Encourage your Child to Serve Others
Three Ways to Encourage your Child to Serve Others
1. Together help a neighbor. Maybe an elderly neighbor would appreciate your mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow.
2. Help your child put together a weekly schedule of activities that includes some kind of service to others.
3. Together, think of 10 ways your family can serve others.

Asset #9:
Service to Others
Assets are 40 key building blocks of development that help youth grow up healthy. The more assets youths have, the more likely they are to succeed. Fifty-one percent of youth surveyed by Search Institute had the Service to Others asset in their lives.

10 Benefits to Serving Others

To many children, the world is small. It is made up of their school, their home, their neighborhood. They may assume all schools are like their school. And they tend to think the world revolves around them.

See GS Newsletter - February edition for details.

Kids Count:
Growing Poverty Threatens Children’s Health

Child abuse and neglect in Berrien County jumped 19 percent over the decade while more than half of Berrien K-12 children now qualify for free and reduced price lunches, the latest Kids Count in Michigan Data Book concludes.

Michigan’s long economic struggle is reflected in the new Kids Count findings. Children qualify for school-based meals if their family income is 185 percent of poverty or less. Studies confirm that families need income of about 200 percent of poverty - at least $44,226 for a family of four - to cover basic needs without assistance. Poverty also drives up neglect cases.

“The findings show that kids in Berrien County and across Michigan are still suffering the fallout from our long recession,” said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, the Kids Count in Michigan director at the Michigan League for Human Services. “Poverty in Michigan is as big a threat to our children today as polio was to a previous generation. Fortunately, we can do something about this. We know that public policy can improve children’s social and economic environment.

See GS Newsletter - February edition for details.

Join Great Start Collaborative Committees

The Great Start Collaborative Board has broken down into committees. Please feel free to join a committee!

Parenting Education Committee - will be looking at Parenting Education in Berrien County; what there is and what parents are looking for. Next meeting - January 19th at 11:30 am; Berrien RESA

Strategic Planning Committee - will be revising the Great Start Strategic Plan. Next meeting - January 19th at 11:30; Berrien RESA

Communications Committee - will be analyzing local early childhood newsletters and publications to possibly combine into one resource for parents. Next meeting - TBD

See GS Newsletter - February edition for details.

What is the Great Start Collaborative?

The Great Start Collaborative of Berrien County is a partnership of community leaders, business owners, charitable and faithbased organizations, health and human service agencies, educators, and parents. It is committed to establishing and maintaining a network of county-wide supports and services that work together to achieve better results for young children and families. The Collaborative engages community partners in the planning and coordination of services, addresses the factors that influence a child’s readiness for school and life, promotes community awareness of early childhood issues and advocates for quality early childhood programs and services.

Simply put . . .
We want to make sure that every child under the age of five living in Berrien County gets everything they need to be safe, healthy, and successful -- period.