Children, Youth & Families

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is the “It” topic today in education and youth development. SEL programming helps children to feel and show empathy, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions. It makes a lot of sense. A strong emotional base sets the stage for learning and positive development. There are a variety of ways teachers […]

Please join us at our next information session to learn more about our Children, Youth & Families Capacity Building Grant Program. Staff will be on hand to describe the program goals and application process, and to answer your questions. The Info Session will be held on Thursday, June 21, 2018 from 9:30 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. at the Grange […]

Mentoring — whether formal or informal — is a powerful tool to keep young people on the right track, particularly kids who are disconnected from their community. Highlights and insights from the 2015 report The Mentoring Effect: Young People’s Perspectives on the Outcomes and Availability of Mentoring, are worth repeating. Youth with mentors are more likely […]

MetroWest Funders and others: Please join us for a follow up conversation with Steve Pratt from Impact Catalysts (formerly with Root Cause) on poverty in the suburbs. While still invisible to many, poverty in suburban communities is on the rise, including our communities in MetroWest. Steve will share findings from his most recent work based in the Greater Washington […]

Early Learners How investing in Preschool Beats the Stock Market, Hands Down. Nobel laureate James Heckman, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development, makes a strong argument to support early education programs in his paper, The Life-Cycle Benefits of an Influential Early Childhood Program. 11 […]

Nine million kids in America are growing up without an answer to this question. They make everyday choices that lead up to life’s big decisions without enough guidance and support – the kind most of us count on. Every kid should have someone to turn to, a caring adult who provides a consistent, supportive and […]

We recently came across this great 2006 Ted Talk by creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson. As Robinson describes it, we begin life full of creative potential, then we are “educated out” of our creative capacity. Much of this happens in school where the emphasis on being right limits our ability to think outside the box. […]

We’re big proponents of early learning…getting those young brain cells fired up even before children are walking or talking. The more inspired young minds are, the more their cognitive potential increases. That’s why reading to young children is so important and why we were happy to support the thinking behind the United Way of Tri-County’s […]