- Ketchikan Kids get “passports”
January 2012 - Ketchikan has lots of opportunities for children, but families don’t always take advantage of all there is to do. The Ketchikan Early Childhood Leadership Team came up with a creative way to expand children’s horizons. Read more >>
- Partnerships use Strengthening Families principles
January 2012 - Two Best Beginnings partnerships are applying principles they learned in recent Strengthening Families training to help families in their communities become stronger. Read more >>
- Partnerships making great progress
Sept. 2011 -- Best Beginnings' 10 Alaska partnerships are making great progress in their communities, using their second year of funding to take action and hit the ground running. Read more >>
- Partnership promotes "language nests"
July 2011 -- Ilisaaq: A Best Beginnings Partnership is helping revitalize the Iñupiaq language in the Northwest Arctic Borough with programs that immerse children in the language early – at an age when they’re most receptive to learning languages. Their long range hope is for each village to have a full-time immersion child care center. Read more >>
- Families First in Homer finds its feet
June 2011 -- When Week of the Young Child was celebrated in April, Families First in Homer rocked the town with the sheer variety and number of events and activities offered. Families First is one of 11 early childhood partnerships in Alaska uniting agencies and individuals to create healthier communities. Read more >>
- Partnerships Grants Awarded
September 2010 -- Alaska’s network of early childhood partnerships is expanding to 11, with the recent addition of coalitions in the Northwest Arctic Borough and Wrangell. These two join nine existing partnerships working at the local level to improve early childhood services. Read more >>
- Partnerships Complete Assessments; Identify Priorities
March 2010 -- Early childhood partnerships represent a new way of doing business: local people identifying local priorities around early childhood. Initiated and funded in part by Best Beginnings, nine Alaska communities recently underwent assessments to identify priorities in their areas, and some common themes emerged. Read more >>
- Coalition Attracts Unusual Suspects; Ketchikan's Community Café
January 2010 -- Here's the story of one Early Childhood Partnership in action -- Ketchikan's Early Childhood Leadership Coalition -- and the success of their recent Community Café. “I’ve been here almost 15 years and we’ve never had a forum like this that focused on early childhood,” observed coalition member Laurie Thomas, director of the Early Learning Program at Community Connections. Read more >>
