House Community Budget Issue Requests - Tracking Id #1383 Family Center of Nova Southeastern University
Requester:	Marilyn Segal, Ph. D		Organization:		Family Center of Nova Southeastern University
Project Title:	Family Center of Nova Southeastern University		Date Submitted:		01/25/2000 4:09:01 PM
District Member:	Ron Greenstein		Service Area:		Statewide
Counties Affected:	Broward
Recipient:	Nova Southeastern University Family Center		Contact:		Marilyn Segal
	3301 College Avenue		Contact Phone:		(954) 262-6925
	Fort Lauderdale 33314
Project Description:
The Family Center of Nova Southeastern University operates a range of programs designed to foster the development of young children and enhance the ability of parents and child care personnel to provide young children with growth-promoting experiences. The Family Center has earned a national reputation for its unique university-based progrmas that combine direct services to children and families with excellent child development training programs. The Family Center has implemented parent-child programs, family support programs, and therapeutic programs focusing on children birth to five years old. It operates a model preschool for approximately 270 children, and through its parent-child program it reaches over 1,000 families a week. Participants in Family Center academic programs include childcare directors, caregivers, service providers and NSU students enrolled in early Childhood courses. While programs offered by the Family Center have been extremely successful, efforts to increase the scope and efficacy of both our services to children and families and our training programs have been constrained by lack of appropriate space. Just as serious, the Family Center has been constrained in the development of new training programs that meet the growing needs of the community. In order to increase the Family Center's training capacity and provide additional direct services to families and children, the Family Center has launched a capital campaign. The capital campaign will allow us to build a Family Center village that will model the best practices and serve as a training resource. An outstanding addition to the village will be an Infant-Toddler Cottage. This cottage will accommodate fifty infants and toddlers including babies with special needs as well as typically developing children. In accordance with best practices described in the literature, the infant-toddler cottage will care for babies and toddlers in small groups of mixed ages and abilities. Each baby will have a primary caregiver who is responsible for her care and who communicates with his or her parents on a daily basis. The Infant Toddler cottage will be unique not only in the program it delivers but also in the design features of the cottage. The cottage will be arranged in five pods fanning out from a center core. The central core will be the living room of the cottage. It is a homey room where parents can spend time with their baby or connect with other parents over a cup of coffee. One-way observation windows allow parents or trainees to watch the infants and toddlers as they interact with their caregivers and with each other. The rooms will be designed with quiet sleeping areas, caregiving areas, intimate spaces that encourage one-on-one interactions, and active play areas. Patios adjoin each classroom and lead out to the playground. These patios will provide excellent spaces for creative and messy play. In addition to providing a model center for serving typical and at-risk infants and toddlers, the cottage will serve as a demonstration and training site for professionals, paraprofessionals and students working in the early childhood field. Training will be enhanced by the use of rotating video cameras that allow trainees to access the program in "real time". It will also provide the capacity to record specific classroom activities or events that can be replayed in off-hour or in distance education classes. Classrooms for trainees will be held in one of the main houses where students will have access to computers, video cameras, VCR's, Internet, and other interactive technologies.
Services Provided/Benefit to State:
The Legislature and both Governors selected Readiness for School in 1999 as a prime concern of Florida. The recognition that early experiences have a profound effect on a child's ability to be successful in school awakened the state to the importance of focusing on early education. While the initial focus was on the quality and accessibility of preschool education, new brain research and expert testimony turned the spotlight on the infant toddler years. The brain research described the first year of life as the time when the brain was developing at its most rapid rate and when critical connections, responsible for emotional and intellectual development, were being formed in the brain. Legislators in both the House and the Senate recognized that Florida would need an efficient way of developing an infrastructure that would provide teachers and trainers throughout the State with a way of increasing and updating their knowledge of best practices with infants and toddlers. Several legislators conceived the idea of naming public or private colleges in different parts of the State as Institutions of Excellence. An Institution of Excellence would be knowledgeable about the latest research on brain development and would have expertise on the course of infant toddler development. At the same time, they would operate model infant toddler onsite programs that would demonstrate best practices in action. They would have the capacity to educate trainers of trainers who could, in turn, train frontline workers in infant-toddler centers, family childcare homes and home visit programs. The Institution of Excellence bills were held up in committee in 1999 but will be reintroduced this year. This legislation is likely to pass, but whether or not it does, it sends a clear message to community colleges, four-year colleges and universities with early childhood programs that they must pay serious attention to preparing students in infant toddler development. The Family Center is seeking funds to complete its on-site infant-toddler village. The addition of an infant-toddler childcare setting will place NSU in a prime position to be named an Institution of Excellence in Infant and Toddler Development. Whether or not the Institutions of Excellence legislation passes, the addition of a comprehensive Infant-toddler child care and training program will dramatically increase the number of professionals who can become trainers of infant and toddler personnel in Broward and throughout the State of Florida. It will also provide a setting where we can conduct ongoing research to demonstrate the benefits of an early intervention program that combines intervention with a strong family support component. By training trainers in Infant-Toddler development and by demonstrating the preventive power of a family centered infant-toddler model program, the Family Center could help the State upgrade its infant-toddler programs and demonstrate its true concern with creating a new generation that enters school ready and eager to learn.
Measurable Outcome Anticipated:
The Infant Toddler Cottage will be completed and will be visited by over 200 Early Childhood professionals by 2001. A Train the Trainer Course Outline will be completed and ready for dissemination by 2001. At least 100 early childhood trainers will complete an intenstive NSU course in Brain Development and Best Practices for Infants and Toddlers by 2002. 85% of students who took the NSU course will be honored with at least a B average. 50% of the course participants will teach an Infant Toddler development course in a community college or other Institution by 2002. A minimum of 20 spaces in the Infant-Toddler program will be set aside for children who are identified as developmentally at-risk. At least 50% of the infants labeled at risk will be able to function in a regular class when they reach school age.
Amount requested from the State for this project this year:				$1,000,000
Total cost of the project:		$6,500,000

Request has been made to fund:			Construction
Is there Local Government or Private match for this request?					Yes
	Cash Amount:	$1,000,000
Was this project previously funded by the State?					No
Is future-year funding likely to be requested?					Yes
	Amount:	$400,000
	Purpose for future year funding:			Recurring Operations
	Will this be an annual request?				Yes
Was this project included in an Agency's Budget Request?					No
Was this project included in the Governor's Recommended Budget?					No
Is there a documented need for this project?					Yes
	Documentation:	Minutes of the Starting Points meeting of State and private partners
Was this project request heard before a publicly noticed meeting of a body of elected officials (municipal, county, or state)?					Yes
	Hearing Body:	Broward County Legislative Delegation
	Meeting Date:	01/14/2000