By Laura Kroeger
NKyTribune staff writer
Northern Kentucky’s River Cities have strengthened one of the region’s most promising collaborations with the addition of Marshelle Watkins-Blackwell, the new EducateNKY Read Ready Director.
The focus on Bellevue, Covington, Dayton, Ludlow, Newport and Southgate is to bring together governments, schools, libraries, healthcare, businesses, community agencies and families to support reading readiness by kindergarten. The unified effort is potentially transformational.
“I just really cemented myself in the River Cities,” explains Marshelle. “While I’m originally from Louisville, I came to attend Northern Kentucky University and made my life here. My entire career has been in these cities supporting families. Now I see generations coming up to me and they’ll yell, ‘hey Miss Blackwell,’ and I don’t recognize some of them because they are now in college or have started families.
“So those relationships are key to this initiative. This is really a movement. It’s about brain health starting at the prenatal stage because that’s when the brain starts developing. We’re here to support healthy brains and healthy communities.”
Marshelle began July 1 but you’d never know it. She is already ingrained in the community due to her past positions: working at the Kenton County Library, Latonia and John G. Carlisle elementary schools, and at Newport Intermediate School as the family resource and youth service center coordinator. Marshelle has shaken more hands and hugged more babies than a seasoned politician.
“I’ve been really taking a deep dive into the landscape of the River Cities,” says Marshelle. “When I meet pregnant moms I just really let them know that being read ready is more of an asset. A lot of times that institutional mistrust comes because parents often feel like they’re being audited. So I really try to connect and build these relationships with parents and let them know we’re here to support them.
“I tell them we have the resources and tools to check for wherever your baby’s brain is right now. We do things like the ASQ. That’s really a milestone marker. I think of it like a kind of checkpoint just like how women go to the doctor to check on their baby’s progress in utero. And if the ASQ is not on track (I use that word kind of loosely) and their brain is developing differently, then there are some early interventions we can do.”
An ASQ screening is the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, a trusted tool used by parents and physicians to check a child’s development from birth to age six. It spots early signs of delay in communication, motor skills, problem solving and social abilities.
Jenny Watson, Ed.D., affectionately known as Dr. Jenny, is EducateNKY’s vice president of early learning and family power, dedicated to ensuring that all the many key advocates of the Read Ready Network in the River Cities continue to be engaged with the massive initiative. She works closely with Marshelle.
Dr. Jenny laments that, “unfortunately, year after year, you see kindergartners come through the doors who have not had any proper early intervention and you ask yourself the question, ‘how did we miss these kids? Where were these kids?’ So that’s the driver of this child-find strategy. We want to go into the shadows to find the kids that we would not necessarily see until day one of kindergarten.”
Now is the time for revolutionary change.
“The secret sauce is the collective impact model that is city-led,” explains Dr. Jenny. “Six municipalities have signed resolutions saying that they are going to raise their hands and lead in the space that’s the gap often in early learning. Their six school districts also passed resolutions saying they are going to partner in that very same effort. It all initiates the place-based approach with committees that I chair or in some instances they are leading themselves and I’m helping in the background with agendas. The committees meet monthly. We brainstorm. As a grassroots effort we all ask, ‘what do we need to do to improve kindergarten readiness in that local community. Sometimes it’s big ideas. Sometimes it’s literally standing in a corner on a Saturday morning in a laundromat to find the kids.
“Every month we keep a scoreboard of how many one-year-olds we found. Two year olds. Three year olds. Four year olds. Because we know by census data what we should have. That was all of the work these past 12 months—getting the infrastructure of that model built.
“I don’t have the relationships with the parents in the River Cities. But Marshelle does. So do the committee members. If you are a mom in crisis, you don’t need some Dr. Jenny telling you what to do. You need a friend you know. So that’s the purpose of these committees and Marshelle; serving in a peer-to-peer effort to increase and amplify our voice and be there.”
The committees are composed of one or two elected officials, school superintendents, business owners, parents, early childhood decision makers, often a teacher and others who have input on the Read Ready initiative.
St. Elizabeth Healthcare runs the Kentucky Early Intervention Services (KEYS). The organization also helps sign up newborns for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library books.
Read Ready has access to a team of home visitation volunteers, developmental and speech interventionists, and occupational and physical therapists for screening diagnostics. They often refer families to the Brighton Center’s HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) program. It is a free, home-based early childhood education initiative serving families with children ages 2 to 5 in Northern Kentucky. It equips parents with free books, supplies, and a structured play-based curriculum to prepare children for kindergarten success.
Meanwhile, Marshelle is canvassing childcare centers primarily in Covington and Newport. She hopes to put a network together of childcare center leadership and build trust.
“The childcare centers I have visited so far in Covington have been so gracious, so warm and so welcoming. They really love the idea of convening together with like-minded individuals. They are super excited about Read Ready. It’s like we’re steering in the same boat in the same direction.”
One of the keys to success is the governmental leadership investment of all six participating River Cities.
Jay Fossett, Dayton city manager, is quick to sum up why they are so ardently involved.
“The City of Dayton is committed to early learning and kindergarten readiness for our youngest citizens because we know that kids who start kindergarten with strong foundational skills tend to stay on a more robust academic path, graduate from high school, and become productive citizens.
“The city sees the Read Ready Dayton program as a long-term investment in our city’s future. We’re proud to work alongside EducateNKY, Dayton public schools, and our community partners to give Dayton children the strongest possible start in life and sturdy foundation for future success. Dayton promotes the Read Ready program through its social media platforms and by personal contact with parents of young children through their interactions with the city’s Code Enforcement Department, which inspects every residential rental dwelling in the city every two years, and the city’s first responders who respond to calls for assistance throughout the city,” Fossett says.
Whether it takes finding little ones in a laundromat or on an EMS call, the outstanding collaboration and commitment from so many entities in the River Cities positions the area to be a national model as it educates future leaders under its tagline:
Today A Reader. Tomorrow A Leader.
To learn more about the Read Ready program under the auspices of EducateNKY visit readreadyky.org