Welcome to the January-February issue of Provplan’s e-newsletter. Once again, we have good news to report with two grant awards from the Rhode Island Foundation – for Building Futures and Ready to Learn Providence. We are very grateful to the Foundation for this vote of confidence and we look forward to exciting new work by both programs this year. In addition, be sure to read the profile of the Mt. Hope Learning Center, which is stronger than ever thanks in part to a capacity-building investment through New Roots. Finally, there are two stories highlighting the good work of our information staff – the Fact of the Month on Physician Mapping and our work with Brown University and its participation in the National Children’s Study, a major new federal initiative. As always, our good work is a reflection of the strength of our many community partners, without whom we can not succeed.

Thanks,
Pat McGuigan, Executive Director
pmcguigan@provplan.org

RI Foundation grant helps R2LP meet a growing need among Latino providers
Some 77 percent of all family-care providers in Providence are Latino, many of them serving low-income children in linguistically isolated neighborhoods. But while the percentage of Spanish-speaking providers has been growing steadily over the past decade, the professional development opportunities available to them have not kept pace.

Mind in the Making graduates.

Ready to Learn Providence, a program of The Providence Plan, has long sought to fill this growing need. Since 2004, it has offered Spanish-speaking sessions of its popular HeadsUp! Reading, a course on early-literacy skills. R2LP was also one of the first in the country to offer Spanish-speaking sessions of Mind in the Making, a program that focuses on the social and emotional development of young children. And in the next few weeks, R2LP is launching its 15-week course on early-literacy curriculum, with three of nine sections offered in Spanish. All three courses are eligible for college credit through the Community College of Rhode Island. [more on R2LP Grant...]

ProvPlan assists Brown in nation’s largest long-term study in children’s health 
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development announced this fall that Brown University will be one of 22 new study centers taking part in the National Children’s Study, the largest long-term study of children’s health and development ever conducted in the United States. Brown and its lead partner in this project, Women & Infants Hospital, were awarded a five-year, $14.1 million contract to join this study.

With its warehouse of data and its sophisticated mapping capabilities, The Providence Plan played a valuable role in securing this highly competitive award. ProvPlan not only supplied Brown with an abundance of demographic data at the neighborhood level, but also produced maps illustrating birth rates in Providence County, a task that many groups would need months to accomplish.

“Brown’s ties with the Department of Health and local organizations that can turn state data into a meaningful characterization of the real world of families in Providence County proved very compelling in the application process,” notes Principal Investigator Stephen L. Buka, a professor in the Department of Community Health at Brown and the director of the Center for Population Health and Clinical Epidemiology. [more on Brown Study ...]


Partner Profile
This month we take a look at the Mount Hope Learning Center, a New Roots Providence grantee.

Capacity building pays off for the Mt. Hope Learning Center
Just a decade ago, a small band of residents in Providence’s Mt. Hope neighborhood teamed up with several community police officers to open the Mt. Hope Learning Center in a tiny Camp Street storefront. Seeking to create a safe, accessible and nurturing place where residents could learn valuable skills, these volunteers started by providing after-school classes and tutoring for children in the area.

By 2005, this young initiative had grown significantly. With help from its founder, Lenny Long, it now had its own building – a large Federal-style house on Cypress Street in the heart of the neighborhood. It had received a $250,000 21st Century Community Learning grant through the R.I. Department of Education to run an after-school program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. And, for the first time, it could afford a small professional staff.

“Things were going well,” says Ann-Marie Reddy, the executive director hired that year. “Our program growth continued; we were offering programs in everything from ESL to cooking to residents of all ages at our Cypress Street location. But the way the Learning Center was structured, it was clear we couldn’t sustain this growth.”

Students learn yoga basics with Hannah Resseger (program director) on the upper deck at the Learning Center.

A highly committed board of directors that once numbered 15 was down to three members by the time Ann-Marie came on board. Those who resigned believed that their involvement was no longer so critical now that the Center had a full-time staff. In fact, notes Ann-Marie, “we needed a board at that point more than ever.” In 2006, Ann-Marie turned to New Roots Providence for assistance. [more on Learning Center...]

With grant money, Building Futures seeks to broaden its scope
With a $60,000 grant from The Rhode Island Foundation, Building Futures is set to move forward with the development and promotion of a campaign aimed at creating additional opportunities in the construction industry for unemployed and underemployed urban residents.

Building Futures, an initiative in which ProvPlan is a core partner, got under way last spring with a pilot program recruiting and evaluating candidates for building trade apprenticeships and providing them with the support they need to secure a placement. It expects to place 30 Providence residents in these coveted apprenticeships by the end of its first year.

Equally important, however, are its efforts to make systemic change in the industry – change that would diversify and replenish an aging workforce. This change will not only provide skilled workers for the state’s contractors and unions, but will also give low-income urban residents access to rewarding and secure careers. [more on Building Futures Grant ...]

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R2LP Grant , cont.
To continue these and other efforts, R2LP has received $35,000 from the Rhode Island Foundation. These funds will help support not only the Spanish-speaking academic courses offered at R2LP, but also the operations of an R2LP club called El Club de Proveedoras Infantil de RI (The Children’s Provider Club of Rhode Island). Many of the Spanish-speaking providers who participate in this club, all graduates of HeadsUp! Reading, are emerging as leaders in the early-care and education community.

Since 2004, more than 400 providers have participated in one or more of the college-level courses offered through R2LP in Spanish.

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Brown Study, cont.
The National Children’s Study centers will enroll a representative sample of 100,000 infants and follow them from before birth to age 21. In Rhode Island, investigators will interview a random sample of more than 10,000 households and enroll 1,000 children in Providence County. By examining the effects of environmental influences on the health and well-being of these children, researchers hope to identify the root causes of diseases such as asthma, autism and diabetes, as well as gain a better understanding of injuries, birth defects, and learning and behavioral disorders.

Findings will provide the basis for new prevention strategies, health and safety guidelines, and potential treatments and cures for disease.

With ProvPlan’s track record in using data to identify and address unmet needs, Dr. Buka expects the organization to play an important role in this 25-year study. “We want this project to give back to the people of Providence,” he says. “Our partnership with organizations like The Providence Plan will maximize the likelihood that this data will translate into programs and policies that will be of real benefit to the community.”

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Learning Center , cont.
As one of the first organizations to receive a New Roots’ Capacity Building Grant, the Center went through a rigorous assessment that identified board development and fundraising as top priorities. With the grant money, the Center hired a consultant to help it tackle these challenges.

Today the Center’s board has 11 members, all of them bringing different skills, perspectives and backgrounds to their work. “It’s a very different board from the one in place when I first came,” says Ann-Marie.

And working with the consultant, the Center now has a full development plan in place, one that includes donor software to track and maintain data, an acknowledgement and follow-up plan, and well-defined strategies and goals for fundraising events. Having a sounder structure helped the Learning Center receive funding through the R.I. Service Alliance for a vibrant AmeriCorps program, which includes six full-time and two part-time members.

“In 2005,” Ann-Marie recalls, “we had an operating budget of under $250,000. In 2008, we’re looking at an operating budget of $600,000, and our programs have grown dramatically.” Equally important, she says, New Roots training has helped her work more collaboratively with other organizations in the area.

The Learning Center’s 21st Century program now serves some 100 elementary school children daily and has been cited as a “model program” in the grant’s Continuous Improvement Process. In partnership with the Providence After School Alliance – and in collaboration with multiple organizations in the area – the Center has launched a successful after-school program for middle school children.

Thanks to a $10,000 donation from GTECH Corporation, the Learning Center has set up an impressive computer lab in its busy Cypress Street home, a building that is bustling day and night with youngsters and adults learning new skills.

Says Ann-Marie: “The past two years have been an exciting period of growth for us and New Roots played a very large role in all of it.”

To learn more about the Mt. Hope Learning Center’s activities and volunteer opportunities, go to www.mthopelearningcenter.org. New Roots Providence is about to embark on a significant expansion of its grants, training and technical assistance programs. To find out more, go to www.newrootsprovidence.org.

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Building Futures Grant, cont.
“What we’re seeing here is a point in time where the current construction workforce is retiring and there’s a vacuum in an industry that’s growing,” Building Futures Director Andrew Cortes recently noted. “Why not take this opportunity to build the bridges, the connection, and the support needed to reach where unions, apprenticeship programs and contractors have always wanted to go but have not known how.”

Working with the City of Providence, Building Futures has already taken steps at the city level toward raising awareness on the long-term benefits of using apprentices to ensure a well-trained workforce in the future. The City now has a requirement that 15 percent of the workforce on all school construction must be apprentices who live in Providence, creating an incentive for contractors to work with Building Futures and support its mission.

Thanks in part to the Rhode Island Foundation grant, Andrew will be able to devote considerable time this year to continuing this policy development work and extending it to the state level. By the end of the year, he and his board hope to formulate a state strategy that they plan to introduce and promote during the 2009 legislative cycle. Goals for this legislation would be similar to those pursued in Providence, with a focus on increasing the number of apprenticeship slots set aside for certain types of state-financed construction.

Funds from the grant are also earmarked for a web site that will inform prospective applicants about Building Futures and provide policymakers with the materials needed to advance its agenda. The site will be designed to support video testimonials.

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