The Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) has awarded 2021 2Gen Innovation Grants to nine local collaboratives serving student-parents and their children. The two categories of 2Gen Innovation Grants encourage local adult-serving and child-serving organizations to collaborate on projects to meet the needs of parents and their children simultaneously.
The 2Gen Capacity-Building Grants allow community agencies to explore the needs of student-parents in their communities and to discuss ways to meet those needs. The 2Gen Implementation Grants allow community agencies to take action to meet those needs. The 2021 2Gen Capacity-Building Grantees are:
- Columbus Technical College
- Fayette FACTOR, Inc.
- Scottdale Early Learning
- Thomasville Community Resource Center
- YMCA of Coastal Georgia.
YMCA of Coastal Georgia serves seven counties in southeastern coastal Georgia and more than 77,000 children, individuals, and families each year. In collaboration with Savannah Technical College, this 2Gen project, Supporting Coastal Georgia’s Parents, will bridge the gap in services for student-parents and provide resources for academic achievement of children through high-quality early learning programming. One project will focus on piloting a child care program at the YMCA of Coastal Georgia Habersham branch for student-parents enrolled in evening classes at Savannah Technical College.
Each of these organizations will receive a one-year grant of up to $10,000 to fund the exploration and planning of two-generation policy change and programming in their communities. The 2021 2Gen Implementation Grantees are:
- Black Child Development Institute-Atlanta
- Community Action for Improvement, Inc.
- Head Start
- Georgia Northwestern Technical College,
- Kennesaw State University.
Each of these organizations will receive a one-year grant of up to $25,000 to fund projects that connect the parents of young children in the early learning system with workforce training and postsecondary education.
“Our agency has demonstrated a strong and steady commitment in supporting student parents by funding 2Gen Innovation Grants for four years now. We are proud of the connections forged at the local level through these grant opportunities and believe that all Georgians benefit from connecting early childhood, workforce, and post-secondary institutions.”
DECAL has awarded 2Gen Grants to community groups annually since 2018. Funding for the 2021 grants is from the Child Care and Development Fund Grant and the $11.2 million Preschool Development Renewal Grant that Georgia received in January 2020 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education.
