Birth to Five, an Illinois statewide agency focusing on early childhood, is making progress in its action plan for Region 49, which covers Rock Island County.
One of this year's priorities is creating a crisis nursery in the Quad Cities. Family and Community Engagement Specialist Heather Anderson said they have been hearing from area families, including refugees, about the lack of support.
“And they, all of us, have been in that situation as parents where we just need a break. Gosh, if you have two toddlers, as I had when my kids were little, just going to the grocery store by myself would have been a little self-care,” Anderson said. “And so we want to partner with someone in the community. And so we've done that. We're not able to share that information yet, but we're going to be that backbone agency and help support in any way we can, so that our goal in that is to reduce any likelihood of child abuse. And so when parents and families can take care of themselves, they're better able to take care of their children.”
She said the state has only seven crisis nurseries.
“And the closest one is in Peoria. And so that's an hour away,” Anderson said. “And so the meaningfulness of having something like that in the Quad Cities when we do have so many diverse families in our area is really important.”
Birth to Five Region 49 Council Manager Emily Cummings said another initiative the agency has been working on is compiling a list of providers for families seeking behavioral and mental health care and turning it into a handy magnet.
“So if you have Medicaid, you can go to this provider. If you're private pay, you can pay for services here. But it's all therapists who work with children under five,” Cummings said. “If you do a Google search, it can be really hard to differentiate. There's not a lot of therapists who work with that population because you're really looking at play-based modalities. How do you work with kids who maybe have anger or trauma who are under five, and play is the best way to do that. So all of these therapists have been vetted, and they use play-like modalities to work with children and families in healing.”
Birth to Five is holding a discussion group for child care provider directors, sharing resources to help their staff and teachers better prepare to meet the emotional needs of the kids in their care.
“They meet with a mental and behavioral health consultant once a month to talk about how they're feeling, how they're overwhelmed, and figure out ways to cope so that we can again help the children, help the teachers get their needs met,” Cummings said.
The agency is currently partnering with UnityPoint in Moline for an ongoing new parent cohort. They hope mothers who deliver between December and February sign up to receive assistance from a childcare professional trained in newborn care.
“And this is going to be a community where parents can really come together and learn about the development of their child and form that community,” Cummings said. “We heard from a lot of parents that they didn't build their community until their kids started sports or their kids started kindergarten. And we really want to start foundationally supporting parents right when they have children.”
A discussion that has been ongoing with the family council is finding ways to bolster meaningful communication between parents and their children amid busy schedules. They are starting a “Take Five” campaign in response.
“It's about noticing the things that your child is doing. It's about breathing together and really creating activities around these different activities or these different words that really boost engagement,” Cummings said. “One example that a family used is when a mom is stressed, her and her son breathe together and so they take a cup of hot cocoa and they pretend that there's a cup of hot cocoa in their hands and they breathe it in deep and then they blow the hot cocoa to cool it down and they do this together and it helps them connect and it helps them calm down when moments can be really stressful.”
Cummings says each region in Illinois has a family and action council to collaborate on initiatives from education, healthcare, including behavioral health.
“We have a family council made up of 15 families who all have children under the age of eight. We meet with them once a month,” Cummings said in an interview with WVIK. “ And then we have an action council made up of community leaders from all different sectors of the community who come together, and we all talk about early childhood and how we can make Rock Island the best place to raise a family.”
The action and family council members are on three-year terms, so the next round of applications will open this summer to fill seats by September. Residents interested in learning more about Birth to Five can visit their Facebook page and sign up for their newsletter.
Full interview with Heather Anderson and Emily Cummings is below.
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