Phoenix Day's Central Park Neighborhood and Youth Program

Phoenix Day (PD) has served the South Phoenix community since 1915 providing services to address the needs of our community’s most vulnerable children, youth and families. Founded by wives of World War I service men entering the workforce while their husbands served overseas, Phoenix Day is the longest continuously operating child care program in the state of Arizona. As a result of the broad ethnic and cultural diversity of children we serve, we were selected as a model for the Sesame Street TV program in 1970. Over the years, Phoenix Day has grown into one of Arizona's most innovative and progressive child and family learning centers. Throughout our history, Phoenix Day has played an active and vital role in creating solutions to our community problems. Our mission, "to provide children and families a foundation for lifelong learning and healthy living" is accomplished through an evidence-based approach to school readiness and success in school and life. Phoenix Day offers a nationally accredited early childhood education for children 6 weeks to 5 years of age focused on school readiness; after-school and summer enrichment programs focused on academic success in math, science and literacy for youth 6 to 18 years of age; and, a HealthLinks program addressing the health and nutritional needs of low income families in our community. Several longitudinal studies report the long term benefits of this combination of services as having a profound impact on high school graduation rates and even income levels at the age of 40. Scientists and economists agree that an investment in high quality care and education followed by academically-based afterschool and summer programs is an investment in our future. Although Phoenix Day has no defined geographic boundaries, the majority of families served are low-income and live in the Central Park neighborhood or within a 7 miles radius or our early childhood, youth and HealthLinks facilities. Phoenix Day family demographics are 76% Hispanic, 9% African American, 12% Caucasian, 1% Native American, 2% Multi Racial. Over 80% of Phoenix Day’s children and youth qualify for the free or reduced lunch program and live at 150% of the federal poverty level or below. Phoenix Day fills a critical need in a community that has been designated as an enterprise zone due to economic, crime factors and other risk factors. Phoenix Day’s Programs: Early Childhood Education: Our primary early childhood education goal is that “children enrolled in Phoenix Day’s early childhood education program will enter school with the necessary foundational cognitive, language, social/emotional, physical, self-help and behavioral skills needed to begin school learning.” Serving over 200 children between 6 weeks and 5 years of age each year, our early childhood education program is open from 6:30am to 6:00pm Monday through Friday and offers a dual language evidence-based curriculum aligned with the Arizona State Early Education Standards which helps ensure young children develop the skills necessary to enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Youth Development: Focused on academic success, our vision for youth participating in Phoenix Day’s afterschool and summer enrichment programs is that they “graduate high school on time and are ready for post-secondary education and employment.” Serving over 80 youth between the ages of 6 and 18 each year, our youth development program offers a daily schedule of evidence based activities including homework assistance, literacy and educational games, recreation/sports, creative arts and dance, educational field trips, community service projects and leadership development classes. Due to their families` low income status, all Youth Development Program services are offered free to participating youth. HealthLinks: Established in 1997 and focusing on the health and wellbeing of our community’s residents, HealthLinks vision is that “children and families in our community have access to the resources needed to lead a safe and healthy lifestyle”. Serving over 8,000 individuals each year, HealthLinks outreach workers offer health care and nutrition enrollment assistance in 20 Valley locations. In addition, staff coordinates on-site health screenings for early detection of barriers to school readiness and learning, health and nutrition education at community events, and linkages to community resources as needed to support the health and wellbeing of our community's most vulnerable families. *For questions, please contact us at (602) 252-4911 (111) www.phoenixday.org www.CentralParkPHX.org