2009 has been an exciting year for FCI as regional and national partnerships have been forged or strengthened to meet the needs of children, families, and professionals who work with young children.

Recently, FCI has been building bridges with Greater Pittsburgh-based organizations such as the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development, Beginning with Books, and Intermediate Unit 1, as well as with national programs through the U.S. Department of Education, Harvard School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital Boston. These organizations are important partners in developing new FCI projects and breathing new life into existing programs.

With Intermediate Unit 1, for example, we are staging several professional development workshops on managing challenging behaviors as well as supporting children who have witnessed violence. With the University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development, we are creating Something Worth Trying, an initiative aimed at helping teachers and parents turn everyday experiences in the classroom and at home into teachable moments about effort, perseverance, and resiliency. This project is based on research that shows that children’s achievement depends much more on effort than innate ability. With this understanding, children are apt to keep trying in the face of challenges and setbacks, learn more, and take greater pride in themselves. Also with the Office of Child Development, we are working to scale up the Ready Freddy kindergarten readiness and parent involvement program, which has been successfully piloted in two low-income Pittsburgh communities.

We'll keep you posted about these and other developments in future issues of Neighborhood News.