United Way of Central Massachusetts is committed to providing
children with the resources and experiences known to promote healthy development
and success in school.
Ensuring Children’s Readiness For School:
To ensure that children in central Massachusetts are physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively prepared to succeed in school, United Way of Central Massachusetts funds strategies that provide:
- Safe and affordable high-quality, early education and care programs that promote early literacy, numeracy, and self-regulation skills for children 0-5 years of age.
- Parenting education and support programs to strengthen parenting skills and increase parent involvement.
- Programming to support and enhance children’s development across the spectrum of early education and care programs.
What is the best age for children to begin their education?
Answer: Children are born learning. When parents and early childhood educators pay attention to social, emotional, and cognitive development such as mastery of skills, they have maximum impact on the development of brain architecture and can develop the foundation for future learning.
Source: Harvard University Center on the Developing Child
Read about one person's success story
Read the Ensuring
Children's Readiness for School section in our Annual Report
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United Way's Annual Celebration donates books
 
"Amused? Confused? Frustrated? Surprised? Try these feelings on for size." reads the text on the page above from Freymann and Elffer's book entitled, How Are You Peeling, Foods With Moods, one of the books selected for donation.
During UWCM's 2008 Annual Celebration, tables were festively adorn with books and building blocks to provide more than decoration and information. These books, How Are You Peeling?, When Sophie Gets Angry, and Mean Soup were donated by United Way to their Early Education and Care programs and are selections used by the Together for Kids Parent Education Program.
The Together For Kids Parent Enrichment Program (TFK-PEP) provides group family strengthening sessions using two curricula: “Parenting Wisely: Young Children” and “Second Step Curriculum for Parents.” PEP offers evidence-based, strength-based behavior management skill-building group sessions for parents of children ages 3-5. Groups are offered in Worcester, Auburn, Leicester, Millbury, Oxford and Spencer.
The books donated at the Annual Celebration are selections used in the "Parenting Wisely: Young Children" program and a set of these books are provided to each family in the program.They are used to help children and parents talk about their feelings and emotions, build self-esteem, develop character, and encourage imagination.
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The following programs have received funding in the Ensuring
Children's Readiness for School category from our 07-08 grant
awards:
Ensuring
Children's Readiness For School |
Organization: |
Program
name: |
Funding
Award: |
Rainbow
Child Development Center |
Rainbow's
Preschool |
$44,647 |
The Guild
of St. Agnes |
Infant/Toddler |
$24,500 |
The Guild
of St. Agnes |
Preschool |
$31,115 |
Webster
Square Day Care Center, Inc. |
Preschool
Childcare |
$27,200 |
Worcester
Comprehensive Child Care Services |
Infant/Toddler |
$45,000 |
YMCA of
Greater Worcester |
Center for
Child Development at CitySquare |
$23,897 |
YWCA of
Central Massachusetts |
Infant/Toddler Child Care |
$23,875 |
Community
Healthlink |
Together
For Kids - Early Education |
$92,122 |
Community
Healthlink |
Together
For Kids - Parenting Skills |
$33,041 |
M.S.P.C.C. |
Parent
Education and Support |
$48,029 |
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