We believe all children should have the best start in life.
The Chittenden Building Bright Futures Council is a place to come together with others who care about the well being of children and families in our community. Meetings are open to all. Join discussions about community needs, resources, and ideas worth spreading. November's meeting is coming up next week on 11/3. Council meetings are always the first Thursday of the month from from 5-7pm at the Howard Center, 1138 Pine St. in Burlington. Next week's meeting has two featured topics including fellows from the Snelling Center's Early Childhood Leadership Institute and a discussion about Children's Integrated Services (CIS) demand and capacity. Please join us.
-Beth Truzansky, Building Bright Futures Chittenden Regional Coordinator, [email protected]
Children's Books for Supporting
Each and Every Child
Children's books are such a great teaching tool. How do you pay attention to the message a book presents? I'm involved with the Agency of Education's process to create Guiding Principles for the inclusion of each and every child. Inclusion happens at different levels: how you work with families, how you choose and approach curriculum, teacher training to name a few aspects. In the classroom, book choice and use can be a rich way to include children and reflect the visible and hidden diversity in your classroom. To help with the book chioices, here are some lists to diversify the books you share with your children as well as share tough concepts about friendship, bullying, different families, cultures and religions. It is also affirming and important for children from different races, family structures and abilities see themselves represented in books.
Children's Books on Bullying/Friendship Issues [Link] [Link]
For more information about this topic, check out the article by Camille Catlett and Sue George. [Link: How to make Inclusive Book Choices]
Cathy Aikman and Sam Francis-Faith from the
Chittenden County Opioid Alliance (CCOA) joined the October BBF Council meeting. They shared about this new initiative to address the opioid crisis and the burden it brings to our community. The Alliance is designed as a 3 year Collective Impact project. It has many community partners and four working groups. The work of the Council and CCOA overlap in many ways as we work to support children and families. Each of us are impacted by addiction in some way and have a role to play. Learn more about CCOA and the discussion at the Council in October. [
Link]
The BBF State Advisory Council is also discussing the impact of opioid addiction at a state-wide level. View the presentation shared at the September meeting
here.
This discussion will continue at their November meeting.
Not sure who to vote for? Check out the video from the October 14th panel discussion, hosted by Let's Grow Kids, VAEYC, and other community partners.
Gubernatorial Candidate Panel on Early Childhood
For your Calendar:
Chittenden BBF Regional Council meets the first Thursday of the month. The next Council meeting will be Thursday, November 3 from 5-7pm at the Howard Center 1138 Pine Street, Burlington. Two agenda items include a discussion with fellows from the Snelling Early Childhood Leadership Institute and a discussion about Children's Integrated Services (CIS) demand and challenges.
Notes from the October 6 meeting with guests from the Chittenden County Opioid Alliance are here.
Regional Networks and Building Bright Futures (BBF)
Chittenden BBF Council is one of 12 Councils State-wide
working to improve access, quality, and affordability of early care, health, and education
SAMHSA's Project LAUNCHLinking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children's Health For all children to reach social, emotional, behavioral, physical, and cognitive milestones - to thrive in school and beyond Learn more about Learn more about Vermont Project Launch
Building Bright Futures (BBF) serves a dual role as both the Vermont Early Childhood Advisory Council and 501(c)(3) statewide network, aligning local solutions of 12 Regional Councils with policy at the state level in order to make improvements in access, quality, and affordability of early care, health, and education for families and young children birth to eight-years-old. Chittenden Building Bright Futures is one of the 12 Regional Councils in the BBF statewide network.
