School Readiness and Children in the CW System

1. School Readiness and Children in the CW System What we can do to improve healthy development for young children in the system

2. National Study of Early Childhood Programs shows that good programs: • Support families by providing timely advice, support and education to help them help their children • Go an extra mile to help families work with children who may be “challenging” • Provide an effective early warning system for many kinds of problems young children and their families are facing

3. What good programs told us: • They already serve : • children in foster care, • children with open cases, • children of parents in drug treatment, • children with multiple reports, • children who are marginally homeless, • children in informal care of grandparents, • children with mentally ill parents, • children in homes with domestic violence, and • Their families, whoever they are

4. What CW does to help them: • Some caseworkers try to keep children in a stable child care placement through family disruptions • Systems may provide child care subsidies targeted to certain problems In other words, not much.

5. Why We Care Overwhelming evidence on two basic facts: 1) Youngest children are most vulnerable to CAN: largest number of reports, largest number taken into system. 2) Earliest years of life are most critical to development, which magnifies the impact of any disruption or trauma. That makes the young children in the child welfare system the most “at risk” group of all.

6. Risks for All Children • Developmental outcomes • Emotional stability and mental health • Social ability to connect with others • Basic physical health • Cognitive abilities • Early detection and resolution of problems • Long term school success • School achievement • Special education • Drop out rates

7. Children in the Child Welfare System • Trauma, chronic stress, child abuse, and neglect impede cognitive and emotional development • 80% of children in the child welfare system are at risk for medical and developmental problems related to maternal substance abuse • More than half suffer from physical health problems • Over half have developmental delays • Many experience multiple placements and moves that compromise social and emotional development National Center for Children in Poverty

8. The National Trend in Child Welfare • Very young children are the fastest growing segment of the child welfare population. • Over the past decade, the number of children under age five has increased by 110 percent. • One in five new admissions to the foster care system are infants. They remain in care twice as long as older children. • A significant percentage of young children in foster care do not receive basic health care such as immunizations. • Specialized needs resulting from developmental delays and emotional and behavioral conditions are even less likely to be addressed. National Center for Children in Poverty

9. Why We Care, cont. One more important fact: Young children return home. If there isn’t significant change, sustained over time, in the environment that caused them to be reported to the system in the first place, the likelihood of repeated disruptions and their coming back into the system is great.

10. The Connection • We found that EC programs can work very effectively with high risk children AND their families in a normative setting, with a few key enhancements. • CW could partner with high quality programs to significantly improve their services to both children AND families.

11. What CW could do • Make sure children in their care are consistently connected to the same good programs as long as possible. • Make sure that programs have a chance (or an obligation) to be “good programs”. • Make sure that foster parents and case workers understand the importance of a child’s experience in a high quality EC program.

12. “Remediating the effects of abuse and neglect experienced during early childhood at later ages requires much more intensive, long-term, and costly treatment than early responses … The best time to address these important issues is during early childhood, and the children who enter the child welfare system in the early years are those most in need of this early response.” -- Linda McCart and Charles Bruner “Child Welfare and School Readiness Making the Link for Vulnerable Children” Child and Family Policy Center