(JoAnn) I wouldn't say that any group or agency is more important than others. I think that's one of the strengths of this particular organization is the broad base and the representation that we have, from the fact that we have the County Human Services folks on board, the schools, the families themselves, legislators, the medical field has been very supportive...early childhood professionals, the University of Wisconsin Extension, the library, the list goes on and on. It's almost easier to say who isn't, in some way, involved... (Mary Jo) And yet, if we do identify them, they WILL be involved...

(Mary Jo) I think that's what's so cool about this--the connections. We can always make connections about how we can help each other. The initial partners, as JoAnn said, was childcare, then the school districts, then the hospital, they came, and then the Department of Health and Human Services. When you think of that, ten years ago...a lot of our programs are based on what we call "Deficit Identification", meaning when there was a problem, then we stepped in. We said, "OK, you've got to do this and this, and we've got to create a program that will meet that need." What we were looking at through this collaboration is "How can we be pro-active, and preventative?" . That's what's so exciting.

So there's a place where they can come together and utilize the resources of several different entities. Plus, when we're working together, we're aware of the resources we all offer collectively, and that way too the Home Visitors/Parents As Teachers are aware of all the resources that are available for families and can really help them access those resources, because that can be a little confusing. So we can all work together.

My interest as a Children's Librarian is helping parents with their children. First of all, being able to have materials for parents, on any problem, any area they need help with, being able to find something that will help them and being able to put that in their hand is very, very important to me. That is first and foremost, as far as I'm concerned.

I am the Family Living Educator of Sheboygan County and UW Extension, so I'm really concerned with helping families in Sheboygan county develop to their fullest potential, to build family strengths. So when I worked with the county in '96, I worked with the Nutrition Education Program, and that partnership was important in terms of delivering program resources to families. I think that being part of the EFCC has really broadened all of our perspectives in terms of how to reach families, how to work together to reach families, and to really focus on particular needs in our community, to make sure that we're looking at things in an asset-based fashion, that all families have strengths. I think that it's really been an opportunity for me to reach families with my program, to work with the staff (I've also done inservices for the staff here) just in terms of how to deliver a program more effectively, to families with limited resources. I am very excited that funding has just been approved to hire home visitors with the Parents as Teachers program who speak Spanish and also speak Hmong. It's really critical, I think, in our community to reach those families as well.

The school districts were saying "How do we help families before they get to the schools to be school-ready, and parents to be advocates for their children, and understand what child development is all about? The partnerships--of course, childcare is taking care of those babies from the moment their born, through those five years of life before they go to school. It was an obvious connection, but the discussion had to take place in a public setting where people would say "Yeah, we could do that! We could work together!" It's so encouraging--what should be encouraging to other communities is that you get people who really have the same goal, which is (in our case, it's our mission now) to build strong families and strong communities. You can do anything.