Scott County Empowerment Area History
Empowerment Areas were created by legislation in the spring of 1998. Communities were offered opportunities to create a community plan to make children more "school ready". Funds were available for communities with an approved community plan. With new legislation and the possibility of new funding, the community took on the challenge to become an Empowerment Area.
The Joint Central Committee (the Decat governing board) in May, 1998 directed staff to begin the process of moving Scott County into an Empowerment Area. This process was perceived as having three initial components: Application Process, Infrastructure Decision and Creation of a collaborative County-wide School Ready Plan.
Based on ten years of effective collaborative efforts among a variety of interest groups, invitations were issued in early June, 1998 to join together to evaluate current services for children ages 0-5 and to develop a system to better enable children to be school ready. A community-wide information meeting was held on June 12, 1998 to inform the community of the opportunity to become an Empowerment Area, the benefits of such a designation, and the long-range goals of the legislation. Fifty-two community people representing social services, child care and preschool providers, health services, emergency services, law enforcement, private and public funding, parents, education, business, religious groups, physicians, and substance abuse, city and county government, education and the general public attended the meeting. The group participants were invited to appoint themselves to either an Application Committee or an Infrastructure Committee.
The Application Committee was charged with addressing the issues in the Application Process. This Committee was broken down into six sub-committees. These sub-committees were established based on the areas listed in the Empowerment legislation and were designed to provide a forum for the assessment of 0-5 services in Scott County. The committees were: Child Development Services, Child Care, Brain Research and Implications for Caregivers, Assessment of Chemically Exposed Infants and Children, Parent Support and Education, and Health and Safety.
Six facilitators were chosen for their area of expertise, long standing leadership skills and proven commitment to community excellence to oversee the work of each committee. Committee chairpersons scheduled meetings throughout the summer and reported back to the School Ready Committee at six scheduled large meetings. Each of the committees were given the charge to identify the current level of services to Scott County children ages 0-5, to identify the ideal level of services thus identifying the gaps. Gaps in services were presented to the large group. The collective reports became the Scott County School Ready Plan. More than 522 persons/hours went into the identification and creation of the plan and as a county we are excited to have a working, collaborative document on which to base our efforts and resources.
Five components to support the improved health status of children and to improve basic skills emerged from careful analysis of the subcommittee recommendations. The components that we feel will provide the services to accomplish our School Ready Plan are: Universal Family Assessment, Public Awareness, Parent Education and Support, Improved Accessibility to Child Care Services, Improved Quality of Care Provided to Scott County Children.
The concept of Empowerment Areas in Scott County is perceived as a major system delivery change and the need to have an appropriate support infrastructure is considered crucial for the success of the program. The Infrastructure committee met for almost a year. They have developed a plan of action steps with dates entered into a crucial path calendar to ensure the establishment of an appropriate and effective permanent Empowerment Board to support the system delivery changes. They developed the by-laws and the current structure that we now know as the Empowerment Board and the Committees that carry out the work. During this period an interim board was established to provide guidance and to conduct the business of the Empowerment Area until the permanent structure could be implemented.
The Nomination Committee solicited community-wide nominations and, in July 1999, presented a slate of names during a public meeting. Attendees voted to seat the nominees on the Empowerment Board.