To promote children's healthy development and give them opportunities to flourish, families need a wide range of support services. These services are often disconnected from each other. Early care and education (ECE) has a particularly fragmented system (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018). Systems with myriad processes…

The California Children and Families Act of 1998 led to creation of the Kern County Children and Families Commission (First 5 Kern) to support early childhood service programs in Kern County, the third largest county in California that spread a land area as large as the state of New Jersey. In Fiscal Year 2014-15, First 5 Kern administered more…

Infancy is a time of extreme opportunity, but it is also a time of extreme vulnerability, particularly for those reared in high-risk environments. Although infant exposure to any risk is important to understand, this brief focuses on the experience and impact of "trauma," defined as witnessing or experiencing an event that poses a real…

This paper deals with the implementation of integrated services providing early support for young children and their families. The integration of services is considered to have highly positive effects on the development of children and on the prevention of child neglect and maltreatment. Therefore, childcare centres have been developed into family…

Although Early Head Start (EHS) is a federal-to-local program, there are opportunities for collaboration at the state level that have expanded in recent years. State leaders can seize opportunities to break down silos and create collaborative state systems and programs to better meet the needs of vulnerable young children in their states. This…

Children living in poverty face considerable developmental risks. This report presents interim results from an evaluation of parental employment and educational services delivered within a two-generational, early childhood program targeting low-income families who are expecting a child or who have a child under age 3. This study is part of the…

The Home Visiting Coalition represents more than 75 organizations working together to articulate the effectiveness of home visiting to a range of policymakers and stakeholders in the early childhood field. Despite varying program goals and service delivery strategies, the Coalition participants share a commitment to expanding access to…

The purpose of this synthesis is to present summary information on family-centered practices, and on interventions aimed at promoting positive parenting practices, teaching parenting skills, and influencing parent child interactions that have demonstrated associations with positive social emotional development for children aged 0-3 years. The…

This case study examined a joint assessment and allocation panel set up to inform local implementation of the UK Government's policy of integrating children's services, particularly the introduction of a Common Assessment Framework and the lead practitioner role. It brought together agencies serving one community. Professionals and parents agreed…

Early interventionists struggle with supporting parents to prepare their children to be socially successful. Systems of support in which parents matriculate through a series of progressively intensive interventions depending on their need have been identified as a potentially promising framework for delivering family support services (McIntyre &…

This report presents the findings of the formative evaluation of the Understanding the Early Years (UEY) Initiative. The evaluation was conducted to examine issues of implementation and design, early progress in achieving immediate objectives, and issues related to accountability. The evaluation team was also asked to provide preliminary guidance…

This is the fifth and final report of a longitudinal study examining the use of a comprehensive system of prevention and early intervention services in Palm Beach County, and how its use relates to the outcomes of children and families living in four targeted geographic areas (TGAs) with high rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, crime, and child…

Describes the "Educate Your Child" program, a Cuban family-based program supported by UNICEF and designed to enhance the total development of children from birth until the start of formal schooling for the 80 percent of Cuban children who do not attend the Children's Circle preschool program. Highlights the importance of the regional…

For more than a decade, Florida's Palm Beach County has been building an infrastructure of prevention and early intervention services to promote and support the healthy development and school readiness of children from birth to age 8. The county began this effort with a set of programs focused on serving families in four targeted geographic areas…

This monograph describes a University Affiliated Program's (UAP) initiative that targets the development needs of children from birth to 5 years of age who are homeless and the services and supports provided to their families. The Georgetown University Child Development Center, the UAP for the District of Columbia, has implemented a homelessness…