Our Collaborative

We are a collaborative of partners, advocates, and community supporters powered by the United Way of Greater Lorain County working together focused on developing equitable solutions to ensure all children in the Oberlin School District enter school healthy and ready to learn.

OberlinKids has a Steering Committee to assist in operations. The Steering Committee is responsible for oversight of the budget, structure of collaborative, Memorandum of Understanding, strategic goals, evaluation, and communication to ensure the work of the collaborative is impacting kindergarten readiness.

The Steering Committee consists of one (1) community partner, one (1) service provider partner, the Oberlin City Schools, the Lead Partner, a parent, and the funder. The school, funder, and Lead Partner have a standing seat on the Steering Committee. The Community and Service Provider organization seat is elected by the Collaborative.  The parent seat is also elected.

We are pleased to share the news that we have worked with over 500 parents and children since our collaborative was funded in June of 2014. We are proud to work with the city, school district and community within our collaborative as we work to improve the kindergarten readiness levels of every child who will be entering the Oberlin City School District. Children grow most and are learning at astonishing rates from birth through age five, which is why we have chosen this initiative since we have the greatest opportunity to make an impact on children’s lives.

OberlinKids offers FREE annual screenings to any child between ages birth to five that resides in the Oberlin City School District as a tool in our On Track for Kindergarten program.

The free developmental and social/emotional, play-based screenings are able to be completed online by the child’s parent/guardian or with the OberlinKids Director at the Oberlin Public Library or at the OberlinKids’ office. The goal of the screenings is to give families an idea of where their child is developmentally and provide them with resources, activities, and materials to ensure their child develops in a healthy and positive manner as well as enters kindergarten ready to learn. ALL children should have screenings annually; not just those whose parent or guardian has a concern. It is a convenient way to complete the screening forms on your own time. A report is then generated by our coordinator and emailed to the parent/guardian. Our director is available by phone, email, and by appointment in our Oberlin office to go over any referrals for services or concerns.