By Patty Courtright

nvesting in the well-being of children before they enter school pays off throughout their lives.

This is the philosophy of Success By 6, sponsored by United Way of America since 1989. Success By 6 programs nationwide advocate fostering early childhood development, especially for at-risk children and their families, as a key to providing these children with a successful future. The program's catch-phrase is "helping all children succeed for life."

Begun in 1988 as an early childhood initiative at the United Way of Minneapolis Area, Success By 6 programs now help preschool children and their families in more than 200 communities across the country.

Now, a $10 million donation from the NationsBank Foundation will further expand the initiative. The money, pledged to United Way of America, will support growth of its Success By 6 programs into all of NationsBank's franchise areas - potentially bringing the program into 22 states, including those now served by BankAmerica. NationsBank and BankAmerica are expected to merge later this year.

"NationsBank shares with United Way the belief that emphasis on early child development will ensure a brighter future for the entire community and our country," says Laura Foxx, foundation president.

United Way of America will administer the new funds, making them available to local United Ways. Administrators are sending requests for proposals to the 22 states, with plans to announce the new and expanded programs in January.

"The contribution from NationsBank marks the first significant (Success By 6) program funding that we can put directly into the local communities," says Karen Smiley, director of Success By 6 for United Way of America.

How it began

"Part of the thinking, when the initiative was being developed, was to make sure kids were ready for school when the schools were ready for them," says Byron Laher, managing director of labor service and community affairs for United Way of Minneapolis.

To accomplish this, the Minneapolis United Way board convened a group of community leaders - those from the private, nonprofit and government sectors - and posed the question: What was preventing children from having a successful life experience?

"The first thing everyone agreed on was that there was a crisis in early childhood development," Laher says.

So the agency began creating public awareness of the problem, first to generate community support, then to bring needed services to a larger number of people and encourage organizations to work together.

The original Success By 6 initiative tackled the problems of low birthweight babies and high infant mortality in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Minneapolis, Laher says.

The United Way agency developed a program where low-income women from the Phillips Neighborhood were trained to educate other neighborhood women - particularly those who were pregnant and/or had young children - by going door-to-door describing available prenatal care, health and nutrition services.

"As a result, there was a dramatic increase in appropriate-weight babies and a dramatic reduction in low birthweight babies," Laher says. "In general, people began taking better care of themselves."

A key to the initiative's success, he says, was the linking of existing community resources.

"Our feeling was that there was a lot going on in the community that if we could make people aware of and link resources, we could make huge changes without spending a lot of money."

Now Success By 6 has spun off into various groups, including the United Way-funded Way to Grow and Phillips TLC - each of which focuses on different aspects of child development.

The Minneapolis United Way does, however, license groups in communities nationwide to use the Success By 6 name and trademarked logo at no charge.

Models vary by site, need

There are almost as many models of the program as there are sites, because Success By 6 wants each community to decide what problems to tackle and which resources to bring toward the solution.

"Success By 6 is a multi-sector collaborative, involving businesses, nonprofits, government groups, and health and human services providers to bring leadership to their communities," says Karen Smiley, director of the program for United Way of America. "The program provides a way to access the system as a means of providing services needed."

Basically, Success By 6 provides a network of public and private organizations that can lend the expertise and community resources needed to help children. By investing in children now, the program aims to prevent serious problems from occurring down the road.

Once a community has decided the issue(s) to tackle and identified its Success By 6 partners, the next steps involve outlining strategies, developing goals and examining what each part of the sector is doing to address key issues.

"Each program should structure its network to support activities that already are going on in the community and ways to expand those services," Smiley says. "For instance, a program could look at providing more quality child-care options or providing better health services for young children."

Each Success By 6 program establishes its own board and solicits its own funding, she says. The United Way of America office provides technical assistance, training, ideas and a network of information. It also may provide the start-up funding for a new program and help organizers with the grantseeking process.

Differing areas of focus

Whatever the format, all Success By 6 programs have a common goal: to prepare children for success in school.

In Charlotte, N.C., the program focuses on community development, improved health care and a strong preschool experience (see accompanying story), while the Boston, Minneapolis and Miami areas include a strong public policy component.

For example, two years ago, the Boston program was instrumental in initiating a special "Invest in Children" license plate, the first-ever in the country to benefit child care. The program's public policy focus also led to legislation that expanded access to health care for some 125,000 uninsured children in Massachusetts.

The Salt Lake City Success By 6 program supports a strong bilingual home visitor program in two elementary schools and a KidStart program to provide case management for homeless preschoolers.

In Nashville, the Success By 6 program emphasizes parents and children working together to achieve their goals. Services include prenatal care, home visitation, parent education and family literacy.

Laher of the Minneapolis-area United Way says Success By 6 has created a climate in which children can be helped in many different ways.

"People have begun to see that you can make a difference in kids' lives and it won't cost an arm and a leg," he says. "Most of the time, the community already has the needed services in place."

Patty Courtright can be reached at
pcourtright@mindspring.com