April 12, 2024

SAVE THE DATES

4/13/24 - Early Childhood Celebration

5/4/24 - NorWALK Mental Health Walk

6/11/24 - June Convening

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Data

Dalio Education launched its CT’s Unspoken Crisis Data Dashboard, which provides a historical view into the counts and trends of the population of young people newly experiencing or at-risk of experiencing disconnection, both across the state and by individual municipality. Explore the new dashboard here.

We have refreshed our Norwalk Data Dashboard Early Childhood section with updated KEI results for this school year. Based on NPS data, 63% of students are considered KEI-ready (scored a 2 or 3 on all six domains) this school year, a five-percentage-point increase from last year. These results are back up to pre-COVID levels. To learn more, visit the dashboard here.

Policy & Advocacy

Congratulations to the members of our inaugural cohort of civic influencers! Starting on April 6th, 18 community members joined us for the first of three sessions to learn about government, local data, and how to use their voice for impact. 

Social Emotional Health/Out of School Time

SEH / OST Initiative Meeting Update: 

At the March 28th Social Emotional Health & Out of School Time Initiative Meeting held at Family & Children's Agency, Community Mindfulness Project staff Julia Hepfer and Erika Long provided SEH / OST initiative members with a workshop on mindfulness tools and engaged initiative members in collaborative conversations. The purpose of the workshop was to provide youth serving adults self-care strategies and mindfulness meditation strategies that they could incorporate into their everyday lives. 

Please click on this link for the update and overview of activities that Community Mindfulness Project provided at the SEH / OST Initiative Meeting.

OST Program Locator Update: 

As we approach summer, we at Norwalk ACTS would like to continue updating our (OST) Out of School Time Portal to ensure parents and youth-serving adults in the Norwalk community know about your program. Since we started the Portal, there have been 8,641 views. 

If you are an existing program on the portal, please check the portal for accuracy. If your program is not on the portal, please click on the link below and fill out the form to add your program and information. If you need to change your existing program, please email rleslie@norwalkacts.org or fill it out again (for major changes).

Early Childhood Initiative

Our Early Childhood Community Advocates have been active in the Norwalk community spreading the word about the importance of early childhood development. On March 27 they joined the Read to Belly launch at Norwalk Community Health Center (NCHC). This is a wonderful collaboration between Read to Grow and NCHC focused on connecting with your baby even before they are born.

Norwalk ACTS

[www.norwalkacts.org]