Strong Start Santa Clara County

Opinion: Child care is infrastructure and must work for everyone Bay Area business and political leaders neglect a key element of economic success.

The latest findings from the Perry Preschool research team, led by Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman, show that the benefits of high quality ECE continue into the second generation. "Children of the original participants have higher levels of education and employment, lower levels of criminal activity, and better health than children of the controls." You can find the article abstract at

The Lasting Effects of Early-Childhood Education on Promoting the Skills and Social Mobility of Disadvantaged African Americans and Their Children | Journal of Political Economy: Vol 131, No 6 This paper demonstrates the long-term intra- and intergenerational benefits of the HighScope Perry Preschool Project, which targeted disadvantaged African American children. We use newly collected data on the original participants through late middle age and on their children into their midtwenties....

Here's a great story about innovation in government, engaging in family partnership, and supporting young children right from the start.

How We Co-Designed the Newborn Supply Kit with Mothers Learn how an interagency team co-designed the newborn supply kit with parents and community leaders to meet families’ immediate needs after having a baby.

Here's promising data from a pilot in CO. Granting $500 per month to home-based providers keeps them in business by helping to smooth out their cash flow.

Colorado Pilot Gives Home Child Care Providers Cash Payments with No Strings Attached - Early Learning Nation Angelica Lerrga started caring for children in the basement of her sister’s Colorado home in 2009, after her husband had been deported two years earlier.

As California expands TK to all four-year-olds, its worth looking at the impact on infant-toddler care, and lessons learned from other parts of the country. New America Foundation has created a brief that does just that.

State and Local Strategies to Strengthen Infant and Toddler Care During Pre-K Expansion Children from infancy to pre-K deserve high-quality education and care in a unified birth-to-five system.

We should plan for childcare facilities the way we plan for schools, parks and roads. That means talking to cities about how they allocate space. Over the next six weeks, Strong Start will be talking to cities about no cost ways they can support family childcare home providers deliver their essential services to children, families, and communities.

How to Fix Crumbling Child Care Infrastructure These US cities and states are starting think about early childhood facilities the same way they plan for schools and public transportation.

Santa Clara County's Board of Supervisors is currently discussing $20 million in funding for childcare facilities and workforce development. There has been a lot of public comment and almost half of it has been from Strong Start members! Its wonderful to see community and elected leaders and working together to address this critical need ... and it passes unanimously!

Our friends Children Now have released their 2023 California Scorecard of Children's Well-being. You can interact with and learn from it at https://scorecard.childrennow.org/?

Children Now Scorecard

Here's a great new resource from the Department of Labor - the National Database of Childcare Prices. An atlas of the cost infant, toddler, preschool, and school-aged center- and home-based care by county. Unsurprisingly the SF Bay Area has some of the highest prices for infant care in the country. You can read the issue brief and explore the data at the link below.

www.dol.gov

Hawaii moves towards universal preschool

Hawaii to make preschool available for all 3-4 year-olds HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii put forward a plan Tuesday to make preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032, which if successful would put the state in a rarified group of states managing to provide pre-kindergarten education to most of its children.

Here's an op-ed from the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board on why child care needs to be a public policy priority.

Opinion: Child care crisis must become a priority for California and the nation This list of must-dos will be a hard sell to the millions of Americans who believe a massive expansion of government spending will either lead to much higher taxes or further balloon the national debt.