Community Corner

Middlesex Family Shelter Now Has Bright Space for Children

This new play area will brighten the lives of the seven homeless families whose 17 children are being served by the Columbus House in Middletown.

 

The Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, and the unveiled the opening of a “Bright Space” for children at the Middlesex Family Shelter on May 23.

Thanks to a grant from the Connecticut Department of Social Services’ Office of Head Start Collaboration and funding from Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, a new child-friendly play space has opened at the Middlesex Family Shelter in Middletown.

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The DSS grant, awarded to the Community Renewal Team, required both assessment and improvement of the children’s environments at four of the region’s family shelters. With this collaboration, and the assistance of many volunteers, the Middlesex Family Shelter is getting a completely new children’s play area.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions is the world’s leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, early education and work/life solutions. The company operates child care and early education centers across the United States, Europe and Canada. The Bright Horizons Foundation for Children was founded in 1999 to help forward the vision of Bright Horizons Family Solutions to brighten the lives of children, youth, and families in crisis.

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Bright Spaces is a program of the Foundation, creating dedicated play areas in homeless shelters and community agencies. There are now more than 250 Bright Spaces located in shelters in more than 30 states around the country and Europe, serving thousands of children each year.

CRT provides Early Care and Education to more than 1,400 children in Middletown, Portland, Clinton, Hartford, Bloomfield and Windsor. The Middletown center, located at 44 Hamlin Street, is known as the Idella Howell Center in honor of the longtime executive director of the Community Action for Greater Middlesex County. The DSS grant for homeless outreach brings Head Start enrollment staff to shelters, to facilitate family access to free and high-quality preschool.  

The Middlesex Family Shelter has been providing emergency shelter, transitional housing and related services to homeless families with children since 1988. There are currently seven families with 17 children staying in the shelter. In 2011, the Middlesex Family Shelter became a program of Columbus House.

Since 1982, Columbus House, a 501 c 3 non-profit organization, has been working with city, state and federal agencies along with an entire continuum of non-profit service providers to help get people off of the streets, out of abandoned buildings, off of park benches and into the safety of a shelter.

They have expanded services to include comprehensive case management as well as transitional and permanent supportive housing solutions for homeless adults, children & families, adults with mental illness, dually diagnosed women, those in the early stages of addictions recovery and homeless veterans.

 

 

 



Group:


(CRT = Community Renewal Team)

 

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Sara Warfield
Development Manager
Columbus House
(203) 401-4400, ext. 116
www.columbushouse.org 


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