Summit Held to Address the Needs of Early Childhood

Feb 24, 2004 12:14 AM EST

Port Huron, MI -- Various faith-based organizations, community business leaders, and educators are holding a summit and a parent expo on March 29, in support of raising the awareness of parents about early-childhood education. At the summit experts and parents are encouraged to exchange ideas freely about how to help their children.

Mike McCartan, executive director of St. Cliar County Community Mental Health, expressed his excitement about the event.

"I hope it's an opportunity for the community to affirm that early childhood intervention is worth focusing on," he said.

Marcy Crandall, a mother of two children, expects to attend the event in the hope of gaining new information. "Anything I get out of it will be something I didn't know before," she said.

The summit and the parent expo will play the role as a continuing program of the Discovery Years, which ended in last June because the state cut off funding. Discovery Years program helped about 3,000 area families prepare their preschool-age children for kindergarten.

The ideas generated at the event will help local agencies to address the needs of early-childhood and find ways to meet those needs.