CICC's recently launched National Partnership Campaign to Find and Help Young Children with Special Needs has immediately attracted individuals and organizations to participate.

The Campaign addresses a deplorable and unacceptable situation - the fact that as many as 75% of the three million children under five with special learning, emotional, social, intellectual and physical problems are NOT being identified and treated by professionals before entering school. As a result, these vulnerable children usually do poorly in school, suffer insults and hardships, including being more likely to be abused by their parents. In turn, they often become anti-social and require remedial and legal services costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

The Campaign is designed to help turn this situation around at the grassroots level. It mobilizes individual and organization partners to educate, motivate, sponsor and encourage parents of young children to be alert to special needs. If special needs are detected, immediate action must be taken. Partners orient parents to regularly use the online CICC Discovery Tool and Referral System for these purposes.

Presentations about the Campaign by CICC's Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Kerby T. Alvy, have recently been conducted at meetings at the Children's Defense Fund and the National Education Association in Washington, D.C., at the annual conference of the Florida Coalition for Children in Orlando, and at the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Anaheim, California.

The responses have been very positive. Several individuals and organizations immediately signed up to become Encourager Partners in the Campaign, and obtained the Encourager Partner Kit to guide their grassroots activities (see picture of Dr. Alvy with Michael and Sheryl Neelan of ChildCareWorld.com, new Encourager Partners). Many other organizations who learned about the Campaign at these meetings and conferences are in the process of sharing the Campaign with their Boards and staff with the possibility of signing as Encourager or Co- Sponsoring Partners.

Campaign updates will be featured in subsequent Effective Parenting newsletters. To arrange for Dr. Alvy to speak to your group or organization, write to ciccparenting@sbcglobal.net or call CICC's toll-free at 1(800) 325-2422.

Learn About Partnerships

Use the CICC Discovery Tool

Alliant International University (AIU), which was founded in 2001 through the combination of United States International University, the California School of Professional Psychology and Alliant University, and which has six California locations and several locations abroad, is presenting in partnership with CICC, a full-day workshop entitled Effective Parenting is Prevention.

The workshop is based on the fact that a variety of social and health problems, like child abuse and childhood emotional, behavioral and learning problems, can be prevented or reduced by parents rearing children in skillful, sensitive and non-violent ways.

The workshop builds on what is scientifically known about effective parenting and delves into controversial practices such as corporal punishment. Then it presents several model parenting skill-building programs that are being used nationwide to teach parents non-violent and effective practices, including CICC's trio of programs, Confident Parenting, Effective Black Parenting and Los Niqos Bien Educados.

The workshop will also focus on how to engage parents in identifying special needs early in life and how to connect them to appropriate interventions. The National Partnership Campaign to Find and Help Young Children with Special Needs and the use of The CICC Discovery Tool and Referral System will be covered.

The workshop will be led by Dr. Kerby T. Alvy, and much of what is addressed will be from his various books and guides, including Parent Training Today: A Social Necessity, Black Parenting: Strategies for Training, The Power of Positive Parenting, and The CICC Discovery Tool.

The workshop will be held Saturday, January 22, 2005, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., on the campus of the California School of Professional Psychology, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Alhambra, CA 91803.
Fee: $145. CE Credit: 7 hours

To register for this workshop, or for further information, please contact the AIU Continuing Education Office at (800) 457-1273, or visit www.alliant.edu/ce

The Verizon Foundation has awarded CICC a $25,000 grant to continue to conduct School Success from the Start seminars for parents of pre-kindergarten children in Los Angeles County.

The School Success seminars provide parents with a wide range of practical activities that they can do at home to help their children develop the attitudes and skills to be successful in kindergarten - and beyond! A great deal of what is taught in these popular parenting training events is based on the highly regarded Kindergarten Survival Handbook by Dr. Allana Elovson.

Verizon Foundation support is part of its exemplary Verizon Reads Initiative which is dedicated to the fight for a more literate America and which funds community-based programming to promote reading and literacy. This exemplary corporate effort includes the Verizon Literacy Campus, an online training center that provides assistance to a wide range of groups and individuals working in the literacy field.

To work with CICC in bringing School Success from the Start Seminars to your community, call CICC's Executive Director, Dr. Alvy at (800) 325-2422 or email him at kalvy@aol.com.

Click here for a report on the effectiveness of these seminars.

Please help further CICC's mission of Strengthening the American Family through parent education and training. A wide range of funding sources is used to keep the Center operating and expanding.

The most important funds that CICC receives are from the thousands of individuals who have made tax- deductible contributions. These important funds are used by CICC to provide free parenting services for needy families, to support the organization's advocacy efforts, and to support the Center during emergencies.