Thrive by Five and Our Response to COVID-19

Thrive by Five Pinellas

Thrive by Five began as an initiative to get all children in our community ready for kindergarten. Why? Because studies show that over half of Pinellas children show up to kindergarten without the resources and skills that they need to be successful. The time between birth and kindergarten is a crucial time for our kids, that is when over 80% of their lifetime’s brain development occurs. Thrive by Five wants to ensure that ALL children have equitable access to ensure success in school and in life.

How do we do that?

Thrive by Five is a collective that relies on the collaboration of our community to get things done. To ensure we are supporting a child’s total health (social, emotional, physical, and mental), we employ teams of local leaders who meet to address different issues and ask questions about how to best impact our community. Some of the questions we are constantly asking:

Do our children have access to healthy, nutritious food?
Do our children have the proper medical support?
Are our children being challenged mentally in preschools, daycares, and at home?
Do our children feel safe and loved?

As a collective impact organization, we rely on collaborative workgroups to work on our main initiatives. Our Business Engagement team is working to create a Family Friendly Workplaces, to help businesses better understand the needs of working parents. Our Child & Family Success team helps guide preschools, families, and others towards social emotional well-being of children, top tier educational programming, and community supports. Our Systems Alignment team works to make sure all necessary groups within the community are communicating and working together to meet the needs of our youngest neighbors and their families.

We are led by a director and a group of dedicated community leaders, who have backgrounds in early childhood education, public health, teaching, business, and include many nonprofit professionals and parent representatives. They help ensure that all aspects of a child’s health are being addressed.

What is Thrive by Five Doing to Address the Global Pandemic?

Now with almost all children at home with their parents, providing tools and resources for our youngest citizens to continue growing and thriving is more important than ever. Through our TB5P Connects portal that will launch in late April, our focus is providing support for parents, many of whom face the difficult task of both working from home full time while raising and educating their children. Moving forward, Thrive by Five will continue to provide information for families, assist, and partner with local community organizations to bring our community the latest and most up to date information possible.

Our children hold our futures in their hands. They are our future workforce, our leaders, the people we will look towards for guidance and innovation as we all grow older. Thrive by Five is dedicated to doing everything we can to keep our kids healthy, motivated and ready to take on the world now, and when the pandemic has subsided. Below you will find a few helpful resources as families are navigating the new normal: