2015 was another productive year at First 5 Contra Costa, as our funded programs continued to improve the lives of our county’s most vulnerable children and families. Take a look at some highlights accomplished by our funded programs in 2015:
Programs and activities funded by First 5 Contra Costa reached 5,100 children, 18,725 parents, and 1550 early care and education providers.
385 expecting and new parents received home visiting services, with 6,700 visits provided. We changed our home visiting model three years ago to provide more intensive and longer services. Since then, families are now getting more than twice the number of home visits and being served twice as long.
1900 families participated in First 5 Center classes and activities, with 400 different classes offered. After one year of participation, nearly all parents were reading to their children at least weekly and 36% more were reading to their children daily.
Parents taking Triple P parenting classes said the number and severity of their children’s problems decreased significantly upon completion of the class. Triple P classes are helping to ameliorate problems, particularly among families who at the beginning of class indicated the greatest need for support.
101 child care sites – with nearly 3,800 children enrolled – are participating in our Quality Rating & Improvement System. All sites have been rated at least once, and our years spent building quality child care are paying off. Most sites either met or exceeded quality standards.
More children are receiving developmental screening thanks to our Help Me Grow program. We’ve expanded screening services to 20 pediatric clinics and trained hundreds of providers to provide routine screening to young children. As a result, 1,244 children were screened by our funded programs. Nearly 25% of children needed further assessment for possible developmental delays and 22% needed careful monitoring in one or more developmental domain.
Nearly 75% of children participating in our developmental playgroups made improvements in their development at the end of the six-week group.
The three Regional Groups we sponsor advocated for improvements for some of Contra Costa County’s most unusable parks and playgrounds. The result: $1.6 million in city funding was allocated to improve parks in Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg and San Pablo. See the amazing before and after shots of Contra Loma Estates Park in Antioch to see the difference these parents are making in our community.
Since we implemented our Sugar Bites campaign two years ago, we’re seeing changes in family practices around sugary drink consumption. According to our annual family survey, more children are drinking water and fewer sugary drinks. In addition, our Sugar Bites tv ads had more than 100,000 views on YouTube. Watch it here!
