Stepping Up Efforts to Build Communities Where Young Children and Families Can Thrive

By Joan Lombardi

Something is happening  in a growing number of communities around the world. Backed by the science that recognizes the importance of the early years to long term health, learning and behavior, the movement to focus on early childhood development has continued to grow. The innovative edge of this movement goes beyond a single program; instead it leans in to involve the whole community in efforts to help children and families learn and thrive.

From small neighborhoods, to big cities, from rural communities to statewide efforts to promote local initiatives, these efforts come with varied and creative names.  Whether the movement is called Early Learning Nation or Urban 95 (1) or falls under another creative umbrella, the goal is create communities that can be responsive to the needs of young children and their families; families who today are too often struggling alone, without traditional supports so important to the success of all of us. 

A number of key interrelated concepts are driving this movement, among them:

   - The ecological systems model that recognizes that children grow up in families, families are influenced by the communities around them and in turn the policies at all levels.

   - The two generation (2) movement that acknowledges the importance of empowering the adults in children’s lives which in turn effects healthy child development.

   - The life-course approach to service delivery which calls for us to start early and assure continuity across the early years and beyond.

  - The concept of nurturing care that integrates health, nutrition, early learning, responsive caregiving and security and safety (3).

  - The belief in the empowerment of families and mutual respect for the richness of cultural diversity. 

  -  The movement towards collective impact, rather than focusing on impact from a single program; using population based data to drive towards results.

So if a mayor or other municipal leader, or a group of concerned citizens or a business or foundation official, asks what can we do together to make a difference for our youngest children and their families, we need a way to get started. While there is no neat formula for making change happen, I offer the following steps forward for discussion, debate and dialogue; each community will have to find their own unique direction.

Getting Ready

The best way forward is to just jump in- call a meeting, demonstrate leadership, begin to vision how the community can be more supportive to the families with young children. You can start by--

1) Bringing together a planning group across sectors (health, education, family support)

2) Assuring strong and meaningful citizen participation

3) Defining the mission and setting goals

4) Mapping community assets

Assuring a pathway to success

We are gaining new insights into the need to assure continuous and high quality services for young children and families from the prenatal period through the primary grades. Proving good maternal and child health, nutrition and mental health; assuring family support, including outreach to fathers, and developing early childhood services from home visiting to quality child care, can all lead young children down the path to success later in life. But families and services do not live in isolation- they need an infrastructure of support to help assure quality, to make connections, to track results. In your planning efforts, consider--

5) Establishing a focal point or hubs to help early childhood providers assure quality services to children and support families, and support the workforce.

6) Creating a mechanism to connect families to services and to each other, and provide ongoing networks of support.

7) Promoting strong linkages between community early childhood services and schools that are ready to support young children and families.

8) Developing integrated data systems and community data dashboards to track results and inform improvements and expansion

Reaching out to the broader community 

Research tells us that what makes a difference to families goes beyond their ability to access services.  There is growing recognition that the overall climate of a community: the social, economic and physical context has an impact children and families. We have to involve everyone in a community to make a difference. We all have to row in the same direction by--

9) Strengthening the social fabric of the community (creating social networks religious institutions, civic organizations, businesses, law enforcement, higher education institutions)

10) Utilizing physical spaces to support young children and families (places to play and learn)

11) Assuring ongoing efforts to support family and community economic development (housing, transportation, asset development, job opportunities)

12) Promoting new  financing mechanisms and advocating for state and national policies that support young children and families  

In closing, we hear a lot these days about what divides us. This movement to create “caring communities” is something that can unite us. It can heal,  it can bring us together towards a common goal: strong families and healthy happy and successful children. 

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1. Early Learning Nation was launched with support of the Bezos Foundation to create a network of early learning communities across the country to support young children and families. Urban 95 is an initiative of the Bernard van Leer Foundation to design cities to promote healthy child development by considering them from an elevation of 95 centimeters, the average height of a healthy 3 year old. 

2. The two generation approach was launched by Ascend at the Aspen Institute.  www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/ascend.

3. Advancing Early Childhood Development from Science to Scale: An Executive Summary for the Lancet’s Series,  2016. www.thelancet.com/series/ECD 2016