December 2016 | ISSUE 27
This Early Childhood-LINC newsletter connects communities across the country as they build and strengthen systems to help children and families thrive. Click the box below and enter your email address in the Stay Informed box to sign up. 
 
      

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NATIONAL NEWS
NEWS FROM EC-LINC
EC-LINC Communities Gather for Two Days of Learning and Sharing
 
Ellen Galinsky, Executive Director of Mind in the Making and Chief Science Officer at the Bezos Family Foundation, addresses the group
Last week, representatives from the 10 members of the Early Childhood Learning and Innovation Network for Communities (EC-LINC) gathered in Washington, DC, to learn together, share their recent work and engage in conversations about early childhood systems building. 

The meeting touched on topics related to EC-LINC's work around the building blocks of early learning communities as well as infrastructure issues that cross all of them. Topics addressed included community will, quality services, supportive neighborhoods and policies that support families. 
The second day of the meeting was held jointly in partnership with the National League of Cities Institute and its cohort of cities engaged in  City Leadership for Building an Early Learning Nation.  Participants tackled issues such as race equity and strategies of sustainability in early childhood systems. 
WEBINAR: How Can We Engage Families for System Change in Early Childhood? 
Join the Center for the Study of Social Policy and First 5 Alameda County, along with early childhood leaders from Florida, Massachusetts and California, to learn about insights and strategies from the new toolkit,  Ripples of Transformation: Families Leading Change in Early Childhood Systems. 

The webinar, to be held on January 11th from 1:30-2:30 pm Eastern time, will summarize a fresh approach to family engagement along a continuum, from First Teacher to Policy Advocate, highlighting cutting-edge strategies for early childhood agency and program leaders to promote equity-driven, family-led systems change. Finally, the panel will explore policy and practice implications and take questions from participants. 

Register here! 
 
NATIONAL NEWS
United States Children, Poverty and Welfare

Two reports released this fall explore the state of childhood poverty and welfare spending in the  United States.  In September, the U.S. Census Bureau published its its annual report on poverty and income in  the United States. In general,    Annie E. Casey Foundation noted, "America's poverty rate fell from 14.8 percent in 2014 to 13.5 percent in 2015,  the  largest one-year drop in our nation's poverty rate since 1968."

However, of all the Americans in poverty, a third of them are children. Nearly half of all children in woman-led households live in poverty. African-American and Latino children are nearly three times more likely to live in poverty than white or Asian children. Read Foundation President & CEO Patrick McCarthy's analysis of the report  here .

In October, Child Trends published a  survey of federal, state and local welfare expenditures  for state fiscal year 2014. The survey finds that welfare expenditures have overall decreased, while the funding composition has shifted to greater dependency on state and local funds.

The survey authors note, "Welfare financing is very complex, and that complexity affects what services are available to children and families, the approaches used to care for children, and the way that child welfare agencies operate. Therefore, to understand the challenges and opportunities child welfare agencies face in serving vulnerable children, it is critical to understand how their work is financed."

COMMUNITY NEWS
Denver Launches Initiative to Strengthen Early Childhood System

Gary Community Investments (GCI), a Denver-based social impact foundation, invests in for-profit and philanthropic solutions for Colorado's low-income children and their families. In 2016, they included Denver Early Childhood Council (DECC) in their portfolio with a grant to improve the quality of child care for children in Denver, while also influencing the practices of early childhood councils across the state.

The grant will help DECC increase administrative funding, augment staffing, enhance internal systems and boost financial stability as it continues to grow. Gary Community Investments expects the DECC grant to achieve three outcomes as part of its overall mission to improve services to children ages zero to five. These outcomes are:
  1. more licensed early care and education providers in Denver receiving quality improvement services;
  2. more low-income children who are enrolled in high-quality programs; and
  3. more high-quality providers that accept children who are enrolled in the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program .
Prior to receiving the grant,  DECC demonstrated its willingness to contribute to the development of a sustainable early childhood system in Denver. After developing a data system to track investments in quality improvement programs across funding streams, DECC worked with state-wide councils to integrate its system with the state quality rating and improvement (QRIS) system, before handing it off to the statewide association.

"We'll take an idea, we'll develop it and we'll hand it off to strengthen the system," says Emily Bustos, Executive Director of Denver's Early Childhood Council.

This caught the attention of Gary Community Investments. In providing this grant, GCI hopes to help improve DECC's long-term financial stability and overall effectiveness in receiving federal, state and local grants. "We must be able to be less reliant on governmental dollars and more innovative in our financing approaches," says Bustos. Specifically, this grant will allow DECC to establish a much more robust accounting system, update their strategic plan, identify measurable goals around core services in informal care and formal licensed care communities, assess systemic barriers around subsidies and share learnings with the larger early childhood system in Denver. Bustos notes that DECC is excited about this work and hopes to continue to learn and adapt from it.

"At Denver Early Childhood Council, we aim to be an agile and proactive organization, constantly building our adaptive capacity."

First Steps Kent Launches Media Campaign
Recent early childhood statistics out of Kent County, Michigan, aren't encouraging - 25 percent of children live in poverty and 50 percent of third-graders are not reading proficient.
 
But instead of despairing, First Steps Kent is using those very numbers to change them. With a $150,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan, First Steps Kent is using billboards, television and radio commercials, social media, street banners, mall advertising and print pieces to  educate, engage and activate community members in the effort to improve community child well-being and reading proficiency.

The campaign is designed to drive home the message that "investing in high-quality early care and education pays for itself in many ways and many times over," as Annemarie Valdez, executive director of First Steps Kent, explained in a press release with the launch of the campaign.
NEW FROM CSSP
Learning from Resident Engagement Work
 
A new report from the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Fostering Resident Voice and Influence: The Making Connections Experience with Resident Engagement and Leadership , describes lessons learned through the decade-long Making Connections project. Much of the wisdom gleaned from that project, with its focus on engaging residents to improve their communities, can be applied to efforts to engage parents in the programs that serve their young children and in community-level work to build early childhood systems and improve conditions and outcomes for young children and their families.

RESOURCES FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD SYSTEM-BUILDING:
Policy & Research Partnerships 

 
Blog
Connecting Research & Policy

   
To bridge the gaps between early childhood researchers and decision-  makers,  this blog from Child Trends suggests the  formation of " research-practice partnerships ." Such partnerships  help researchers better  understand practitioners' challenges, their contexts and the opportunities and limitations for using research. In turn, practitioners develop greater trust of the research and deeper investment in its production and use.

Brief
Sharing Research with Policymakers


When are policymakers most likely to use early childhood research He re Child Trend pr e sents
 the  c onditions that lead to use of research and the presentation formats that best facilitate their use. It is intended to support those who regularly bring research to policymakers to improve effective services and supports for children and families.


EXPLORE MORE RESOURCES FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD SYSTEMS
    • For system builders: Agnew Beck Consulting, a policy and public engagement firm, released a report on a series of community cafes  held in six Alaska communities between January and June 2016. These cafes brought together parents, community members, families, children, service providers and concerned community members to share their thoughts, experiences and wisdom about how their communities could help strengthen and support families and children.
    • For parents: Raising Race Conscious Children offers 10 talking tips for adults trying to talk about race with young children.
       
    • For providers:  New research shows that if kids miss a lot of preschool, they're more likely to have problems in kindergarten or later on. This article explores the use of home visiting to boost preschool attendance.
       
    • For researchers: A Duke University article shares how neuroscience research sheds light on the effect of poverty on the development of children's brains.
    • For funders:  The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) and The Kresge Foundation have joined forces to launch Hope Starts Here , a partnership to strengthen and improve access to Detroit's existing early childhood systems and to elevate the voices of families.  
       
    • For racial-equity-focused system builders:  The Center for Public Policy Priorities Texas Kids Count Project has released a comprehensive study of the state of children's  health, education and financial security across race and ethnicity .
 
Early Childhood-LINC is a learning and innovation network developed by and for communities.  Our mission is to support families and improve results for young children in communities across the country with a focus on accelerating the development of effective, integrated, local early childhood systems.  We are currently made up of 10 member communities across the country.   Learn more about the innovative work of our communities.