Workforce Solutions launches new child education initiative

Workforce Solutions East Texas recently launched its new initiative “Get Parents Involved” in East Texas for Texas Rising Star child care centers.

The goal of offering items and materials is to motivate parents toward stronger interactions with their child in hopes these interactions will become a habit. Staff made the first phase of deliveries June 15 of 1,140 activity sets with information and materials to give to parents to take home and use with their children. Parents are encouraged to take a photo of the activity taking place and bring the photo or activity creations back to the center for display on a board captioned, “See What We Did Together.”

A total of 56 centers are currently signed up for the initiative. Participating centers must be in the Texas Rising Star program, which is a voluntary, quality-based child care rating system of child care providers participating in the Texas Workforce Commission’s (TWC) subsidized child care program.

“Parental involvement is imperative in early childhood education,” said Doug Shryock, Executive Director of the Workforce Solutions East Texas Board staff. “Numerous studies indicate young children with parental involvement are better prepared for school. This is an emphasis area of the Texas Rising Star program, so we are excited to bring this new initiative to East Texas families.”

The new “Get Parents Involved” initiative is scheduled to continue deliveries to the participating child care centers every other month through June 2019. Each delivery phase will alternate in providing parent/child activities geared towards child care center class groups of infant/ toddlers, 2 to 3-year olds and 4 to 5-year olds. This month’s activity was themed “nature” and provided for the 4 to 5-year-old classes. The activity encouraged parents to take a walk with their child and collect items from nature and included a coloring activity.

Workforce Solutions East Texas was recognized for exemplary performance in Texas Rising Star initiatives by TWC in December and awarded $75,000. The activity sets, display boards and materials for the “Get Parents Involved” initiative will be purchased with the award funds.