Weekly Digest: June 26, 2008

Happy 4th of July

Due to technical difficulties, last week's digest message was not delivered.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

In observance of the 4th of July holiday, you will not receive a message next week, either.  We will return to our normal schedule on July 10th.  Have a wonderful 4th of July!

Save the Date for the 2008 Stone Soup Conference

The 2008 Stone Soup Conference will be held on Tuesday October 21, 2008 from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm.  This year's theme is Soup for All: Hungry for Action. 

Frank Luntz, pollster, political commentator and author of Words that Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear will be presenting “Building Community Voice in Connecticut” in the morning.  In the afternoon, Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan and the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisor Janice Gruendel will give an update on Early Childhood Education Cabinet activities and an overview of policy developments at the state level.

For more details or to tell others about this conference, download a Save the Date flyer from the Discovery website homepage at discovery.wcgmf.org/.

July Discovery Peer-to-Peer Conference Call

A Peer-to-Peer Learning and Technical Assistance Conference Call, facilitated by The Center for the Study of Social Policy, will take place on July 16, 2008 from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m. This is an opportunity to discuss community planning and decision-making with your Discovery Community peers.

Discussion will focus on a topic that participants identify as important.  So, please send your suggestions for topics to discuss to vanessa.scott@cssp.org by July 1st.

For example, the June call focused on No-Cost and Low-Cost Data Collection Strategies. Topics for discussion might be related to:

• community planning and decision making issues or strategies that you’d like to explore or learn more about,
• other communities’ experiences addressing challenges that your community planning team is encountering, or
• areas where you are making progress as you develop your plans or successes that you’d like to share with others.

Please be as detailed as possible when you identify and describe the topics you’d like to discuss. An agenda for the call, based on the topics you suggest, will be sent to the primary community contact two weeks prior to the call, along with registration and call-in instructions. 

Community Spotlight: The East Harford Book of Data

In the spring of 2006, East Hartford ChildPlan, Inc. initiated a strategic planning process.  As a result of that process ChildPlan made it a priority to start collecting data about the East Hartford community in a more consistent manner and put it into a format that could be used by ChildPlan members and by the community at large.

As part of this effort, ChildPlan recently released The East Harford Book of Data, which is focused on three primary areas:
(1) Understanding basic indicators of East Hartford well-being, in terms of demographic, socio-economic, education, and health indicators.
(2) Establishing an inventory of existing before-school, after-school, and vacation programs that exist in East Hartford to identify where particular gaps in services may exist.
(3) Establishing an inventory of the facilities in East Hartford that are available for use by members of the community.

This tool was discussed at the June Peer-to-Peer Conference Call and several communities requested a copy.

To download copies of The East Hartford Book of Data: About Our Children and Families, visit the East Hartford page of the Discovery website at http://www.discovery.wcgmf.org/community.php?community_id=1007 and scroll to the bottom of the page.