OPPORTUNITY Strengthen Colorado’s Early Childhood Care and Education System

We are reaching out to ask for your help gathering input from individuals providing care and education to

young children, professionals that work with children and families, and other early childhood

stakeholders AND parents and caregivers with young childrenon how to strengthen Colorado’s early childhood care and education system.

To gather this input, the Colorado Health Institute is holding a series of community conversations statewide.

These conversations are part of the 

Colorado Shines Brighter Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five. The Preschool Development

Grant’s goal is to ensure all Colorado children are ready for school when entering kindergarten. 

The stakeholders, parents and families you serve and engage with are valuable participants in these

discussions to inform how we can achieve this goal.

Would you be willing to help us identify people who may like to participate? If so, thank you! Please

distribute the enclosed flyer and email text that is pasted below to spread the word.

First, a few details:

• Participants will receive a $30 Amazon gift card. Food and child care will be provided. Some discussions will be available in Spanish. See enclosed for details.
• At the meetings, we will discuss what’s working in your community’s early childhood system and what the greatest needs are.
• Professionals providing services to families of children birth to age five (such as child care providers, home visitors, and other support service providers) and other early childhood stakeholders are also encouraged to provide input! We are holding separate discussions for these groups. Please contact Nina Bastian for more information on ways to provide input at BastianN@coloradohealthinstitute.org.
• Stakeholders focus group informational flyer
• Early childhood professionals and stakeholders can RSVP using this link: http://colo.health/earlychildhood
• Parents and families are also encouraged to provide input! We are holding separate discussions for these groups. Please contact Nina Bastian for more information on ways to provide input at BastianN@coloradohealthinstitute.org.
• Family focus group informational flyer
• Parents and caregivers can RSVP using this link: http://colo.health/earlychildhood

We are especially interested in hearing from special populations of parents and families, including families experiencing homelessness, migrant, refugee, and monolingual groups where English is a second language. Does your organization convene a group of these parents that we should engage with? Let us know.

Stay tuned! More opportunities are coming in August and September 2019 to provide input and strengthen

the early childhood care and education system in Colorado.

Questions? Please contact Nina Bastian at BastianN@coloradohealthinstitute.org.

Thank you in advance!

Alex, Nina, and the Colorado Shines Brighter Team