Spring 2023 eNews Edition

Inside this Issue

ICS's New Roster of Board Members
The Update: 20,000 Visitors to IMPACT Measures Tool® Website, Upcoming HOPE Summit, NDM Conference Recordings & Presentations, Partner Spotlight: ASAP, and Impact & Practice
What We've Been Up To: Together SC Conference, AAP State House Day, and Affordable Housing in Greenville
Worth Repeating: Refundable Earned Income Tax Credit Could Expand Support for Working Families in Need
Request for Proposals: ICS Seeking CPA firm for December 31, 2022 Fiscal Year-end

Introducing ICS's Newest Board Members

ICS welcomed four new board members in 2023 to help lead our organization's mission and to share our vision, the success of all young children.

Kelly Escobar, PhD

Director, FUEL at Robin Hood

New York City, NY

Kelly Escobar, PhD, is the Director for the Fund for Early Learning (FUEL) at Robin Hood, New York City’s largest poverty fighting organization. FUEL is one of the nation’s largest philanthropic funds focused on optimizing brain development in infants and toddlers.

Dr. Escobar leads FUEL’s efforts to promote optimal outcomes for children from birth to age 3 years through partnerships with community organizations, government and public systems, and other philanthropic funders.

Shimica Gaskins

President & CEO, Grace/End Child Poverty CA

Pasadena, CA

Shimica Gaskins is the President & CEO of GRACE/End Child Poverty CA. She has worked in law and public policy specializing in legislative, regulatory and policy issues associated with criminal justice reform and children’s rights.

Prior to joining GRACE, she was executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-California, where she led statewide advocacy, policy, program and organizing efforts to ensure access to quality affordable health coverage and care for children and low-income families, reform the juvenile justice system, promote educational equity, end child poverty, and improve outcomes for children of color.

Congressman Ben McAdams

Former US Congressman

Salt Lake City, UT

Former United States Congressman, Ben McAdams is currently working with the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) to launch the Putting Assets to Work incubator, a first-of-its-kind program to help local governments, first, recognize all of

the physical assets it has at its disposal and, second, put those assets to work generating new, ongoing revenues for local government without giving up public ownership and control.

Ben is also a Senior Fellow at the Sorenson Impact Center at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.

Robert A. Saul, MD

Retired, Prisma Health Children’s Hospital

Pediatrician/Medical Geneticist

Greenville, SC

Dr. Robert Saul is a retired Professor of Pediatrics (Emeritus) at Prisma Health Children’s Hospital-Upstate and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine–Greenville, (SC). Bob is the immediate past chair of the SC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Saul is known for children’s advocacy, community improvement, and parenting guidance. With over 44 years as a pediatrician, Dr. Saul has developed a keen awareness of parenting skills, raising our children to be good citizens, how to improve our communities, and advocating for children. In retirement, he is committed to this continued work (www.mychildrenschildren.com) and is currently a consultant for Connie Maxwell Children’s Ministries in Greenwood, SC.

The Update

20,000 Visitors to IMPACT Measures Tool® Website!

We are thrilled to share that over 20,000 people from across the field of early childhood have visited the IMPACT Measures Tool®, to find assessments and learn about measurement. Thank you to everyone who has visited our website, shared our resources with your colleagues, and used the IMPACT Measures Tool® to develop your measurement practices. The work you do to support young children and families is so crucial, and we hope that our tools and resources have helped empower you in the work you do. Together, we can help all young children to thrive, by promoting equitable and effective measurement practices. View over 300 child and parenting assessments on the IMPACT Measures Tool®.

Presenting at the HOPE Summit

On March 29, Dr. Tyson Barker, Mary C. Garvey, and Dr. Aimée Drouin Duncan presented at the virtual 2023 HOPE Summit on the topic of “Culturally relevant and strength-based measurement for children and families.” The theme of this year’s event was “Practicing HOPE.”

Nurturing Developing Minds Recordings and Presentations

At the 2023 Desmond P. Kelly, MD Nurturing Developing Minds Conference last month, several members of ICS presented on current topics in the field.

Board member, Desmond P. Kelly, MD presented, “Built environment, facilities, & health care—Implications for care,” with Anjali Joseph, PhD,
Chief Science & Innovation Officer, Tyson Barker, PhD presented, “Using the IMPACT Measures Tool® to support developmental screening in health care,”
COO & General Counsel, Bryan Boroughs moderated a plenary panel on “Building cross-sector progress for prenatal to age 3: Lessons from communities,”
Bryan Boroughs and Palmetto Engagement & Policy Director, Deborah DePaoli presented, “Policy advocacy for providers,”
VP of Policy Research, Megan Carolan presented, “The early childhood workforce across disciplines: Program-level opportunities to build sustainable workforces in health, child welfare, and education,”
VP Impact and Practice, Aimée Drouin Duncan, PhD presented, “Theory of change: Leveraging what works for equitable service delivery and outcomes,”
Chief Equity Officer, Mary C. Garvey and Sixto Cancel's presentation on, "Striving For an Equitable Child Welfare System."

Access the YouTube playlist of recordings and view the conference presentations.

Partner Spotlight: Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)

Early Learning Nation recently shared an article highlighting the important work of ASAP, which supports over 500,000 individuals seeking asylum in the United States by providing community, resources, and advocacy. ASAP is an awardee of Robin Hood Foundation’s FUEL for 50 initiative, which provides support and resources to help maximize program impact. ICS provides research and evaluation services to a number of organizations within this initiative.

Impact & Practice: Developing Opportunities for Early Childhood Measurement Support

The Impact & Practice team at ICS is working to develop measurement support offerings with multiple partners: Measurement offerings through the National Head Start Association to support Head Start programs, as well as developing and evaluating the Health Resources & Services Administration' Early Childhood Evidence to Impact Center in partnership with Zero to Three, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Georgetown University, and more. More exciting details to come on these developments!

What We've Been Up To

Rallying the Troops at Together SC's Nonprofit Summit+

This year's theme of the 3-day conference was aptly named, "Transforming SC." The state’s nonprofit leaders representing health, housing, education, children and families, the arts sectors and beyond, set out to transform the way South Carolinians work, collaborate with others, and engage the state's government and elected officials. The 2023 Nonprofit Summit+, which occurred March 7-9, allowed nonprofit leaders to focus on and engage with different partners each day.

Bryan Boroughs (second from right) served on the panel, "Supporting our Childcare Network."

Deborah DePaoli (left) lent her expertise to the policy-focused panel, "Medicaid Expansion 101."

SC AAP State House Day for the Sake of the Children

by Lisa Maronie, Director of General Communications

The South Carolina Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics State House Day returned to its glory as it was once again held in person on March 9. Together with the SC AAP, ICS convened pediatricians at the Palmetto Club in Columbia to acquire effective advocacy advice from health experts and nonprofit leaders. The presenters spoke about the importance of a tobacco preemption so that cities and counties have a say over flavored tobacco products sold to children, districts offering school lunches at no cost, and 988 funding for the suicide and crisis prevention line. The practitioners next journeyed to the State House to converge with their legislators to impart the children's matters of greatest concern to them.

View the Facebook photo album

The Issue with Affordable Housing in Greenville

by Lisa Maronie, Director of General Communications

On Tuesday evening, March 14, concerned and engaged citizens of Greenville gathered for, "Greenville’s Promise, A Place for All," at the Phillis Wheatley Center to construct a solution to the Black households lost in our urban areas.

Per Greenville’s Promise website, "Census and other data indicate that the percentage of Black households in the city of Greenville has declined since 2010. This isn’t just due to growth in the number of white households; the raw number of Black households has declined as well, meaning that Black residents are leaving and their numbers aren’t being replaced by new Black residents."

Along with the event leaders, Greater Good Greenville and the Racial Equity and Economic Mobility (REEM) Commission, ICS is part of a coalition of 20+ area nonprofits dedicated to righting this disturbing trend. Issues such as inequities, evictions and predatory lending are affecting our neighbors. When Black households of families with children are uprooted, the unacceptable happens–they lose their doctors, churches, community centers, friends, and schools.

Worth Repeating

Refundable Earned Income Tax Credit Could Expand Support for Working Families in Need

by Bryan Boroughs, ICS COO & General Counsel

Prenatal-to-3 has published a report estimating the benefits and costs of implementing a refundable state earned income tax credit (EITC) in South Carolina between 10% and 25% of the federal credit, to reach more families than the current 125% nonrefundable EITC alone. This report calculates up to a 10-to-1 benefit to cost ratio for fiscal and human service benefits for South Carolina families, with up to $172 million in possible benefits from a 10% refundable EITC, and up to $427 million from a 25% refundable EITC. The addition of a refundable EITC could help expand coverage to 1 in 6 working families across the state.¹

Read our full blog to see how EITC could benefit SC families.

ICS Seeking Requests for Proposals from

CPA Firms to Provide Audit and

Tax Preparation Services

The Institute for Child Success (ICS) is requesting proposals from CPA firms to provide audit and tax preparation services commencing for its December 31, 2022 fiscal year-end, and the mutual option to extend for two additional years. Qualified firms must be headquartered in Greenville, Spartanburg, or Columbia, SC and have extensive experience with audits of non-profit organizations with numerous programs and large grants.

View Request for Proposal for Audit and Tax Services