Serving the Whole Child, Phase II

Mary Hearst, PhD, Associate Professor, received a $1,037,272 grant from the Better Way Foundation. Serving the Whole Child aims to improve the wellbeing of typically disenfranchised children and their families by focusing on eliminating the economic and race achievement gap. This will be achieved by increasing opportunity to receive highquality early childhood experiences, providing early intervention services for children, parent enrichment and social support and preparing the current and future workforce. Through the partnership between the Montessori Training Center of Minnesota (d.b.a Montessori Center of Minnesota MCM), the Montessori Partners Serving All Children (MPSAC), MPSAC parents and St. Catherine University, we will provide 1) highquality early childhood Montessori education; 2) interprofessional team based monitoring and early intervention for children who need additional support; 3) early childhood screening with referral and follow up if needed; 4) enhanced 1:1 family resource interventions; 5) parent enrichment and social events with resources; 5) interprofessional education and culturally responsive/multicultural trainings for all partners; and 6) academic experiences for St. Catherine students. Serving the Whole child will evaluate the intervention effectiveness through child, parent, team member and partnership evaluation