A growing understanding of the importance of children's earliest years has led to an increasing desire to measure early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. There are now nearly 150 tools for measuring ECD outcomes internationally, which can make it challenging to choose an appropriate measurement tool for a given measurement effort. This…

This project seeks to answer questions about the effectiveness of early childhood programs in meeting their important goals, paying careful attention to the effectiveness of program variations (especially in regard to particular demographic and economic target groups). This review will be guided by two overarching questions: (1) How effective are…

Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) grants help states and communities improve early childhood systems to support child development, equitable access to quality services and supports, and family well-being. Truly interdisciplinary, ECCS promotes cross-sector systems change initiatives that focus on integrating health care, mental health,…

In many contexts, early educators are pressured to adopt narrow, skill-based curricular approaches and accompanying standards and measures of accountability. Alternatively, other educators infuse holistic learning and development through the play and guided inquiry of young children. For decades, passionate educators and caregivers have studied…

In this article, M. Rebecca Kilburn and Jill S. Cannon report on First Born, a targeted universal home visiting program operating in over half of New Mexico counties. Created in a small town in response to a lack of support for pregnant women and new parents, First Born adapts features of other home visiting programs, responding to conditions…

Georgia's Pre-K Longitudinal Study followed a statewide sample of 1,169 children who attended Georgia's Pre-K Program in 2013-14 through their 4th grade year in 2018-19. The study was conducted by researchers at the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The following summary…

The University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development (OCD) has practiced university-community engagement activities for 30 years. This has included hundreds of specific projects conducted with community partners, all funded by outside grants. Based on our experience, we describe some lessons learned regarding the operation of a…

This article describes an infant and early childhood mental health-informed therapeutic visitation program that offers clinical support, systems-level advocacy, and developmentally appropriate guidance to families navigating the child welfare and family court systems. The program offers treatment, permanency, and placement planning for infants,…

Whether discussing the process involved in positive youth development (PYD), articulating an approach (or philosophy) of youth programs associated with PYD, or enacting a program aimed at promoting PYD, ideas derived from relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory are pertinent. Accordingly, we discuss the RDS metamodel and explain the…

Richard Chase and Betty Emarita developed and tested two tools by listening to the voices of parents and early childhood development professionals whose practices support whole child development and well-being in diverse communities. A 14-item survey tool for parents assesses healthy early childhood development from the perspective of family and…

The "Integrated Approaches to Supporting Child Development and Improving Family Economic Security" project was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and Northwestern University for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human…

This article presents an overview of the human capital approach to human development and how it has been used for evaluating early education programs. It critiques the human capital approach by considering how its focus on measurable returns on economic investments limits an understanding of the full and complex contribution of early education to…

Many community-based sport and physical activity programs take a positive youth development approach when operating in underserved communities around the world (Forneris, Whitley, & Barker, 2013). However, one of the biggest challenges for these programs is sustainability (Lindsey, 2008). The purpose of this article is to present the 3…

In 2010, the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV), provided states with the opportunity to apply for funding to build and expand evidence-based home visiting programs in their states and to incorporate community collaboration components, referred to as early childhood comprehensive systems (ECCS). For Texas, this…

In September 2016, the member states of the United Nations completed the process of adopting and defining indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; United Nations, 2015). Developed through a three-year, worldwide participatory process, these 17 goals and 169 targets represent a global consensus on the part of U.N. member nations…