Alignment Rockford is pleased to announce it has been awarded multi-year funding from the *Illinois Action for Children’s Community Parenting Support Saturation project. The organization was awarded $500,000 over the next three years to help prepare young children for kindergarten, and in turn, improve the outcomes for students, families, neighborhoods and the Rockford region.

According to the Illinois State Board of Education, only one in four young children in Illinois enters school ready for kindergarten. The Community Parenting Support Saturation project seeks to close this gap by significantly increasing community engagement with parents. As a result, Alignment Rockford will use the funds to accelerate its Ready to Learn movement in the Rockford region to give parents and caregivers the support and resources needed to improve kindergarten readiness of all young people.

“Illinois Action for Children is excited to partner with Alignment Rockford to deepen their early education efforts for families with young children,” said Choua Vue, V.P. of Community Impact for Illinois Action for Children. “The strength of their proposal, along with their clear and compelling statement of how Rockford families would benefit from the Community Parenting Support Saturation project, made Alignment Rockford stand out in this competitive process.”

“The funds and training we will receive from this grant will accelerate our Ready to Learn movement in the Rockford region, ensuring our youngest learners and citizens have the supports they need to thrive,” said Anisha Grimmett, executive director of Alignment Rockford. “We feel this starts with the caregivers and adults that young children encounter in life. With our focused, targeted saturation strategies, we hope to teach our entire community the key role they play in positively shaping a child’s life.”

The goals of the Community Parenting Support Saturation project include:

• Make available to all parents of young people a comprehensive array of interventions, activities, and supports that collectively address multiple levels of parenting needs and concerns
• Implement multiple and ongoing opportunities for parents with young children to strengthen their parenting skills to improve outcomes for their children in a saturated approach
• Identify and advocate for policies that support saturation or address family barriers to services
• Design and implement strategies using a human-centered design approach that involves parents of young children in a collective process to inform community issues and develop solutions

The Community Parenting Support Saturation Project is generously funded by the following philanthropic partners: Crown Family Philanthropies, J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation, Illinois Children’s Healthcare Foundation, Irving Harris Foundation, Robert R. McCormick Foundation, and Steans Family Foundation.

For more information about Alignment Rockford and the Community Parenting Support Saturation project, contact Executive Director Anisha Grimmett at Anisha@AlignmentRockford.com or 779-774-4389.

About IAFC

Illinois Action for Children is a state and national leader in the early care and education community. Our outreach and work with low-income, hard-to-reach families, has led us to ensure that early care and education, and other opportunities, are accessible to the children most in need.