PW! Update 1-19-2021

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Press Release!!!

Prevention Works! Of Clallam County will hold their annual meeting remotely on Wednesday January 27 from 4-6 p.m.  All interested parties are invited to attend at this link:

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89916603740 

This year’s event will focus on children and families without housing.  Panelists will include a mother-child pair with lived experience, social service providers and providers of innovative programs in the community, as well as a Port Angeles City Council member.  

Prevention Works! Is celebrating it’s  23rd year of promoting positive childhoods in Clallam County.  An all-volunteer community coalition, in 2020 the organization focused on the child care crisis, culminating in the completion of a recruitment video (view at www.pw4kids.org) and a soon to be revealed recruitment billboard.

In addition, Prevention Works! distributed information about the child development VROOM app www.vroom.org  throughout the county and worked with the EDC and others to create an alliance of all childcare workers/programs     in Clallam County.

Prevention Works! is a 501 (c)(3) organization and your donations are always needed to keep prevention efforts and initiatives alive in our community. 

Find us at www.pw4kids.org

For more information, please contact:  Laura at info@pw4kids.org 

Help support the Port Angeles Dream Playground by purchasing a customized engraved brick or picket at Swain's General Store or at www.padramplayground.org.

Sales will support the rebuild of the playground in 2021. Improvements include new equipment, a zip line, climbing net, inclusive play elements, better lines of sight and a pour-in-place ground cover.

You are invited to participate in an important and brief survey regarding the future of young children and families in Washington State.

For the past year many parents, providers, caregivers, teachers, and others have been working to identify draft goals and strategies that will meet the needs of children and families across our state for the next five years. They have developed a draft list of ideas to include in an early learning coordination plan. 

We would like your reactions to these ideas.  You can use link below to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families to access information about the draft plan, and to take a survey to provide your reactions. The materials are available in Spanish, Somali, and English.

 Comments Needed: Statewide Early Learning Coordination Plan

Please forward this information to as many of your friends, families or colleagues as you can.  We are collecting comments and reactions until January 31, 2021.

Thank you!!

Marilyn Gisser, Essentials for Childhood

Link to DCYF Facebook post

DISCLAIMER: Items listed in the list above are provided as a public service and do not necessarily represent the views of the Washington State Department of Health nor does it imply endorsement of the item’s methods or findings. The Department of Health assumes no responsibility for the factual accuracy of the items presented. The selection, omission, or content of items does not imply any endorsement or other position taken by the Department of Health.

Contact Information: Marilyn Gisser, Essentials for Childhood, (360) 236-3503

CALENDAR 

January 26th and February 27th Join Peninsula Behavioral Health for their FREE Mental Health First Aid Virtual Classes! 9 am-4 pm

PARENTING

About 700,000 parents with young kids left the workforce in 2020. For many, loss of child care was to blame.

Only about half of child care jobs lost at the start of the pandemic have returned, leading to a 144 percent increase in the number of parents who have missed work to care for children, according to new data analysis. 

Coronavirus closed thousands of daycares last year, forcing parents with young children out of the labor force in droves. The scale of that exodus is now clear: about 700,000 parents are out of the workforce. 

New data analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank, found that working parents with children under the age of 5 — especially working mothers — have dropped out of work. Some parents were laid off and gave up trying to find work due to caregiving responsibilities; others left the workforce in order to provide child care. 

The research compiled by Rasheed Malik, a senior policy analyst for early childhood policy at CAP, quantifies how much the loss of child care has affected economic stability in families with children, and among working mothers most of all. It was one of the main contributors to the first recession in the nation’s history disproportionately impacting women, making them the most likely to be laid off due to coronavirus closures and the most likely to leave their work in order to take over child care responsibilities. 

Read more here...

12 Tips for Raising Confident Kids  EN ESPAÑOL

How to build self worth in children and help them feel they can handle what comes their way

Right from birth, kids learn new skills at a dizzying rate. And along with those new abilities, they also acquire the confidence to use them.

As children get older, that confidence can be as important as the skills themselves. To thrive, kids need to trust in their own capabilities while, at the same time, knowing that they can handle it if they aren’t successful at something. It’s by experiencing mastery and rebounding from failure that they develop healthy self-confidence.

Here are 12 ways you can set kids up to feel capable and get the most mileage out of their skills and talents.

See the 12 tips here...

PRESCHOOL and SCHOOLAGE

Playing With Light and Shadows Encourage kids of all ages to think like scientists by investigating the properties of light and shadows. What can we learn about light when we notice and observe different colors and shadows - particularly during your child's bedtime routine? Talk about how the room looks when the different lights are on or off. Which one makes the most light/the least light? Where do we see shadows? How do the colors in the room look different when the lights are off? Keep the conversation going with these prompts: 1. Go on a scavenger hunt in your house. Ask: "How many different things can you think of that make light? What can help us see in the dark?" 2. Practice shadow puppets! Experiment with questions like: "If we shine a light on something and then move the light closer or further away, what happens to the size of the shadow?" View All Activities

Create Flashlight Constellations Whether viewing them in the night sky, at a planetarium, or as projections onto your bedroom ceiling, looking up at the stars can be relaxing. Create your own star projector with a few easy supplies you can find at home. View Activity

NEWS / RESEARCH

Link to the store https://akidsbookabout.com/collections/all-products/books

JOB POSTINGS

This position is located in Jefferson County, but thought it was worth sharing.

Contracted Interim Director

Do you know a capable leader who is on fire to improve child welfare and the experience of foster care on the Peninsula? Olympic Angels is looking to bring on a contracted interim executive for the next several months while we continue to fundraise toward hiring a permanent Executive Director. Ideally, we'd like to find someone that can start as the former and become the latter. Importantly, your support makes it possible for Angels to put out the call to hire an interim executive, with the intention of hiring a permanent Executive Director later in 2021. We are deeply thankful to be at this stage. Getting a strong leader on staff is a HUGE step forward in terms of building momentum and being able to serve more children. We encourage you to share the Request for Proposals for an interim executive within your networks so we're sure to find someone that is deeply passionate about improving the lives of foster families and children in care.

Mentors also needed!

We are searching for ideal matches for some of our teens currently in care. When teens see themselves in their mentors, it helps them know that they are not alone. So we are putting a call out for mentors who are:

• Indigenous 
• LGBTQ+ or LGBTQ+ allies
• Mentors who have physical differences

Most of our current youth to match are located in Mid-County (Port Hadlock, Chimacum, Marrowstone area). Mentors are trained and supported throughout the experience. If you would like to learn more about mentoring a youth in foster care, please email Case Manager, Stephanie Selle: stephanie@olympicangels.org

https://www.olympicangels.org/