Recognizing the importance of early learning and development, the Atlanta Civic Site helped establish and innovative public-private partnership to support parents and young children in Atlanta's NPU-V neighborhoods. Drawing on generous support from the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Atlanta Public Schools, Atlanta Housing Authority, US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Georgia Department of Human Services, ACS has facilitated the renovation and expansion of Mechanicsville's Dunbar Elementary School to include the addition of the model Early Learning and Literacy Resource Center. The Center opened its doors on January 6, 2010.strong>

Staffed and managed by Sheltering Arms, one of the state's largest and most respected childcare providers, the new Early Learning and Literacy Resource Center provides year-round childcare to 193 children, from six weeks through four years of age. The Center also offers a neighborhood caregiver resource room and parent engagement and education programming.

Sharing a facility with the newly-renovated Dunbar Elementary School, the Center is a part of the first seamless, aligned, high quality learning complex for children, ages 0-10, in Atlanta. Plans are underway to design an early learning school transition program and implement a P-3 strategy in order to improve third grade reading proficiency.

The Center is a part of a two-generation strategy that is designed to simultaneously ensure that children are healthy and prepared for school and that parents are able to achieve family economic success. While children are receiving high quality, subsidized care at the Center, their parents, through a partnership with TCWFI, are receiving services to help them move along a pathway to family-supporting jobs, careers and homeownership.

By rigorously tracking outcomes related to school readiness and family economic success, the Atlanta Civic Site will be able to document and promote the Center's impact. The ambition of the Atlanta Civic Site is for this school-based childcare center created through a public-private partnership to be a model that can be implemented in all Title I schools in the APS system.

To learn more about the Early Learning and Literacy Resource Center, contact:

The Early Learning and Literacy Resource Center

404 Fulton Street, SW

Atlanta, GA 30312

404.582.9100 P

www.shelteringamrsforkids.com