child Swim Lessons:  Available for children ages 6 months to 2 years.  The Parent/Child class is designed to teach parents how to safely deal with their child in the water, as well as to teach the child to enjoy the water experience while beginning to learn many basic swimming skills needed for future classes.

Weekend Sessions at the Downtown YMCA
Sessions are on Saturday, August 11 – September 15.   9-9:35 am or 9:45-10:20 am or 10:30-11:05 am.
Cost is $51 for YMCA members and $72 for non-members. Registration ends Aug. 6.

Weekend Sessions at Hope Valley Farms YMCA
Sessions are Saturday, July 21 – August 25 from 9:45 to 10:20 am.  Cost is $64 for YMCA members and $78 for non-members.  Registration ends July 14.

Weekday Sessions at Hope Valley Farms YMCA
Cost is $64 for YMCA members and $78 for non-members. 
Monday – Thursday, July 23-26 or July 30-Aug. 2.  Session Times: 5-5:35; 5:45-6:20; or 6:30-7:05 pm. Registration ends July 16. 
Monday – Thursday, Aug. 13 – 16 or Aug. 20-23.  Session Times: 5-5:35; 5:45-6:20; or 6:30-7:05 pm.  Registration ends Aug. 6.

Click here to download the YMCA swim Registration Form.


» Durham Parks and Recreation (Visit Durham Parks and Rec online)

Indoor pools
Beyond lap swim, unstructured swim time, aerobic classes, and lane rentals, there are also parent tot and toddler swim lessons available through August.  You can register on-site or online.

Edison Johnson Aquatic Center: 500 West Murray Ave., (919) 560-4265
Campus Hills Recreation Center: 2000 South Alston Ave., (919) 560-4444

Parent Tot Swim classes
This class teaches parents basic water skills and child safety in and around the water. Learning is done through water exploration, play, and songs. Age: 6 months-3 years. Prices range from $42 - $56.

Edison Johnson Aquatic Center
Session #7820 is Monday – Thursday, July 30 - Aug. 9 from 8 - 8:30 am.

Campus Hills
Session #7914 is Monday and Wednesday, July 16 – Aug. 8 from 5:15 - 5:45 pm.
Session #7918 Monday – Thursday, July 30 – Aug. 9 from 9:20 - 9:50 am.

Preschool Swim classes
Preschoolers (ages 3 to 5) begin with water adjustment and progress to basic water skills and swimming. Prices range from $42 - $56.

Campus Hills
Session #7923 is Monday – Thursday, July 16 - July 26 from 8 - 8:30 am.
Session #7927 is Monday – Thursday, July 16 - July 26 from 8:40 - 9:10 am.
Session #7924 is Monday – Thursday, July 30 – Aug. 9 from 8 - 8:30 am.
Session #7928 is Monday – Thursday, July 30 – Aug. 9 from 8:40 - 9:10 am.

Outdoor Pools
Outdoor pools are open seasonally now through August 17th. Daily Admission Fees range from $2 - $4. Children ages 3 and under are free of charge.
Hours of operation are:  Monday - Friday from 1-5:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday from 1–5 pm.

Long Meadow Pool: 917 Liberty St.
Hillside Pool: 1300 S. Roxboro Rd.
Forest Hills Pool: 1639 University Dr.

» Download the Playmore Summer 2012 guide here.