Welcome to the first edition of In-Site@freetogrow.org. Look for the e-newsletter of Free To Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-Free Communities (FTG) to appear periodically in your e-mail box.
In-Site@freetogrow.org highlights approaches that researchers have found to be effective at strengthening two significant influences in every child's life, their families and communities. Each issue will focus on a topic that supports the overall Free To Grow approach. Features will include tactics related to that issue's theme; an interview with an expert, and a list of resources, such as books, periodicals and websites, to guide you to additional information. We also will spotlight upcoming conferences and funding opportunities that we think will be of interest to you. What is the Free To Grow approach? To identify the best ideas and practices in the field of prevention in general, and substance abuse and child abuse prevention in particular, and apply them to the crucial early years. Unlike many early childhood prevention programs, Free To Grow is not a curricular intervention. Instead, FTG focuses on the young child's overall environment, not the child. How does Free To Grow accomplish this? Free To Grow partners with Head Start programs to engage parents, residents and community organizations, including schools and police departments, in strategies to support healthy families and neighborhoods. Family-focused strategies range from enhancing Head Start's ability to identify families' strengths and needs to partnering to provide counseling, parent education and leadership training to Head Start and non-Head Start families alike.
On the community side, Free To Grow seeks to enhance the way residents and community leadership work together to create sustainable solutions to reducing alcohol and drug abuse and the crime and violence often associated with it. These efforts may include broad-based partnerships to reduce neighborhood deterioration, as well as alliances with municipal officials to pass laws to support the program's prevention goals. In this edition, we look at policing strategies that enhance the Free To Grow approach. Why Is Policing Important to the Free To Grow Approach? - Law enforcement personnel are often the first to respond to calls that deal with family matters, such as domestic violence, child abuse and substance abuse. Therefore, it is important that police are trusted and familiar figures in the neighborhoods in which they work, and that they are able to guide families to appropriate services, when necessary.
- Increased contact between police and residents makes for better relations between police and the communities in which they work.
- Neighborhoods become safer when police and residents cooperate to reduce crime.
While some communities may find it challenging to partner with law enforcement, communities across the country have worked successfully with police departments to make their neighborhoods safer--allowing children to be free to grow in healthy, nurturing and supportive environments. |