Early Years Count Education Initiative

Responsive Classroom in action at Harrison School

In 2001, the Community Foundation received $5 million from the Lilly Endowment to improve education in St. Joseph County. Because most kids who start out behind stay behind, high-quality early childhood education can make a big difference in preparing children to succeed in school—academically, socially, and emotionally.

The goal of our Early Years Count Education Initiative is to give disadvantaged children a fair start, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

Since 2001, we’ve partnered with the Family Connection of St. Joseph County to use the research-based, nationally recognized HighScope program to train teachers, assistants, and administrators in effective classroom techniques. We’ve evaluated the success of the program through the Early Childhood Assessment Project (ECAP), which uses objective rating scales to judge how well these new tools are being incorporated. And we’ve helped teachers get the mentoring and support they need through ECAP mini-grants, intensive seminars with local and national experts, and ongoing High/Scope classes and workshops.

But we didn’t stop there. In May of 2018, we brought Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to our county. This remarkable early childhood literacy program provides a free book each month by mail to any child under the age of five who lives in St. Joseph County. It’s a powerful way to encourage a lifelong love of learning.

Through this work, we’re dramatically improving the quality of early childhood education for thousands of young children in our community. And that’s good for the ENTIRE community—and its future.