Bright Futures Advisory Committee shares information
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By Carmen Ensinger
The Bright Futures Advisory Committee held a meeting at the Roodhouse First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall on Thursday, Nov. 17 with other child advocacy groups in order to collaborate about future plans and ways to work together to benefit communities and families.
Bright Futures is an education and support program for families with young children from prenatal to kindergarten age in the North Greene School District.
The goal of Bright Futures is to strengthen and support the ability of all parents to provide the best possible environment for the healthy growth and development of their children.
Bright Futures includes: home visits, screenings, group family events, parenting and community resources.
The program is offered free of charge to families residing in the North Greene School District with funding provided by the Illinois State Board of Education through the Early Childhood Block Grant.
“The reason we have this meeting is we try to work with everyone in our community,” Program Supervisor Kellie Heberling said. “We try to gather everyone here tonight so we can just try to touch base to see what we can do to help you guys and if we need help from you how you can possibly help us.”
There were representatives from the Department of Children and Family Services, North Greene School District, Carrollton Early Childhood, Regional Office of Education, Greene County Health Department, Early Childhood and Child and Family Connections.
First to speak was Keppen Clanton, representing Birth to Five Illinois (BTFI). Clanton is the Regional Council Manager for Region 40. Working alongside Clanton are Lisa Wojic, who is the Adman Support and Lindsey Coultas, who is the Family and Community Engagement Specialist for the Family Council.
BTFI is out of the Governor’s office and is working on early childhood education through a commission reporting and reviewing the regional data of early childhood education and childcare outlook for the region.
“We don’t provide any services on the ground – that is not our role. Our role is to work with policy and funding on the state level,” Clanton said. “At the end of June, we will have together a report that we will submit to the State and the info that we find will then be suggested for policy and funding of early childhood education based on what we need in our region.”
Clanton said there is a lack of early childhood education in her region, which is Region 40.
“We have over 5,000 birth to five children in our region, which covers Calhoun, Greene, Macoupin, Greene and Jersey counties,” she said. “Right now, we only have 2,000 slots available, so we have quite a few children that are out here in the land of no where not getting any type of early childhood or child care to help them be ready for kindergarten.”
Clanton said there is funding out there to help obtain more funding.
“The other thing we do is we have buckets of money that currently tells us how, when and what to spend it on,” Clanton said. “So, by elevating family voices and doing this work, the state wants us to say where we need to spend our money for our region.”
Brett Berry, Principal of North Greene Jr./Sr. High School said Bright Futures is an integral part of the North Greene District.
“We need that zero to three program which is so vital to our kids coming into our school system,” Berry said. “COVID really smacked our kids in the face. Not only are we behind with the reading levels here at North Greene but it is so vital that their influence with our families and our zero to three little ones are ready to go when they enter kindergarten. We are so appreciative for everything they do.”
The next meeting of the Bright Futures Advisory Committee will be held at 11 a.m. Feb. 28 at a location to be determined later.
