Rock Island Today

WIU Recieves a Grant to Expand Rocky's Play Space

Western Illinois University was recently awarded a grant of $39,700 from the Community Works Endowment of Quad Cities Community Foundation to provide a part-time Spanish Bilingual Family Resource Specialist to serve as a cultural and linguistic broker, family education provider, advocate for equitable and accessible linguistic services and family wrap-around services navigator for the upcoming Learning Lab Site, "Rocky's Play Space" ("Area de Juego de Rocky").

"The birth to 5 space in the Quad Cities is absolutely the best place to begin celebrating and elevating cultural and linguistic diversity," said Director of the Center for Best Practices in Early Childhood Education and Professor Lindsay Meeker. "This position will help inspire and propel the work within the up-and-coming WIU-QC Spanish Bilingual Early Learning and Family Empowerment Lab site, as well as across our larger community. We are extremely grateful to the Quad Cities Community Foundation for this opportunity and gift."

The grant will permit WIU to hire a Family Resource Specialist to foster consistent, dedicated family support and services reflective of evidence-based family engagement practices. This individual will work to nurture, plan and facilitate family education opportunities based on a collaborative needs assessment and establish and facilitate partnerships with other family-serving providers in the Quad City area and facilitate monthly family "coffee chats." They will also assist with Child Find practices, Early Head Start advertising and more in the community. This position will help strengthen partnerships and gain insights from building these relationships to determine gaps that family engagement services can assist with.

The Quad Cities region is in critical need of childcare services to meet the needs of the growing population. Rocky's Play Space will use specific strategies to equitably serve the diverse QC community. Families that qualify for childcare assistance will fill the first 70% of enrollment. The lab site will serve approximately 100 children. Enrolled and non-enrolled families can access resources and register for family education, with the goal of 100-125 families with children ages birth to 5 accessing services and/or education opportunities yearly. To help maximize engagement through the College of Education and Human Services, students will be given opportunities to gain hands-on experiences through family education opportunities, working directly with children and early childhood advocacy that will prepare them for industry-based careers after graduation.

For more information on the College of Education and Human Services, visit wiu.edu/coehs. 

Original source can be found here