December Newsletter

Medical-Legal Partnerships in Greenville and Beyond "What is this going to teach us in the way of trends? What are some large policies we can learn from?" ICS President Jamie Moon reflected on the potential for systems-level impacts from Medical-Legal Partnerships in a recent piece by Liv Osby for The Greenville Times . The piece profiled Greenville’s Medical-Legal Partnership – a collaborative effort among South Carolina Legal Services, Greenville Hospital System, and Furman University, which combines the power of medicine and law to find non-medical solutions for medical issues - like remediating model in a rental home which is causing repeat asthma attacks for a child. The piece also featured Kirby Mitchell of South Carolina Legal Services and Dr. Kerry Sease of Greenville Health System - two authors (along with Keller Anne Ruble, then of ICS) of a paper we released earlier this year on Medical-Legal Partnerships as a cross -sector tool for child health. ICS is grateful for all those who contributed to the MLP paper and these organizations working in Greenville to bring a new approach to family health. We particularly appreciate the Waddell family featured in the Greenville News piece and other families like them across the country who have shared their stories so that more children can benefit from essential services.

An example of an MLP in action. View larger.

Thanks for joining Moving the Needle ! Last week, ICS and PEP Greenville were delighted to convene community members for a conversation on early literacy and third-grade reading at our event Moving the Literacy Needle in South Carolina: A Community Conversation about Read to Succeed. The event focused on South Carolina's Read to Succeed law, which aims to improve early literacy by focusing on third-grade reading scores. A big thank you to our panelists who brought their expertise and vision: Melanie Barton, Executive Director, South Carolina Education Oversight Committee Ron Fairchild, Senior Consultant, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading Jeff McCoy, Associate Superintendent for Academics, Greenville County Public Schools We are grateful to the Children's Museum of the Upstate for hosting the event at their wonderful Greenville location, and for the support Greenville First Steps for all of our Greenville events. Missed the event? Enjoy a recording of the panel via Facebook Live: Part One, Part Two, Part Three. We recommend enjoying the recording as audio, as we are still troubleshooting some video issues. More resources from the event, including more information on the speakers, is available on the event page.

Child Care & Growth in Greenville "As a research and policy organization, we are focused on what the data tells us on access and family need. But clearly, the story of child care in Greenville is about the human impact as well. " ICS President Jamie Moon is quoted at length in a recent piece in The Greenville News exploring Greenville's recent naming as a "child care desert." There's a complex interplay between child care, employment, and local economic development, as Research Associate Amanda McDougald Scott discusses in a new ICS blog . Child care is an economic imperative for Greenville, allowing families to work, but we know accessing and affording high-quality care remains a challenge for many families. How does access to affordable childcare and early childhood readiness programs affect economic outcomes for both women and children These reflections build from Amanda's recent remarks at the WREN Upstate Summit .

Creativity Connects ICS President Jamie Moon was in Los Angeles for the final event of the Creativity Connects series. The series, implemented by ICS and the WolfTrap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts in partnership with Open Fields, brought together community leaders in five diverse cities to spark a dialogue about early learning through the arts. The Los Angeles session focused on Supporting Early Literacy and Language Development Through the Arts, and featured keynote speaker Yvette Sanchez-Fuentes – Child Youth and Family Services Division Director, Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County, Inc. A livestream of the morning is available here.

Board Updates Visionary Leadership The Community Foundation of Greenville has shared an inspiring video of ICS Board Member Merl Code in honor of his receiving the Visionary Leadership award last month. We encourage you to watch it here . A Child's Haven ICS Board Member Dick Wilkerson was keynote speaker at the annual benefit breakfast hosted on behalf of A Child's Haven . Dick issued a call for investment for early childhood, holding up the work of A Child's Haven to show how strategic investments early in the lives of children have powerful impacts long-term. A Child's Haven is one of the many organizations working for families in Greenville with whom ICS is privileged to work.

New Resources ICS is proud to release two briefs addressing the scope and importance of addressing preschool suspension and expulsion. In Preschool Suspension and Expulsion: Defining the Issues, ICS Senior Fellow and Clemson Professor Emerita Dee Stegelin summarizes the state of the field, including a discussion of what is next for targeting this need, and resources for practitioners. Exploring the prevalence of suspension and expulsion practices in child care settings in South Carolina, a new research study from Heather Smith Googe of the University of South Carolina and Herman Knopf of the University of Florida, reports on the prevalence of suspension and expulsion among licensed and registered child care providers in South Carolina. This first-of-its-kind research in the state reports on differences between setting types as well as age of the child. We were happy to share this new and exciting research on a panel at the recent 2018 SC Summit on Early Childhood hosted by South Carolina First Steps, featuring Dee Stegelin and ICS Director of Inclusion and Innovation Mary Garvey.

Are you a business using the SC child care credit? In 1995, South Carolina enacted a credit for employee child care programs. Through that credit, employers can support early care and education for their employees’ children, deducting half of those costs from the employer’s SC Tax bill. This tax credit has barely been used in the state, though: for the 2013 year, a total of 37 companies claimed a total of $162,001 of credit. In contrast, families spend an estimated $341 million on early care and education in South Carolina annually. ICS is looking to learn more about use of this credit as one of several strategies to increase availability of affordable, high quality child care. Is your company using this credit? Have you considered using it, but decided not to? We would value the chance to talk! Reach out to us by email .

Help ICS amplify all children's voices. ICS focuses on systems-level solutions for the most daunting challenges facing families and young children. In Greenville, in South Carolina, and beyond we bring together partners from many sectors - education, health, child welfare, government, community organizations, and more. This work, however, isn’t just about fixing our systems – it’s about building new systems and strategies that work. We ask you to include ICS in your end-of-year giving to help us amplify all children's voices.

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Click to view a larger image of our Impact Report! In 2018, we’ve worked to move the needle in the Palmetto State and across the country. We’ve partnered from Tallahassee to Oklahoma to help utilize outcomes-based financing to improve outcomes for children. We’ve hosted events in Charlotte, Charleston, Denver, Milwaukee, Seattle, Greenville, and more to bring quality early childhood learning experiences to over 1,000 participants - providers and policymakers alike. We’ve created resources to help communities utilize new solutions to solve stubborn problems, including medical-legal partnerships , special education financing approaches, and early childhood suspension and expulsion .

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The Institute for Child Success is Founded and Fueled by:

The Institute for Child Success is fueled by the BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation, the Mary Black Foundation, and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, an independent licensee of the BlueCross and BlueShield Association.

ICS works in South Carolina and beyond on behalf of children from prenatal to age 8. Help support our research and advocacy with a contribution.

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