Southwest Counseling Solutions’ Family Literacy program has been awarded a $145,000 grant by The Skillman Foundation to enhance early childhood development services for families of young children in southwest Detroit and improve their quality of life.

Southwest Counseling Solutions (SWCS) will use the grant to increase school readiness, develop quality childcare providers, promote parenting education, and heighten community awareness about the importance of early childhood education.

Specifically, SWCS will:

• Convene half of the childcare centers and/or family child care homes throughout the six Skillman Good Neighborhoods to participate in the Great Start Collaborative – Wayne pilot Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) that standardizes and encourages quality child-care practices.
• Use a variety of community organizing methods to build a community consensus about the importance of early childhood development and school readiness services for families of children from birth to eight years old .
• Host two citywide and two local community events that promote parenting education, early childhood development, family support and school readiness. Identify three “Early Childhood Champions” from the Detroit business sector.
• Engage in advocacy efforts to help secure sustainable funding from city, state and federal sources to support early care and education, family support services, parenting education, and services that attend to the physical, social and emotional needs of children.
• Assist Angel Wings Family Childcare Home in relocating and partnering with Vistas Nuevas Head Start to create 12 new, quality childcare slots for infant and toddlers at the Hernandez Center in southwest Detroit.

“Early childhood development is essential to creating strong and healthy families in our community,” said Joe Tardella, executive director of SWCS. “This Skillman grant enables us to build upon the work we accomplished last year because of another Skillman grant so we can further assess and address the needs of families and help them prepare their children for success in school and life.”

SWCS’ family literacy program is regarded as one of the most effective in the nation, consistently exceeding benchmarks for childhood development and learning, parent education, and family participation. The program serves hundreds of families with young children.

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Southwest Solutions is the holding company of Southwest Counseling Solutions and Southwest Housing Solutions. The family of corporations offers a wide range of services to create a stronger and healthier southwest Detroit community, including mental health and early childhood services, affordable housing, home ownership counseling, employment opportunities and innovative economic development projects.

Created in 1960, The Skillman Foundation is a private philanthropy whose chief aim is to help develop good schools and good neighborhoods for children. Though grants are made throughout metropolitan Detroit, most grants are directed at six Detroit neighborhoods – Southwest Detroit (Vernor and Chadsey/Condon), Brightmoor, Osborn, Cody/Rouge and the Northend – and toward innovative and successful schools throughout the city of Detroit.