It is exciting to see that playgroups and story hours are happening across the Bennington Region. Libraries are great early childhood partners. Librarians have access to children and their families enabling them to share information and resources.
The Bennington BBF Early Childhood Council undertook large topics in both November and December. November was the forum to gather information about ACT 166 (Universal Pre-K) prior to the legislative session. The Bennington region has a long history of partnering with quality early care and education settings starting with Act 62. More than half of 3- and 4-year-olds are educated in high quality partner settings. A report will be released soon with the results from the forums held in communities across Vermont.
In December we also held Bennington’s annual legislative luncheon. We shared information and data about both Children’s Integrated Services and Universal pre-K . The legislators shared with us their goals and priorities for the session. We provided a fact sheet that included data and regional contact people. The data sheet included:
Bennington County Population 35,594
Children under the Age of 9 3,133
Children Living in Poverty under the age of 6 43.5%
Children in DCF Custody under the age of 9 64
High Quality Early Care Programs 43%
Children Ready for Kindergarten
Bennington Rutland SU 87.9%
Battenkill Valley SU 88.5%
Southwest Vermont SU 80.7%
Windham Southwest 94.9%
Children’s Integrated Services
Data from FY-19
Services are Early Intervention, Nursing Support, Family Support, Early Childhood & Family Mental Health, & Specialized Childcare
Bennington CIS Open Clients as of 7/1/18 142
Bennington CIS Open Clients as of 6/30/19 213
During FY-19, there were:
Referrals 503
Clients who exited CIS 237
In Bennington, we will continue to work with our legislators to ensure that the information that they have is clear and concise.
