Special to The Times-Journal

Participants learned about three programs during the 2006 Children’s Services Conference,

held Thursday at the St. James Hotel. The conference was co-sponsored by the Alabama Department of Children’s Affairs, Governor’s Task Force to Strengthen Alabama Families and Alabama Partnership for Children.

Selma was chosen as the first site of seven conferences to be held throughout the state.

Chris McInnish, Children’s First administrator, said this was the 5th annual conference.

people to come and help people not have to travel nearly as far. Last year we had it in Birmingham and that’s a long drive for some folks.&8221;

About 130 people attended the conference that was designed to let people know about three different projects.

The first program is the Alabama Resource Management System.

It will also include a mapping component so citizens will be able to visualize where the programs are, he said.

The second program, which comes out of the Governor’s Task Force, is Family Resource Centers or Family Service Centers.

The third program is the Alabama Partnership For Children and &8220;they’re involved in an effort with public health for a blueprint for school readiness and they’re taking a look at the system of services in communities across the state from ages 0 to 5 and what kids really need to be prepared as they go into school.&8221;

Barbara Everett, chairman of the Governor’s Task Force to Strengthen Alabama Families, said that what they are trying to do is get everybody working in unison at one time on the entire family’s problems. Everett said that by working together, we can move participants &8220;through the system quicker and out and on their own and climbing the ladder of opportunity that we all want to climb.&8221;