Success By 6: Early Childhood Council is dedicated to ensuring that all area children get the best possible start in life, with the support of their families and the whole community. Council members and partners have undertaken a number of community initiatives and built support to improve school readiness, quality child care, early literacy, and supports for families. Our United Way invests in quality programs that have great local success stories! Success By 6 also has undertaken a number of special initiatives with many partners in Mid Coast Maine.

Success By 6: Early Childhood Council is working toward four of United Way's Community Goals.

• All children enter school ready to learn and succeed.
• The community supports healthy parenting skills.
• Children are read to from birth.
• There is high-quality, affordable, and accessible child care and early education.




Positive Results - Our funded partners report these results!


• 602 children were served in high quality child care, preschools, and before/after school programs.
• Two of the child care programs are nationally accredited (a high standard of quality), and the Head
• Start Center is a Program of Excellence, the highest designation of quality within the Head Start system.
• All funded child cares now use the Creative Curriculum, a research-based curriculum that teaches and tracks children's progress in eight early skill areas.
• 97% of surveyed parents participating in parent support groups, workshops, and intensive home visits reported increased parenting knowledge and confidence, an important deterrence to incidences of child abuse and neglect.
• 183 children experienced having a parent or other caregiver attend an early literacy session in their classroom, and approximately half of those attending have started or expanded their reading aloud activities in the home due to these sessions.

Improving Quality Early Care
and Education in Mid Coast Maine
Success By 6 is a partner with our regional child care coalition Coastal ACCESS that has received three federal Early Learning Opportunities Act (ELOA) grants from the Child Care Bureau, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. These grants brought $2.3 million over six years to support quality child care, early literacy, and children with special needs. Coastal ACCESS is one of only four coalitions nationwide to have received three of these important collaborative grants! And we have published a new report Six Years of Improvements in Quality Early Care and Education in Mid Coast Maine that highlights our ELOA results!

Early Literacy Initiatives
As part of our focus on early literacy, Success By 6 sponsors our annual Community Read Aloud and our Volunteer Reader Network. National research shows that the earliest years are critical for developing early literacy skills, meaning pre-reading (there is not the expectation that a child can read by age 6, but a child begins, right from birth, to learn important skills so he or she will learn to read!) In a compendium of early care research titled From Neurons to Neighborhoods, the researchers conclude, "Of particular significance is evidence showing that wide individual differences at school entry in vocabulary and other early literacy skills are seldom reduced as children move through school, and they can be exacerbated." A local Kindergarten teacher responded in our Success By 6 Report of the 2002 School Readiness Survey, "Literacy - being read to at ALL ages is the single most important factor that affects school readiness."

Born Learning Campaign
Success By 6 at United Way also is currently participating in Born Learning, a national public engagement campaign in partnership with the Ad Council and Civitas that helps parents, caregivers and communities create quality early learning opportunities for young children.

For more information on Success By 6 and our activities, please contact us at success@uwmcm.org or 207-442-7440 for more information!