Early Childhood is Important

“We need you to analyze 50+ pages of responses and give us a summary in two weeks.” Anyone else envy my position? Didn’t think so. I guess because these days I’m all about early childhood, they thought I’d jump at the opportunity. I wouldn’t exactly say I jumped, but I certainly did it.

My assignment was to cull through thousands of responses to the action statement: “Children are safe, healthy, nurtured and ready to succeed in school by age 6.” (I wasn’t the only one with this type of assignment by the way, mine just happened to be around children entering school ready to succeed.) While it was certainly a time-consuming endeavor, I must thank those that asked me to take it on. It was an idea-generating and affirming experience.

When you’re part of a team of staff asked to develop and implement UWSEM’s early childhood initiatives (What initiatives you say? How about Success by 6, Born Learning and Women’s Initiative), the most ineffective thing you can do is come up with ideas and solutions while sitting in your cubicle (let me save you some time and heartache – it doesn’t work). So where do you go for stories, input and partners? You go to the community, asking for voices to share.

And here’s what you said:

We need…“adequate funding for early education; adequate number of high quality service providers; adequate networks for parents to access information about their young children’s needs; parents who have education and parenting skills.”

Of the 1,200 responses received, two things rose to the top (for me) as priorities:
We need greater awareness and knowledge in the community of the importance of the early year’s in a child’s life; and

More parents need to know what they can do during those first years to ensure healthy development through parent education.

A portion of one response: “Public awareness of the importance of early childhood experiences on the long term success of each child. Spirit of unity, cooperation and true collaboration to provide ALL families with opportunities to access safe places for their children, access to quality health services for the entire family, and access to educational environment from birth along with the support systems to support those goals.”

There was also a clear statement that the lack of basic needs (shelter, food, clothing, etc.) impedes a parents’ progress to ensuring the healthy development of their children. To successfully address early childhood education of our children, we need to also ensure they have access to everyday, basic needs.

Regionalism and the support of businesses are key: “We don’t have a true regional perspective across these three counties and recognition that there is need in each community. Also, the business community doesn’t understand that if you focus on early childhood, you are in essence hitting all of the other topics listed above including making sure people have living wages.”

Community Conversations

With a video recorder, a pile of release forms and a bunch of 211 brochures, I ventured out yesterday, along with several of my colleagues, to various spots in Detroit – Capitol Park and Campus Martius Park – for the sole purpose of capturing community voices. Why would we do that? Didn’t United Way for Southeastern Michigan just collect substantial information through its community action survey, focus groups and one-on-one interviews? Well, yes. But we still wanted to hear from individuals – mothers, fathers, grandparents, single parents and others about their hopes for their children and what the community could do to support them. Just to capture conversations, pure and simple.

Needless to say, we were amateurs at this! The three of us knew very little about optimally operating a video camera and had no training on interviewing techniques. But we pushed through our comfort zone and engaged in conversations. It was a powerful experience for me. I learned so much about my fellow community members. One woman was a single mom with 10 children, ages 4 through 27 (and she herself looked to be 35 years old)! Seven of her children went or are in college, quite an accomplishment for a parent who didn’t go to college herself. She was so proud to talk about her children, and she should be. I was honored to have heard her story.

Another single mom we met had two teenage daughters who are doing extremely well in school, despite the fact that they have limited transportation options and must walk 16 blocks to school. Like the other woman we spoke with, she was also proud of her daughters and also that she has been sober for 6 years now.

Finally, we talked with another woman who also left me with pride and hope for our community. She was spending the afternoon with her 5-year-old daughter while her other 12-year-old daughter was in a summer music program at the Detroit Opera House. She lives in Southfield and said she loves to come down to the city and take advantage of all the activities that Detroit has to offer. (Visit Model D for other great Detroit spots.)

Members of this region have so many positive, hopeful things to share. I thank those of you who took the time to talk with us on a lovely summer morning in Detroit. It’s motivated us to continue to capture these voices and stories – so be on the look out for United Way folks with a video camera at Belle Isle, the Detroit Zoo and your local malls!

Detroit and Out-Wayne Results

Chart 4: Out-Wayne County Respondents Who Selected Each Aspiration


Chart 4 details the responses of Wayne County residents outside of Detroit. Out-Wayne County residents also tracked very closely on their top 3 selections with the choices voiced by the entire tri-county sample, though they placed preparedness for young children slightly ahead of older youth. They also chose Basic Needs at a slightly higher rate than the overall population. The aspiration areas for which Out-Wayne County residents differed most on the low side from regional totals were Knowing How to Get Help, Affordable Housing/Homelessness and the need for Targeted Funding. The areas for which they saw a greater need were Safety, Abuse and Neglect, and the Disabled.

Chart 5. Percentage of City of Detroit Respondents Who Selected Each Aspiration


Chart 5 provides the distribution of responses gathered from City of Detroit residents. Here is where we found the greatest variation in comparison to the tri-county respondents as a whole. While Basic Needs came in first, at a rate slightly lower than that of the region, the issue of Safety vaulted into second place, ahead of Youth Preparedness. The urban problem of crime was joined by the issues of Job Skills and a Livable Wage and Affordable Housing/Homelessness as critical aspirations for Detroiters. This combination pushed School Readiness for Children into 6th place. Among the other aspiration areas, Detroiters demonstrated less concern than average in the areas of Abuse and Neglect, Seniors and the Disabled.

Oakland County Results

Chart 3: Oakland County Respondents Who Selected Each Aspiration


Oakland County residents tracked very closely on their top 3 selections with the choices voiced by the entire tri-county sample. In each case, they selected these categories at a slightly higher (between 0.1 and 0.7 percentage points) rate than the tri-county as a whole. The aspiration areas for which Oakland County residents differed most on the low side from regional totals were Safety/Crime, Affordable Housing/Homelessness and the need for Targeted Funding. The areas for which Oakland County residents saw a greater need were Abuse and Neglect, Seniors and the Disabled.

Macomb County Results

From the Community Action Survey, we were interested in finding out how the totals faired by the different geographic areas in metro-Detroit. Over the next couple days we'll present these from Macomb, Oakland, out-Wayne and the City of Detroit. Together, they explain how residents selected items in the context of the regional results from yesterday's post.

You'll note how, overall, residents of Southeastern MI expressed very similar concerns and aspirations.

Here are Macomb's Results
Chart 2: Macomb County Respondents Who Selected Each Aspiration


While Macomb County residents generally followed the overall ranking of issues, they were slightly less likely to list Basic Needs, Youth School Preparation, Safety, Skills, Affordable Housing and Targeted Funding among their top three priorities than was the total tri-county population. The three issues for which they showed higher support were Readiness to Succeed by Age 6, Abuse Prevention and Independence for Seniors.

Seniors are very important for Macomb County in that it has the highest share, among counties in southeast Michigan, of persons 65 years and over and is forecast to continue this dominance over the next 25 years.

Please, get involved.

(Special thanks to Kurt Metzger, Director of Research for his analysis and overall leadership with United Way's survey data)

More Regional Survey Results

The Chart presents the composite score for each of the eleven aspiration statements, based on the web responses of tri-county residents. It is clear that respondents felt strongly toward the statement, “Individuals and families meet their basic needs for food, shelter and other necessities,” as nearly half (47 percent) listed it among their top 3 choices. The education of youth – both for post-secondary and pre-school readiness – followed, though some 10 percentage points behind basic needs. We knew each statement would be important to the region, which helps explain why they all ranged below the 50% mark.

More to come on how the results faired across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and the city of Detroit as well as the 2-1-1 call in version. To learn more, visit www.uwsem.org.

Community Action Survey - Results

News you can use!

Many have asked about the data analysis of our recently completed community-wide survey. While a final summary is still being drafted, below are some interesting findings.

The table provides a summary ranking of the 11 focus areas based on responses to the web-based survey. The data ranking was based on the number of times each statement was listed as one of the three primary responses.

The most significant finding in this chart, besides the overall ranking, is the general consistency across geographies.

Table 1. Ranking of Aspiration Areas by Residence of Respondents*




Much more to come as we continue to mine the more than 6,400 responses and determine how this will help inform our future work.

*The Community Action Statements were as follows:

·Children are safe, healthy, nurtured and ready to succeed in school by age 6
·Individuals and families meet their basic needs for food, shelter and other necessities
·People in need know how to get help
·People have the skills to maintain meaningful employment at a living wage
·Seniors live independently in their homes for as long as possible
·People with disabilities live healthy and independent lives
·People live in safe, affordable housing and are prevented from being homeless
·Youth complete school prepared to succeed in the workforce and higher education
·People are safe from violence and crime
·People do not suffer from physical, emotional and sexual abuse or neglect
·There is targeted funding available for people who want to go to college, start a business, or buy their first home