Posts About Early Childhood

Why is child welfare finance reform so important? Because we want federal financing to reinforce good practice and provide incentives to ensure that children and youth grow up in safe, stable and loving families.

Currently, there are numerous prevention programs and evidence-based practice models being implemented across the country to keep children safe and families together. As a result, fewer children and youth are entering foster care. Consequently, as fewer children and youth enter foster care, states receive less federal funding to support child welfare practices.

In order to encourage healthy development for children and youth, it is essential to support and fund efforts to keep families together and reunite them quickly and safely when children do enter foster care. To achieve these results, federal financing must support the services and best practices that have a positive impact on children, youth and their families. Reforming federal financing to provide dollars for prevention and post-permanency services will incentivize child welfare systems to implement best practices that support the healthy development and well-being of children and youth.

A new infographic from The Annie E. Casey Foundation highlights the decrease in two key federal funding sources, Title IV-E and Title IV-B, over the last decade and provides projections for the funding decreases if federal financing does not change. The Cost of Doing Nothing will result in this projected decrease in federal financing for children, youth and families in need of supports and services to live in safe, stable and loving families.  

1 in 10 children suffer from symptoms of childhood trauma. Studies have shown that exposure to trauma can have severe impacts on the development of a child’s brain. Exposure to childhood trauma also increases the likelihood that a child is labeled with a learning or behavior disorder, and can be a very strong predictor of academic failure. When left untreated, children who have been exposed to trauma are more like to experience negative outcomes like: behavioral problems, attention/concentration issues, separation anxiety, and extreme impulsivity. These symptoms, when manifested in children lead to high suspension and explosion rates in schools, and increased interaction with social service, law enforcement, and juvenile justice systems. In addition to the impact on child outcomes, the financial cost of untreated childhood trauma is high, estimated to be about 103.8 billion dollars by the Pew Charitable Trust.

The State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center (SPARC) and the ABA Center on Children and Law recently released a brief, Implementing Trauma-Informed Practices in Child Welfare. The brief states, “Children in care are more likely to experience trauma given the circumstances of abuse or neglect that led to their removal… and are subject to further stresses after entering the system, including separation from family, friends, and community, as well as the uncertainty of their future.”  The brief advocates for integrating trauma informed practices into child welfare systems to create better outcomes for children in care. Trauma informed care redirects attention from treating symptoms of trauma to treating the underlying causes and context of trauma. The brief outlines trauma informed, evidence-based interventions that emphasize a collaborative approach involving all major stakeholders (e.g. caseworkers, lawyers, judges, providers, educators, birth parents, foster parents, and kinship caregivers).

Trauma informed delivery systems can help states keep costs down and effectively treat childhood trauma before the child is involved in multiple systems. States like California and Maine have implemented this trauma informed approach into their education and child welfare system, and with good results. And 8 of the 15 active Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration Projects have indicated that increasing trauma informed services will be a priority in their attempts to create better outcomes for the children and families they serve.

This information has important implications for public policy. There are a number of federal funding sources that can be used to finance these programs and practices. Policymakers interested in addressing the comprehensive needs of children who have experienced trauma should consider ways to support the implementation of trauma informed care across systems.  

For more results-based policy strategies that support children and families, please visit policyforresults.org

The recently released Strong Start for America’s Children Act was introduced to improve and expand access to high-quality prekindergarten programs for all low-income children to ensure kindergarten readiness. Through a federal-state partnership, the legislation would fund preschool for 4-year old children from families earning at or below 200% of the federal poverty level and encourage states to provide support for families just above that income threshold. The bill would also provide resources, such as voluntary home visits by nurses and social workers, to at-risk families as well as new funding for high-quality learning programs for infants and toddlers.

High-quality early education is crucial in preparing young children for future success, unfortunately high-quality early education is cost-prohibitive for many low-income families, leaving many young children without that important foundational opportunity. Research has shown that investing in early education can lead to short- and long-term benefits, including better educational outcomes, stronger job earnings, and lower levels of crime and delinquency. This legislation, by off-setting the cost associated with quality early learning opportunities, aims to provide low-income children with a more equitable start – with the hopes of reducing the achievement gap between low-income children and children from more affluent families.

Increasing access to high-quality, affordable preschool programs for young children is a step in the right direction toward advancing the outcomes of vulnerable children and families. Policies that work to invest in children and support families have significant positive returns on future generations. Policymakers should prioritize early education to enhance opportunities for all children and increase equity.

For more information on The Strong Start for America’s Children Act, click here.

To read about the importance of investing in early childhood education, click here.

To read about the role of quality preschools in closing the opportunity gap, click here and here.

For results-based policy resources to support young children – please read CSSP’s report on Supporting Early Healthy Development.

Today, the Center for the Study of Social Policy released a new policy report, Supporting Early Healthy Development. The report discusses the developmental needs that are important to ensure healthy development for young children, which include having the benefit of the constant care and support of the adults in their lives as well as high-quality nutrition, medical and dental care, plentiful opportunities to learn and socialize, secure emotional attachment to a caregiver and safety and stability in their homes, schools and communities. When these crucial needs are met, young children thrive; however, when these needs are unattended children can face serious obstacles to their developmental health.

In the report, CSSP focuses on four primary policy areas for supporting early healthy development with detailed policy strategies included under each of the primary areas of focus.  The four areas of focus include detailed policy recommendations to support policymakers to:

1.)    Provide health coverage and access

2.)    Support early social, emotional, and behavioral health

3.)    Ensure school readiness by age 5

4.)    Support parents to ensure children thrive

CSSP’s Supporting Healthy Early Development report comes as a complementary piece to the new policy report by Kids Count, The First Eight Years: Giving Kids a Foundation for Lifetime Success. Together, Kids Count and CSSP believe in supporting children through the most crucial developmental stages and using policies to help accomplish this goal. In addition to the report, CSSP is excited to share this resource as an interactive tool to present data and trends. Through this tool Information is readily available to be viewed for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, concrete funding strategies are provided, as is useful background information related to the importance of supporting early healthy development.

For more detailed policy recommendations and connected analysis read our report in PDF version and click here. To visit the PolicyforResults web tool connected to this report and use the interactive data function click here. 

To read the Kids Count report on The First Eight Years, click here.

CSSP would like to thank ZERO TO THREE for adding their expertise – and reviewing this report! 

Today, Kids Count at the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a new policy report, The First Eight Years, that highlights the importance of making early investments in young children. Unfortunately, despite the fact that most brain development occurs in the early years of childhood, federal spending for children is lowest during this period of their growth. The new report from Kids Count states that investing in the first eight years of a child’s life is critical for children to succeed, both while they are in school and in their future. The Kids Count report highlights three primary goals with related policy recommendations.

 The report includes detailed analysis under each goal and policy recommendation. The goals in the report include:

(1) Support parents as they care for their children

• States should establish or continue to expand voluntary, evidence-based home-visiting and parent-training programs for children at risk of falling behind.
• States should Increase mental health services.
• States should boost economic stability by improving income supports such as SNAP, EITC, and child support and expand educational assistance and job-training programs for parents.
• States and the federal government should align eligibility and recertification dates, streamline benefits packages and offer one-stop locations for job training and other programs that serve low-income parents.

 (2) Improve access to quality early care

• States should adopt early learning and development standards that set clear expectations for child development.
• States should set child-care reimbursement rates at levels that allow providers to retain a skilled child-care workforce and maintain age-appropriate instructor-child ratios.
• States can expand and improve Head Start and Early Head Start that combine early education services for parents and access to other resources.
• States should provide voluntary, full-day, high-quality and developmentally appropriate prekindergarten programs that serve all children, beginning with investments that target low-income 3- and 4-year olds.
• States should provide supports needed for all children to reach important benchmarks, and continue to implement rigorous, state-developed college and career-ready education standards.
• States should ensure that children have access to affordable and comprehensive health care from a primary care provider who can manage and coordinate their care. 

(3) Ensure that care is comprehensive and coordinated for all children from birth through age 8  

• States should use consistent measures of child development that provide broad assessments of child well-being.
•  States should develop linked data systems, which include as many early care and education providers as possible that should help administrators ensure that children who need services receive them and identify additional resources that children need to flourish.
• States should increase coordination efforts to include better integration and transitions among early education, K-12, health care, and family support systems.

The findings of The Kids Count policy report demonstrate the need for high-quality early childhood programs, which include supports for families, that can have a powerful and lasting impact on young children—an impact that continues into adulthood. Policymakers can advance their efforts to support young children by looking toward evidence on best practices across early childhood fields, which can be used to make the case for policies supporting a comprehensive and integrated birth through age 8 system that ensures all children have a real chance to be successful and contribute.

Visit Kids Count at the Annie E. Casey Foundation for more details from this policy report.  For a complementary resource focused on Supporting Early Healthy Development please read CSSP’s Policy for Results report, scheduled for release on November 12, 2013.  Stay tuned!

On average state and federal corrections spending amounts to more than double the total state and federal spending on education. A recent report released by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Maine found that if states were to invest in early childhood care and education, they would reduce spending on corrections over time. According to another report released by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois states investing in early care and education will experience long term savings of 16$ for every 1$ initially invested.

Investing in quality early childhood care and education can lead to a reduction in the number of student with developmental delays, grade retention and helps to reduce crime rates. These investments will also lead to an increase in high school graduation rates, improvements in the learning environments of classrooms across the nation, better educational performance, increases in literacy rates and reductions in the need for special education services for students later on in their schooling.

The need for special education services would decrease because quality early childhood education programs address certain developmental delays found in at-risk preschool aged children. These programs also help children to acquire the necessary social and self-control skills that are needed to address the problematic behaviors sometimes found in elementary class rooms.  This decrease in the need for special education is paramount for states because special education services cost nearly double the cost of general education. And because schools are legally obligated to provide appropriate special education services to students in need investing in high quality early education could lead to significant long term savings for states.

Sixty-one percent of American children under the age of five currently attend an early childhood education or care program. According to a study done by Margret Burchinal the need for high quality programs is important because low quality early education and childcare programs can increase the risk of school failure, crime, and other negative outcomes.  High quality early childhood education and care programs would include some of the following characteristics: Highly skilled teachers, comprehensive, creative, and age-appropriate curriculums, strong family and community involvement, appropriate staff to child ratios, small class sizes, appropriate screening and referral services for special health, behavior, and developmental needs

States can increase their early childhood care and education programs by partnering with federal initiatives like The Race to the Top- Early Learning Challenge and the Pathways and Partnerships for Childcare Excellence. Legislation that ensures support for early childhood education and care, quality education, and special education services are all ways that policymakers can help support the educational needs of children while reducing both crime and spending. To learn more about the quality of early care and education policymakers can also research their state’s Quality Improvement System. For more information on results-based policies that support young children and families visit Policyforresults.org.

September is National Recovery Month, a time to promote the societal benefits of prevention, treatment, and recovery for mental and substance use disorders, celebrate people in recovery, laud the contributions of treatment and service providers, and promote the message that recovery in all its forms is possible. Nowhere is this emphasis on recovery more profound and necessary than for families involved with the criminal justice system, because of the far-reaching impact that incarceration has on parents, their children and future generations. Nonviolent offenders with drug-related charges would be much better served by drug treatment rather than mandatory minimum sentences, which do little to rehabilitate individuals or to increase public safety.  In fact, incarceration can have the opposite effect.

In line with this view, last month Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the U.S. Justice Department would cease pursing mandatory minimum sentences for certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.  Citing racial disparities, prison overcrowding as well as the related economic and social impacts, Holder questioned some assumptions about the criminal justice system's approach to the "war on drugs," saying that excessive incarceration has been an "ineffective and unsustainable" part of it.

In their article in the Future of Children, authors Christopher Wildeman and Bruce Western compiled multiple sources of research to describe the intergenerational effects of imprisonment on inequality. Research on adult men suggests that imprisonment diminishes their earnings, disrupts their romantic unions, and compromises their health. Likewise, the imprisonment of a partner, on average, compromises the well-being of those who are left behind. Parental incarceration has been linked to increased physical aggression in boys, and criminality and delinquency throughout the life course.

Many studies have considered the consequences of parental incarceration for children’s behavioral problems more broadly. Having a parent incarcerated causes children of all ages to express a mix of internalizing behaviors, such as being anxious, depressed, or withdrawn, and/or externalizing behaviors, such as acting out or having temper tantrums. The internalizing behaviors tend to occur in older children, but the externalizing behaviors hold across the life course.

Not only does parental incarceration affect children’s behavior, but it is associated with other social problems that can lead to severe marginalization in childhood and adolescence. Children of incarcerated parents are at elevated risk of homelessness, foster care placement, and infant mortality. Maternal incarceration may have even more substantial effects on foster care placement than paternal incarceration does, a risk especially high for African-American children.

In an effort to keep families together whenever possible and to further the action taken by Attorney General Holder, policymakers can support several policies that will decrease children’s exposure to having a parent incarcerated:

• Limit prison time so that nonviolent drug offenders are not needlessly exposed to the psychological damage of incarceration, are free to work and earn an income, and spend time with their families.
• Provide effective drug treatment for nonviolent drug offenders to support their recovery, enabling them to improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.
• Identify and address substance use disorders early on. Research shows that for every $1.00 invested in prevention and early treatment programs, $2.00 to $10.00 could be saved in health costs, criminal and juvenile justice costs, educational costs, and lost productivity.

Providing drug treatment is a family strengthening policy that rehabilitates individuals, promotes the integrity of the family, and furthers  the justice system’s goal of public safety. For more policies related to reducing incarceration, including promoting workforce strategies for reintegrating ex-offenders, see Policyforresults.org. It is also important to consider alternatives to detention for juveniles.  Brain sciencehas shown that juveniles are resilient and are very likely to be successfully rehabilitated with appropriate interventions.   Many juveniles are also parents, and thus strategies to reduce juvenile detention will prevent the youngest generation from inheriting the stressors associated with the incarceration of their young parents.

• Clare Anderson, Deputy Commissioner, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;
• Amy Templeman, Well Being Supervisor, Office of Well-Being for the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency;
• Carla Perkins, Well Being Education Supervisor, Office of Well-Being for the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency;
• Aisha Hunter, Trauma Grant Specialist, Office of Well-Being for the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency;
• Julie Fliss, Supervisory Planning Advisor, Office of Well-Being for the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency;
• Dr. Cynthia Tate, Deputy Director, Office of Child Well Being, Illinois Department of Children & Family Services

A new video from Frontiers of Innovation at Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child highlights the importance of promoting the well-being and skills of parents and caregivers to promote healthy child development. The 5-minute video, entitled Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes: A theory of change emphasizes the way that toxic stress can harm children’s development and argues that the best way to prevent children from being exposed to toxic stress is to strengthen the capabilities of their parents and other adults in their lives.  

Learning to manage daily life stress such as dealing with frustration, meeting new people or getting vaccinations is an important part of children’s growth and development. If, however, a child experiences long periods of intense, repeated stress or does not have a caregiver who is responsive to the child’s need for emotional support, the stress level becomes toxic. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), severe toxic stress in childhood can weaken the architecture of a child’s brain and other growing systems. Over time, toxic stress will increase their risk of developmental delays, learning disabilities, and childhood behavior problems, as well as diabetes, heart disease, depression, drug abuse, alcoholism and other major health problems as adults. Risk factors for toxic stress in childhood include living in extreme poverty, experiencing abuse and neglect, exposure to family or neighborhood violence and the substance abuse or mental health issues of a caregiver.  

According to a 2012 policy statement by the AAP, parents and other caregivers play a crucial role in buffering such sources of stress by responding to the child’s distress with love and support. Absent this type of caring support, children are less equipped to learn how to manage stress and emotions in times of difficulty. Empowering parents with the skills to meet children’s emotional needs and deal with difficult problems such as poverty and family violence is therefore essential to children’s well-being. A parent cannot prevent violent crimes or natural disasters from occurring in their neighborhood, but they can develop skills to protect the emotional well-being of their children when these sources of stress occur.  

In a commentary for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, Jack P. Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, highlighted the importance of ‘executive function’ skills for parents and caregivers, which include ‘the ability to focus and sustain attention, set goals and make plans, follow rules, solve problems, monitor actions, delay gratification, and control impulses’.According to Shonkoff, these are skills that are learned most rapidly between the ages of three and five, with a second window of accelerated development in adolescence and early adulthood. The part of the brain that controls executive function skills remains plastic until age 25 or even 30. Shonkoff argues that this second period of growth provides an opportunity to help young parents whose own development was undermined by early-life adversity to strengthen these skills, which he calls ‘the building blocks of resilience’. Shonkoff recommends that early childhood providers and workforce development agencies incorporate the development of executive function skills into their programming to strengthen the capacity of parents and other caregivers in order to build strong, healthy families and reduce children’s risk of toxic stress.  

In the video, Building Adult Capabilities to Improve Child Outcomes, they argue that strengthening the capacity of everyone who interacts with children is one of the best ways to promote healthy early development and prevent children from being exposed to toxic stress. The video also emphasizes the importance of the wider community in reinforcing these efforts and the need for effective policy that helps families overcome barriers to well-being such as poverty, family and neighborhood violence, child maltreatment and parental mental health or substance abuse issues. While skill-building for parents and caregivers is described as a bridge to help children overcome obstacles, the video highlights the role of policy in removing these obstacles from their path altogether. Mitigating the harmful effects of stress can improve child well-being, but the ideal would be to prevent children from being exposed to risk factors such as violence and poverty altogether.  

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) said inan information memorandum that many state and county child welfare systems are investing significant funds in providing services intended to improve well-being outcomes for children and their families such as counseling, parenting classes, and life skills training, but that ‘a number of studies suggest that some of these services are not grounded in the best available evidence and may be provided to children without sufficient attention to their specific maltreatment and trauma histories’. It is important to consider outcome-focused and research-informed solutions to ensuring the needs of children and their families are being appropriately addressed. To that end, policymakers may wish to explore evidence-based approaches to services to help children who have suffered maltreatment in their healing process. They may also wish to consider incorporating evidence-based or research-informed programs for families that reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect as well as the risk of toxic stress that can result from maltreatment. 

In addition to broader policy efforts to promote the well-being of families and address gaps in child mental health care, new state and local-level policies and programs are attempting to incorporate executive function skills into early learning and parent education programs. Frontiers of Innovation has begun working with organizations in sites across the United States to establish working groups and develop neighborhood-level efforts to strengthen the capacity of parents and create opportunities to develop executive function skills. Washington State is the first state to participate in Frontiers of Innovation - with the aim of creating state-level policy change that benefits young children and families statewide by reducing barriers to learning and positive health outcomes. In particular, early learning policies in Washington State aim to promote the development of ‘executive function’ skills. Washington State has incorporated executive function skills into their 2012 Early Learning and Development guidelines by including an introductory text on executive function, as well as expanding their developmental indicators and strategies for parents and caregivers with a focus on these skills. The state has developed an online training module for teachers, caregivers, trainers of early education professionals and Quality Rating and Improvement System coaches.  

However, while skill-building can help parents cope with the challenges that threaten their family’s well-being and reduce the likelihood of toxic stress in children, it is essential that their efforts are supported by policy change to address the social issues such as poverty and violence that put their children at risk in the first place. Neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and violent crime expose entire communities of young children to an increased risk of toxic stress. Policies that promote family economic stability to reduce childhood poverty and policy approaches that prevent children from being exposed to violent crime in their neighborhoods can therefore have a major impact on reducing toxic stress for young children throughout the community. 

Effective policy approaches to family violence are also important for the prevention of toxic stress in children; according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 2001-2005 there were children under the age of 12 living in 35.2% of households where intimate partner violence was occurring. Seeing a parent being abused has serious emotional consequences for children. The availability of mental health care and substance abuse treatment programs for parents is also critical. Policies that promote access to appropriate care can have a big impact on reducing the risk of toxic stress for children whose parents do struggle with mental illness or substance dependency. At the state level, policies to provide parents with mental health and substance abuse treatment supports can be incorporated into programs such as workforce development.

State policymakers may wish to consider expansion of poverty-reduction policies and efforts to prevent children from being exposed to violence in their communities, as well as re-examining the mental health and substance abuse programs that are available to parents in their state.  

Policymakers could also consider ways that active skill building could be incorporated into early childhood education, workforce development and parenting education programs – and could consider implementing protective and promotive factor frame works into those settings. They may wish to partner with health care and human service professionals in their state to promote screening for toxic stress risk factors in well-child visits or through expanding home visiting programs and find ways to support parents in reducing their children’s exposure to toxic stress. 
 
For more information about reducing child poverty and promoting children’s social, emotional and behavioral health, please visit PolicyForResults.org. To learn about CSSP’s Strengthening Families Initiative aimed at reducing child abuse and neglect by building protective and promotive factors visitcssp.org.

According to  Early Warning!: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters, a special report from Kids Count, children from low-income families and members of racial and ethnic minorities are at significantly higher risk of low educational attainment, ranging from lower reading proficiency in elementary school to lower high school graduation rates. This opportunity gap not only adversely impacts these students, their families and communities but has far-reaching economic consequences for the United States. An analysis by McKinsey and Company found that the opportunity gap between students of different socioeconomic, racial and ethnic groups amounts to “the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession” and that if the gap between low-income students and those from higher-income families had been closed, the Unites States’ “GDP in 2008 would have been $400 billion to $670 billion higher, or 3 to 5 percent of GDP”. The Kids Count report identifies quality preschool education as one way to ensure that children are ready to learn at their full potential in kindergarten and first grade and an important aspect of narrowing this opportunity gap.

To address the disparity in school readiness and educational outcomes, President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address called for the introduction of universal preschool to ensure that all children have access to early childhood education. The President’s proposed budget includes an early education initiative that would expand provision to all children whose families live at or below 200% of the poverty level. Current programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start serve only children from households with income below the poverty level or who are eligible for public assistance. Many working poor families are not eligible for Head Start but may still find it difficult or impossible to afford private preschool tuition.

Quality preschool programs have long-term benefits for children including gains on cognitive tests, improvements in social and emotional development, improvements in school success including less grade repetition, less special needs education placement and increased high school graduation. According to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), the benefits children gain from quality preschool education are associated with long-term outcomes like greater school success, reduced crime and delinquency, and increased earnings over a lifetime.

 These benefits could potentially result in significant cost savings over time if high-quality preschool education becomes more widely available. A University of Chicago longitudinal study of a preschool program implemented by Chicago public schools found in its cost-benefit analysis that for every dollar spent on providing children with a quality preschool education, $10.83 may be saved over time due to reduced burdens on the criminal justice system, higher incomes and higher tax revenues.

 The Center for American Progress says that in addition to the cognitive and social benefits of quality early education, preschool programs are also important for working families, who often face tremendous difficulties in finding affordable, quality child care programs. Well-run preschool programs provide children with the enriching learning environment that too many child care settings lack. This has the potential to positively impact families and the economy in two ways – by serving to close the opportunity gap and in better supporting parents in the workforce – leading to better outcomes for children and their families as well as dual-generation increased economic productivity.

 According to NIEER, several states have already implemented some form of universal access to preschool, including Georgia, Oklahoma, Florida, West Virginia, Illinois and the District of Columbia. However, in other states few children participate in state-funded preschool programs and in ten states there are currently no state-funded preschool programs whatsoever.

State policymakers may wish to consider examining the early learning provision currently available in their state as well as the percentage of children currently enrolled in early childhood education programs to look for ways that access to quality programs could be improved. Expanding access to high-quality preschool is an effective strategy for ensuring better outcomes for children. In doing so, and closing the opportunity gap, policymakers begin to better meet the needs of their constituency, work toward equity and boost their economies.