Project KIND to help kids

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Community Solutions Association of Warren has received funding from the Raymond John Wean Foundation, the Youngstown Foundation and the city schools to provide Project KIND to all Youngstown public-school kindergarten children.

The project is set to start in January.

Project KIND, or Keys to Improvement for Necessary Development, is a home-grown curriculum, written by the staff of Community Solutions Association, to teach social and behavioral skills needed by kindergarten students for classroom success.

Project KIND, under research through the University of Akron, demonstrates statistically significant behavioral improvement with the students completing the 12-week curriculum.

Project KIND originally was written to assist teachers in Warren City Schools who were experiencing child-behavior challenges in their kindergarten classrooms.

For the past seven years, the Wean Foundation and Community Solutions funded Project KIND in the Warren City school district.

The recent grant and school funding expands Project KIND into Mahoning County. It’s estimated that nearly 1,000 children will complete the program this year.