Our Strategic Plan work group is developing a comprehensive communications strategy to ensure consistent and transparent messaging throughout this transition. We will inform our clients, partners, and the community through various channels and provide updates regularly to keep everyone informed about the changes and available resources.

At this time, our organizational chart of personnel positions and department functions remains largely unchanged. Our staff will continue to play a critical role in our efforts to combat systemic, intergenerational poverty. We are committed to supporting our team through this transition and ensuring they have the resources needed to adapt to the new focus.

We will evaluate outcomes related to economic mobility, family stability, and overall well-being over a pilot phase as we develop the final service model. Regular assessments and feedback will help us adjust our strategies to ensure we are meeting our goals effectively.

We welcome the ongoing support and engagement of our stakeholders. There are various ways to get involved, from providing feedback and participating in discussions to volunteering and advocating for our mission. Your involvement is more important now than ever as we embark on this focused effort to end intergenerational poverty.

The best place to ask questions an provide feedback is here: https://www.jotform.com/form/242315904089155

However, you may also contact Katie: kbroadfoot@mcum.org, 812-339-3429 ext. 11. Please respect MCUM's other staff members by directing concerns and questions to Katie.

Our long-term vision is to create a more significant and lasting impact on the families we serve by addressing the root causes of poverty through a comprehensive, whole-family approach. By focusing on Compass Early Learning Center families, we aim to break the cycle of poverty and help families achieve long-term stability and success.

Pathways serves families with at least one child enrolled in Compass Early Learning Center, ages 1-5 years old. These families typically have low annual incomes compared to the Area Median Income (AMI), with only 25% considered extremely low-income. Despite this, 99% of them fall below Monroe County’s self-sufficiency standard, earning too little to be self-sufficient but too much to qualify for many aid programs. Many of these families are in kinship placements, single-parent households, or are non-English speaking. They are often housing cost-burdened and are just getting by, but they are at high risk of becoming destabilized by a single unexpected life event. Additionally, they face 'cliff effects,' where they may turn down promotions or better-paying jobs due to the loss of the few subsidies they receive. We attract a lot of these families because of our fee scale being the only local one in the county that sets the rate of non-voucher families based on family size and household income, making high-quality care affordable.

At this time, we have no formal plans to expand. We opened a 6th classroom at our center in January, 2024 to serve an additional 14 toddlers and it has remained full with a waitlist for the duration of its existence.

One of our strategic priorities is to consider if and how we can make high quality early learning more accessible, so we do have plans to spend time in the next 3-5 years considering whether we may add classrooms or infants to our program. No decisions have been made.

Your Path will not be a requirement of Pathways, however, caregivers can opt in and we want to be mindful of their schedule options.

That said, in an initial interest poll of Compass caregivers, more than 70% of all families said they would be interested in Your Path if coaching fit in their schedules. A follow up question asked what good times of day would be for 1/2 hour coaching sessions (which would occur biweekly). We got a variety of answers but many included lunch time (11-1), right before pick up (3-5pm), and/or right after their toddlers were in bed (7:30-9pm).

Understanding our clients are interested and when they could feasibly participate was critical in redesigning the program structure. Our Family Resource Specialists will have staggered schedules, ensuring at least one is always onsite between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm. Each FRS will likely have one evening per week that they will hold mobility mentoring sessions via Zoom. We are also exploring the occasional weekend.

The bottom line is that we will meet our clients where they are and our staff are committed to that.

We have conducted surveys and interviews to gather valuable feedback. Additionally, we have initiated a soft pilot of several initiatives, including providing weekly groceries, automating Opportunity House gift cards, and utilizing Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and tuition discounts for participants in the Your Path program. These efforts have been well received, and we have already started receiving inquiries from families interested in enrolling their children in Compass specifically because of these new offerings. We recognize the need to adjust the hours and format of some meetings to better accommodate the schedules and needs of the families we serve, and we are actively working on these changes.

Yes, the food provided by the pantry is typically what our Compass families use, and the addition of dairy, eggs, meat, and other fresh items will certainly be appreciated. We anticipate about a 25% decrease in the need for shelf-stable items compared to our current levels. However, it's important to note that while we currently serve 400 families per month with a very, very minimal amount of food, we are transitioning to providing a substantial amount of food to 40 families per week (about the equivalent of 170 families, currently).

We were initially concerned about losing 3- and 4-year-olds from our program, similar to what we experienced with 5-year-olds. However, this has not been the case, especially after becoming a referendum partner. Now, families who choose to send their children to Compass receive the benefit of free care, while we are reimbursed as if those children are full-paying. This partnership has already resulted in a positive financial impact from 4-year-olds, and starting in January, we will see similar support for 3-year-olds.

While we are grateful that local schools offer pre-kindergarten programs, many parents in our niche demographic have found that our program better meets their needs. Although sending a child to the same school where an older sibling attends might seem convenient, the reality of summer closures, multiple breaks throughout the school year, and the lack of care options for children below first grade makes it challenging for working parents, especially those without strong support systems or extended family nearby. Most of our families find it difficult to manage the school-year calendar with very young children, which is why they prefer the year-round support that Compass provides.