Jewish Early Childhood Programs
The 2014 St. Louis Jewish Community Study found that only 16% of children ages 0-4 in Jewish households are enrolled in a Jewish early childhood program. We believe that Jewish early childhood is often the first connection for families into a Jewish community – it begins to build a child’s Jewish identity and strengthens the family’s Jewish engagement and connection. Jewish Federation of St. Louis has undertaken a major initiative to grow enrollment by supporting and enhancing Jewish early childhood programs.
- In 2016, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis gave a Strategic Program Grant to the Jewish Early Childhood Directors Council to increase their capacity to conduct early childhood/developmental assessments. This grant helped the council purchase DIALassessments, provide professional development training, quality assurance plans for assessments, general staff education and parent education programming.
- Between 2015 and 2016, staff conducted additional research and data analysis in the area of early childhood to better understand how to make their decision for early childhood programs and why so few were choosing Jewish early childhood programs.
- In May 2017, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis hired a consultant to conduct a market feasibility study. The earlier research pointed to a potential need for a Jewish early childhood program located outside of the Jewish corridor, which did not currently exist. The market feasibility study was completed and the final report that can be reviewed here. Jewish Federation of St. Louis will be convening a Task Force to review the report.
- Jewish Federation of St. Louis is also working with a consultant around our efforts to support, grow and enhance the existing Jewish early childhood programs. In May 2017, we engaged Dr. Bill Robinson, Dean of The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The goal of this collaboration with the Davidson School is to gain a greater understanding of the successes, concerns, future hopes and the current status of Jewish early childhood education in our community. Over the summer, Dr. Robinson and his team interviewed all of the early childhood directors and reviewed data from the 2014 St. Louis Jewish Community Study. The team will be in St. Louis at the end of November to meet with the early childhood directors and other stakeholders.
- This month, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis will be launching a marketing campaign to promote Jewish early childhood programs in St. Louis. The goal of this marketing campaign is to increase the community’s awareness of the nine unique Jewish early childhood programs in St. Louis and grow enrollment at each program. This marketing campaign includes:
- A general video promoting “why choose Jewish”
- A video for each early childhood program, speaking to their individual uniqueness
- A new directory page on JewishInStLouis.com/EarlyChildhood
- Social media advertising and other outreach efforts
For any questions about the Jewish early childhood initiative above, please contact Emily Bornstein at EBornstein@JFedSTL.org or 314-442-3762.
Measuring Community Impact: A Pilot Initiative
Jewish Federation of St. Louis is beginning the development of a new pilot community initiative to support and measure community impact. This initiative came about as part of the Federation’s strategic planning process.
In an age where data and evaluation are prioritized among funders and donors, we believe it is important to support our community in measuring and reporting on impact. Jewish Federation of St. Louis is engaging Brian Hayden, President of Collaborative Strategies, Inc., to facilitate a process for developing common metrics and evaluation tools.
In order for this initiative to be successful, we need buy-in from organizations and synagogues across the community. We hope to work with you from the start, in the early development phases, to help us understand the impact you hope to make in the community and to begin to find common metrics of success. The goal of building common metrics and measurement tools will support evaluation capacity building. Increasing evaluation capacity in an organization and community helps to better measure and report on the impact and improve the programs and services, so that constituent needs are better met and dollars are invested with higher (social) returns.
Emily Bornstein, Planning & Allocations Associate, will be staffing the pilot initiative with leadership from Les Sterman, Vice Chair, Strategic Planning. They will recruit a small planning team made up of professionals and lay leaders from the St. Louis Jewish community. While the planning team will play a vital role in designing the pilot initiative, in order to be a community initiative we will work to create opportunities for broader input and ensure that the pilot reflects the input.
If you have any questions about the initiative, please contact Emily Bornstein at EBornstein@JFedSTL.org or 314-442-3762.