Project Components

• Community wide, public education campaign with public awareness materials and educational materials for all parents. This education campaign includes components of Civitas’ national Born Learning initiative, customized for DuPage. In addition, other materials, such as those from Healthy Steps and Prevent Child Abuse America, have been integrated into the campaign, which will continue to expand in resources to fit community need. This cohesive parent education campaign is target to be integrated with 105 educational sites by the end of third year operations.
• Information and referral system that provides an intake phone line for parents and professionals to access when looking for resources. This component also includes the use of a standardized screening process across organizations that have a first point of contact with families. As part of this screening process, Positive provides training and support around screening families for risk factors and matching families with the most appropriate resources.
• Community resource coordination consisting of a searchable community resource database that includes a comprehensive inventory of all resources with a process of matching parents with resources. Community resource coordination also includes gathering data necessary to analyze existing gaps in community service delivery and target professional development at these gaps to more effectively serve the families of young children.
• Birth to five collaborative infrastructure providing a safety net of communication, support, training, and a coordinated system across organizations in order to foster capacity building. This component includes providing structure for the five Early Learning Coalitions in the county and the DuPage Voices Leadership Committee. Collaborative grant writing, engagement of home visiting programs for participation in evaluation and quality assurance activities also make up the work of this component.

For additional information on any aspect of Positive please contact: Jeanna Capito 630.857.6033.