Ready to Grow St. Joe is launching a new multi-year initiative aimed at improving mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL) for young children in St. Joseph County.
The project, titled Nurturing Resilience and Building Brains, is funded by the Valinhos and Asante Foundations and will provide Conscious Discipline training, coaching, and materials to early childhood educators in both English and Spanish. The program also includes support for directors and program leaders through dedicated cohorts.
Terri Kosik, director of Ready to Grow St. Joe, said the initiative was shaped through direct conversations with local providers.
“We spent time in conversations and focus groups and surveys with both English-speaking providers and Spanish-speaking providers to determine their needs, their pressing needs, what was working and what they needed help with,” she said.
The program will initially work with 30 early education programs across the county, including licensed centers, school-based programs, registered ministries, and family childcare homes. Participating sites will receive both virtual and in-person training from national Conscious Discipline trainers Angela Fraley and Lety Valero.
Kosik emphasized the broader impact of investing in early childhood professionals.
“We are uplifting this community because they are the bedrock for both children and their families can thrive,” she said.
Ready to Grow St. Joe operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the Early Childhood Development Center at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College, which is a registered nonprofit organization.
The initiative is primarily privately funded, though Kosik noted that the coalition does receive some local support for separate efforts. One such project, funded in part by the South Bend Department of Community Investment, has provided over $260,000 in grants to childcare providers to improve learning environments with new furniture and durable equipment.
The national leadership team from Conscious Discipline will attend a launch event for the initiative this Thursday in South Bend. According to Kosik, they are considering using the St. Joseph County model as a potential blueprint for programs across the country.
More information on current and future initiatives is available on the coalition’s website at readytogrowsaintjoe.com.
