SPARK Aurora Early Childhood Collaboration brings together City of Aurora leadership, community leaders, school districts, early childhood programs, and community agencies to work collaboratively to build an early childhood system that will ultimately improve outcomes for Aurora’s children. SPARK is a collaborative approach in which Aurora Early Childhood Stakeholders work jointly to improve and strengthen the early childhood system in Aurora by ensuring that:
1. Parents and the community are educated and informed about the importance and value of an early childhood education for all of our young children and the impact it has on children’s success in school and life.
2. The on-going improvement of the early childhood programs in the Aurora community are sustained through continued professional development of its teachers.
3. Early childhood coordinated system are created in which the school districts, community-based early childhood programs, and community agencies serving families and children all work as one unit to ensure that Aurora’ young children have the resources, knowledge and skills to be Strong, Prepared And Ready for Kindergarten.
-Trish Rooney, Director, SPARK Aurora Early Childhood Collaboration
The Elgin Partnership for Early Learning (EPEL) was formed in 2011 to engage the community in preparing young children to succeed in school and in life. EPEL collaborates with partners to ensure that children are supported in becoming ready for kindergarten. Our Purpose: Ensure a shared vision for young children in the Elgin community is clearly held, broadly disseminated, and acted upon. Support awareness and access for families to high-quality child development and early learning experiences. Coordinate efforts across all birth to five programs to increase impact and efficiency. Support quality improvement and capacity building of birth to five professionals and organizations. Our Message: We have adopted a straightforward message to share with parents and caregivers. Using these five simple practices Talk, Play, Read, Do, Write from birth will help children during the critical period of early brain development.
-Amber Peters, Collaboration Director, Elgin Partnership for Early Learning
For Information on SPARK, visit: https://www.sparkaurora.org/
For Information on EPEL, visit: www.elginpartnership.org or call 844-KID-INFO for parenting support, resource and early childhood programs.
The AOK network is a community collaborative funded by the Illinois Department of Health & Human Services and administered through the Kane County Health Department. The AOK network works on systems change efforts in the early childhood system so that more children in Kane County are born healthy, stay healthy, and enter Kindergarten Ready to Learn. To learn more about the network and find early childhood events in the county, please visit: http://kanehealth.com/aok.htm.