Our Programs
While the guiding mission of the West Virginia KIDS COUNT Fund has remained the same — to improve the lives of at-risk children — the organization's work is constantly evolving in response to changing community needs. Some 15 years after its initial publication, the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book is still an integral component of the organization's mission to improve the lives of children. However, in recent years, KIDS COUNT has also become involved in exciting new efforts to improve the quality of child care, develop early literacy programs and educate the public and policymakers about the importance of early education — not only for children, but also for the state's long-term economic prosperity.
The KIDS COUNT Data Book
The first KIDS COUNT Data Book was published in 1992 and quickly became the most respected source of data and analysis about the plight of West Virginia's children. KIDS COUNT Fund has continued to publish the yearly report, tracking key indicators of the health, education, safety and security, and economic conditions of children both on a statewide and county-by-county basis. The Data Book is often the basis of public policy decisions and is also an important resource for those who seek and award funding from foundations and the private sector.
Kids First Campaign
To encourage the development of a childcare quality rating and improvement system in West Virginia KIDS COUNT has launched a new awareness and advocacy effort, called the Kids First campaign, aimed at building grassroots support for new state investments to improve childcare quality. In March of 2008, KIDS COUNT launched Kids First Communities in Beckley, Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Parkersburg and Wheeling.
ECD Quality and Accountability Effort
In 2006, KIDS COUNT received a generous grant from the Benedum Foundation to document the state's existing early child development (ECD) policies and determine the best ways to improve the quality and accountability of West Virginia's ECD system. This effort is part of a multi-year strategy to create the policy framework for a high-quality, early child development (ECD) system.
Every day, Every way! Early Literacy Project
During 2004, with generous funding from the Benedum Foundation, the West Virginia KIDS COUNT Fund studied how young children learn to read and identified national and state models for early literacy. The results of that research were published in a groundbreaking report: The Building Blocks of Literacy: How We Lay the Foundation for Literacy and Why It Is Important to West Virginia.