On October 8-10th, 2018 the Clinical & Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin and Child Advancement Network (CAN), led by Dr. Doriel Ward, Principal Investigator and Executive Director, held the first Mind in the Making Institute led by Erin Ramsey of the Bezos Family Foundation and graciously funded by the Herzfeld Foundation. The overarching goal of CAN is to narrow the achievement gap in southeast Wisconsin by building partnerships, coalitions, and collective ownership with various community stakeholders. This is done by building communities of practice and ensuring that every child is 4-K ready. The three-day training institute was attended by individuals from the healthcare, childcare, non-profit, and faith based sectors.
These various sectors came together to learn about the seven essential life skills every child needs: focus and self-control, perspective taking, communicating, making connections, critical thinking, taking on challenges, and self-directed, engaged learning as illustrated in the book Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky.
During this three-day institute Erin Ramsey also led the discussion on the Vroom application as it relates to each of the life skills, and reminded us of how our interactions with young children should be purposeful, engaging, and fun. Vroom is a set of tools and resources from The Bezos Family Foundation designed to inspire families to turn everyday moments into “brain building moments” by layering activities that are essential to healthy brain development into exciting daily routines. The tag line for Vroom is “you already have what it takes”. The Vroom application is free and the website is open-sourced so that anyone can order materials customized for their organizational needs.
We look forward to continuing to build partnerships, and the possibility of hosting another Mind in the Making Institute in 2019.
NIH Funding Acknowledgment:Important Reminder – Please acknowledge the NIH when publishing papers, patents, projects, and presentations resulting from the use of CTSI resources by including the NIH Funding Acknowledgement.
