Gubernatorial Forum Planned for October 3
Seating at CCSU’s Memorial Hall is limited so RSVP now. Find out where the candidates for governor stand on early childhood and family economic success issues. The event starts at 5:30 p.m. with light refreshments. The forum kicks off at 6 p.m. Each candidate will take questions for 30-45 minutes. Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie will moderate and there will be a panel of an early childhood leaders. Wear your "We Vote for Kids" t-shirts if you have them!
Let's Vote for Kids!
We Vote for Kids is the CT Early Childhood Alliance's non-partisan campaign to raise early childhood issues in the election. It has two components: candidate education and voter engagement. As a non-profit organization, the Alliance cannot endorse candidates. We are asking people to Pledge to Vote with kids in mind on November 6. We are also asking the candidates for governor down to state representatives where they stand on early childhood issues through a questionnaire that we will share with you, so you can make informed decisions.
It's not too late to sign up to host a voter registration drive on September 25 (National Voter Registration Day). Contact us ASAP if you would like materials (contact Merrill). We would love to use this day to engage as many people as we can around voting. We are particularly looking for people connected to child care centers to ask parents to take the pledge to vote on November 6 and make sure they are registered to vote at their current address.
Short videos like this (click the screenshot to see the video) are key to spreading the word through social media. We would love to share short videos of cute kids saying, "I'm too little to vote, but you can," or having adults talk about why it's so important to vote with children's issues in mind. Contact Jessica at [email protected] if you have video clips you can share. When sharing a video on Facebook or other social media, please include "Take the Pledge to vote at www.wevoteforkids.org," and use the hashtag #WeVoteForKids so we can find it and set your privacy setting on that particular video to "public" so we can share it, too.
Have you checked to see if your registration is up-to-date? Use the Secretary of State's tool to check to see if you are registered to vote.
You can register to vote online.
Infant Mental Health Updates
The new CT-AIMH website includes a new way to sign-up for and keep track of your own membership, as well as a way to renew your Endorsement®. It also has a new Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement®, which will be available in 2019, for those who work with children 3-6 years old, and their families. You can also find out more about and/or join one of CT-AIMH's committees. Check out the website at www.ct-aimh.org
Save the Date! The CT-AIMH 2018 Fall Conference will be held on Thursday, November 15, 2018, 8:30am-4pm at Woodwinds in Branford, CT. This year the keynote will be Eva Marie Shivers, JD, PhD, the Executive Director and Founder of the Indigo Cultural Center in Phoenix, AZ. She will help continue the conversation (from the CT-AIMH Spring meeting and symposium) about how to reflect on, talk about and take steps toward including cultural responsiveness, diversity and equity in CT-AIMH's work with infants, young children and families.
Congratulations AOK!
All Our Kin and the Center for Children's Advocacy have been selected as the inaugural winners of Fairfield County's Community Foundation Community Impact Awards. The award honors nonprofits that are working to close the opportunity gap in Fairfield County, guided by values of diversity, equity, inclusion, collaboration, and integrity. AOK will receive a $2,500 grant and a year of free trainings and workshops from FCCF’s Center for Nonprofit Excellence. They’ll also be honored at the November Light a Fire Awards ceremony and highlighted in special Moffly Media magazine coverage.
Support for the Alliance comes from of our members and our funders: The William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, Connecticut Health Foundation, Connecticut Community Foundation, Children's Fund of Connecticut, CT Early Childhood Funder Collaborative, a project of CT Council of Philanthropy; The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut; Community Foundation of Greater New Britain; and Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.