The Springfield Area Regional Council spent its February meeting learning about the Department of Children and Families Family Services role in our community. We learned about what was in statue and what they are responsible for. We learned some of the data that impact children and families, and how many children are in custody. We also learned about the challenges that Family Services has such as high turnover, supporting foster families, finding foster families, and co-sharing child protection responsibilities. We brainstormed ways that we can help support these services.
Our March meeting we discussed what we have accomplished thus far, where we hope to go and what resources we have to continue our work. We determined that we want to continue with the Same Page Initiative increasing communication between preK teachers, kindergarten teachers and families. We also want to continue to support families in finding events to attend that are educational but fun. We also set up a subcommittee to look at what we are doing to ensure children are receiving developmental screenings and what we can do to improve this.
The Springfield Area Region also will be presenting at the Vermont Kindergarten Conference this month to spread information on the Same Page Initiative. We were also notified that we will be presenting at the Help Me Grow National Conference in May on the work we do to engage families and providers in our region.
