The Gift of a Good Start
Fast Facts about Every Child Succeeds
- ECS has served 14,300+ families
- ECS has made 294,000+ home visits
- Infant mortality among participants is lessthan one-third that of Hamilton County
Clockwise from top: Dr. Judith Van Ginkel; Reverend Clarence Wallace; Carmel Presbyterian Church; Anita Brentley.
Babies served by the Avondale Caring Network.
Cincinnati Children’s and the Avondale Caring Network are building a healthy foundation for area babies.
Anita Brentley remembers the distraught grandmother standing at the door with the baby her daughter had abandoned.
“I don’t have anything,” the grandmother said, “and now I have this baby. I need help.” Brentley offered formula, clothes and diapers for the infant. More important, she listened and supported the grandmother through a difficult time.
Brentley was able to help the grandmother thanks to the Avondale Caring Network (ACN). The ACN helps new mothers and infants in the Avondale community with a variety of services, including a food pantry and moms’ support group. The Network grew out of Brentley’s work with Every Child Succeeds (ECS), an organization that Cincinnati Children’s helped launch in 1999. ECS provides home visits and support to first-time mothers in need throughout the Greater Cincinnati area.
ECS and the Avondale Caring Network have at their core the simple idea that every child deserves a good start in life.
Listening to Needs
The Avondale Caring Network was a community-specific response to the difference ECS was making in the lives of new moms and children throughout the city, explains ECS president Judith Van Ginkel, PhD.
“The idea was to provide the same set of services and curriculum that we deliver to young mothers and babies through ECS to all eligible families in Avondale,” Van Ginkel says. She and former Cincinnati Children’s chairman Lee Carter raised funds for the program. “One of the promises we made was that any family in Avondale who qualified for and wanted to be in the program, could be,” she says.
Anita Brentley, a member of the ECS staff, became project team leader of the Avondale Caring Network and built wide-ranging connections with the Avondale community. One of those connections was Reverend Clarence Wallace, pastor of the Carmel Presbyterian church, who offered the church as a location for the Caring Network’s programs.
Those programs have been embraced by women in the community. They are especially grateful for the help they get from the pantry.
“When we asked about their most pressing needs, we heard over and over about material needs—from diapers and baby wipes to bottles and bibs,” Brentley says.
The ACN provides these items to the mothers along with a range of services geared to encouraging a young child’s development. Its pantry is the only one in Cincinnati serving children in the crucial developmental time of birth to 3 years of age.
Turning Lives Around
Lafawnda Sanderson remembers well the first day she visited the Caring Network pantry. “When my son Trayvon was about 3 months old, someone called to ask if I needed anything. My hours at work had just been cut and through the pantry I was able to get what I needed for my son— for free.”
Lafawnda now works for the Pantry and is proud that she can help other mothers. “This pantry means a lot to moms in the neighborhood,” she says. “We also have a support group called Avondale Mothers on a Mission (AMOM). We get together monthly to share information about parenting, learn about other programs
and resources, or just have fun.”
Supporting the work of ECS is an important way for Cincinnati Children’s to help ensure the future health and well-being of the community’s children, says Van Ginkel.
“The strength of a community is the value that it places upon creating a good and nurturing environment for children, especially infants and young mothers,” she says.
