Seal of Dane County County of Dane
Translate
County Executive's Office

Dane County Receives Funding for Allied Drive Early Childhood Initiative

December 28, 2004
Topf Wells, 266-9069 Lynn Green, 242-6469
County Executive

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk today announced that the Dane County Department of Human Services will receive a Wisconsin Partnership Fund for a Healthy Future grant through the UW Medical School. The three year, $450,000 grant will enable the Dane County Human Services Department to work with the UW Medical School to improve the health of young children and their families in the Allied Drive neighborhood. Falk expressed her deep gratitude to the Medical School: “This is an incredible opportunity to build a long lasting partnership that will benefit children and parents in the Allied Drive area and provide a model to help families in similar situations across the state.” Dane County will receive $150,000 per year for three years in order to develop a comprehensive home visitation program to improve the health of young children and their families in the Allied Drive Community. The program will test a neighborhood-based, home visitation model specifically designed to address child and family needs in a high poverty area. Key to its work will be the formation of an early childhood team to bring together health, education, and human service organizations to better serve the young children and their families. The program will build on the initiative created by Falk and funded by Dane County and the Madison Community Foundation to create a pilot program of early home visitation and employment services for families with infants in the Allied Drive neighborhood. Roseanne Clark, Ph.D., the Director of the Parent, Infant and Early Childhood Clinic at the Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, is the academic partner supervising the mental health and evaluation component of the grant. Dr. Clark expressed “excitement to work together to provide an integrated state of the art support for families on an individualized basis.” Lynn Green, the Dane County Director of Human Services, says “we expect to learn from working with residents of Allied how to continually improve our work with families so that families with young children and in difficult circumstances, including but not limited to poverty, can thrive.” Falk also thanked the staff of the Human Services Department and Dr. Clark for their hard work in creating this proposal. Falk said: “Of the 131 applications for funding, only 13, including the application for Allied Drive, were successful. To win approval in the face of such tough competition means the program has to be well-planned and capable of producing significant, positive results.” Falk concluded: “This partnership will help improve on parent child relationships, children’s school readiness, and parents’ employment in the Allied neighborhood. It will help provide a solid foundation for families to improve their lives and reach their goals.” # # #
Back to Press Releases