Sharing Web Resources

On the Zero to Three website, the section relating to Public Policy caught my attention – the attorney in me, at least.  

In the link for Building Early Childhood Systems, the opening statement was as follows:

Building Early Childhood Systems

Home > Public Policy > Building Early Childhood Systems

"All infants and toddlers need access to high-quality, affordable early care and education, health and mental health, and family support services. Programs and services that address these areas are critical; however, they are only as strong as the infrastructure that supports them. These resources will help you to promote comprehensive, coordinated systems of high-quality, prenatal-to-five services in your state."

I liked this opening statement because importance was placed on providing children with high-quality, affordable early care and education, health and mental health, and family support services.  The programs that are created to achieve this type of education must be accurately built.

The Policy Guide section stated:

"The greatest opportunity for influencing a child’s life begins on day one, and public policy plays an important role in ensuring that our youngest children get off to the best possible start in life. Policy is how practice and research can reach millions across every state, in every community, and in Washington, DC, and there are multiple ways for you to get involved in the public policy process at all levels of decision making.

The Early Experiences Matter Policy Guide is your set of tools for taking action and improving public policies that impact the lives of infants, toddlers, and their families. All of the materials in the toolkit are accessible online, and we encourage you to use them in your work and disseminate them widely.

The Early Experiences Matter Policy Guide offers you a wealth of policy options and strategies to use in your efforts to affect policy change for infants, toddlers, and their families. It includes mini policy briefs, practical tools, in-depth policy papers, and more."

  

The link for the Policy Guide is – http://www.zerotothree.org/public-policy/policy-toolkit/2089953186.pdf

The graphic for the core elements of an Early Childhood Development System was very informative.  It showed that for children to thrive the following areas had to be interlinked and functioning properly:

• Professional Development – to increase the knowledge base, skills and compensation of the workforce.

• Regulations & Standards – federal and state regulations that establish minimum standards and track performance.

• Public Engagement & Political Will Building – to garner and build support for early childhood care and education.

• Financing – sufficient to ensure comprehensive quality services based on standards.

• Accountability & Evaluation – cross-system data, planning, analysis, and evaluation to account for quality, effectiveness, and credibility of programs and services.

• Quality Improvement – effective policies, practices, and programs that improve quality and are aligned across the system.

• Governance & Leadership – to set policy direction for the comprehensive system.

No area is more important than another.

There was an interesting article entitled:

Partnering with the Business Community & Economists

 to Advance a Birth to Five Policy Agenda

by Robert H. Dugger, Managing Director, Tudor Investment Corporation and Chair of the Advisory Board, Partnership for America’s Economic Success and Debbie M. Rappaport, Project Director, ZERO TO THREE Policy Network

(http://main.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/Partnering_with_the_Business_Community_final.pdf?docID=4361)

This article made the link in relation to the importance of the business and economic community as it related to investments in the early childhood field and the connection to policy-makers.