Two Generation Strategy Whose job is child development?

1. Two Generation StrategyWhose job is child development?

2. --Vision for the Child and Youth Readiness Cabinet, The Patrick Administration Education Action Agenda, June 2008 • “There is widespread awareness that children do not develop and learn in schools alone. Instead, they mature across many dimensions — physical, social, emotional, ethical and intellectual — within networks of families, schools, neighborhoods, communities and our larger society. Consequently, government agencies charged with fostering children’s development and working with families must incorporate these dimensions and networks into their service delivery systems and improve their coordination.”

3. Whole System Reform for Children and Families • Capacity Building vs. accountability • Group Solutions vs. individual solutions • Technology to drive practice • Integrated system vs. a fragmented system

4. High Needs Children • Of the nearly half million children birth to age five in Massachusetts (2010 Census), close to one-third are low-income, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty, while 17.4% are English language learners, 6.7% have special needs, and .9% are homeless. • Based on the data from the National Center for Children in Poverty, we believe that 135,000 children in MA experience at least one risk factor and 20,000 have three or more risk factors, which without intervention, may lead to developmental delays. • Children with risk factors are more vulnerable to encountering developmental delays and having school readiness gaps, and are most likely to benefit from high-quality early learning experiences.

5. Whole Family Approach From an Ascend at the Aspen Institute report, “TWO GENERATIONS, ONE FUTURE: Moving parents and children beyond poverty together”. 2012

6. Two GenerationsStrengthening Families • Supporting families concrete needs • Supporting parents to understand growth and development • Supporting parents to understand the social and emotional needs of children • Supporting families to have social networks • Supporting family resiliancency

7. Resources that support child development • Housing Resources • Health Care • Public Safety Services • Nutrition Assistance • Support for Parents • Recreation and Enrichment • Crisis and Support Services • Children’s Programming • Early Education • Elementary and Secondary Education • Adult Education

8. Conditions of effective resources • Accessibility • Prevention Programs • Community Initiatives • Community and Agency Practices

9. Birth to 3 rd grade • mechanisms for cross-sector alignment (Governance, strategic plans) • Administrators and Leadership Quality (Leadership is inclusive/facilitative and focused on instruction) • Teacher Quality and Capacity (Focus on credentials and professional development; professional dispositions; professional community) • Instructional Tools and Practices (Curriculum content; alignment of standards and curricula; pedagogical methods) • Instructional Environment (Student-centered learning culture (classroom and school) home • Data and Assessments (Data and assessment used to improve instruction) • Engaged Families (Families and communities engaged in student learning) • Transitions and Pathways (Focus on children’s movement through the continuum) 1 Kauerz, Kristie (2011). Sustaining Your Work: PreK-3rd Implementation and Evaluation Framework; a presentation to ESE PK-3 grantees. Harvard University: Cambridge, MA

10. Strategic areas of focus • EEC is focused on strengthening the system of early education and care in Massachusetts as a critical element of the education pipeline from cradle to career. • The child outcomes that we are trying to achieve require investment in four critical areas: • teacher /educator quality, • program quality, • screening and assessment, and • engagement of communities and families. • The system EEC is building includes all children not just those in formal care.

11. Early Childhood information • Providing parents/families with information about early learning and development programs available to them and giving them the information needed to support their children development • Providing programs and services with information about the children they are serving and to improve individualized teaching and learning at the classroom and program level through formative assessment, • Provide an opportunity for state agencies to understand where children may be served by multiple systems that would benefit from greater coordination and integration; and • Providing policy makers with information about the current use of early learning and development programs

12. Opportunities • Committed leadership • Support from the governor • Support from the legislators • Resources for alignment • Defined goal to close the achievement gap • Infrastructure to build from for young children

13. Challenges • Leadership buy in vs field buy in • Defining supporting development of children as a shared goal • Lack of data systems to demonstrate benefit of two generation focus • Unequal infrastructure at the state and local level

14. What we are doing? • Making services family focused • Creating a child development lens • Recognizing that parents are children's first teachers • Using a single service entry point to have a single message about the development of children • Create service models that support, not hinder child development

15. How are we doing this? • Understand the science of child development in the early years • Using as a foundation a two generation focus with a do no harm to child development • Understanding the opportunities children need to grow and develop (Early Learning Standards) • Supporting parents as first teachers to understand what supports development as well as adverse conditions (Screening) • Knowing each child and family by name in a trusted relationship (data) • Sharing responsibility for all of our children and their growth and development (cross training and professional development)

16. Today's charge • Define concrete next steps for cross agency training and the uses of engagement • Look at eligibility differences and determine where we align and where we can move to align

17. Frame for our work today • Increase an understanding of what we want children to learn and how our agencies support, advance or hinder that learning • Remind ourselves of the importance of family engagement as a necessary tool for child growth

18. Urgency • We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. • Martin Luther king