Select Resources Related to Comprehensive Systems Development

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Envisioning a Comprehensive System

Building Bridges: A Comprehensive System for Healthy Development and School Readiness is the first publication in a series by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy led by the UCLA Center for Healthier Children Families and Communities. This publication describes a framework for systems building.

Building the Foundation for Bright Futures: Final Report of the NGA Task Force on School Readiness is the report of the National Governor’s Association Task Force on School Readiness which sought to identify actions that governors and states can take to support families, schools, and communities in their efforts to ensure that all children start school ready to reach their full potential.

Financing

Thinking Broadly: Financing Strategies for Comprehensive Child and Family Initiatives by The Finance Project, describes financing strategies that can be used for supporting comprehensive systems for children and families.

State Networks of Comprehensive Community Collaboratives: Financing and Governance Strategies by The Finance Project, describes funding strategies for covering the costs of state and community level collaboratives.

Spending Smarter: A Funding Guide for Policymakers and Advocates to Promote Social and Emotional Health and School Readiness is published by Project Thrive, the organization funded to provide policy support to ECCS grantees. The publication describes how States and communities can use existing funding streams to meet the challenge of utilizing existing funding streams to promote the social and emotional health and school readiness of young children.

Governance

Building an Early Learning System: The ABCs of Planning and Governance Structures was published by the State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network in collaboration with the Build Initiative. The publication describes strategies for financing and governing an early learning system (by which they mean a comprehensive system like the one envisioned in the ECCS Initiative).

Community-level Systems Building

Local Systems Development: Short Take Number 6, developed by Project Thrive, is a summary of how a select group of ECCS grantees are approaching local systems development.

Building Connections: Six Case Studies of Early Childhood System Building at the State and Local Level highlights systems building efforts in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Vermont. It was produced for the Build Initiative.

Communications

Talking Early Child Development and Exploring the Consequences of Frame Choices: A FrameWorks Message Memo reports on the findings from FrameWorks Institute’s research on how the public views early childhood issues in general and school readiness policies in specific. Additional publications on this topic can be found on the FrameWorks Institute’s Web site and in the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy publication on the topic.

Indicators and Outcomes

Findings from the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative: A 17 State Partnership is the final report of the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative which brought together 17 states to develop a set of core indicators of school readiness.

Pathway to Children Ready for School and Succeeding at Third Grade is the Pathways Initiative’s summary document addressing the issue of what steps need to be taken in the early childhood years to help children reach the point where they are succeeding and learning at school. It includes a  discussion of indicators for measuring progress but also covers strategies and evidence for pursuing particular strategies.

Improving Developmental Services

The Assuring Better Child Health and Development Program (ABCD) funded by The Commonwealth Foundation and administered by the National Academy for State Health Policy is a rich resource of information on State efforts to improve the delivery of early childhood development services. It includes information from ABCD I which focused on developmental screening and referral and ABCD II which focused on early childhood mental health.

Building a Model System of Developmental Services in Orange County was developed as a blueprint by the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities for an ongoing initiative to redesign the system of developmental services in Orange County, California. A more recent publication provides a detailed discussion of funding a model system.

ECCS Evaluation and Assessment of State Activities

The State Maternal and Child Health Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Grant Program: Year One Evaluation Final Report is the first report from the evaluation of the national ECCS initiative that is being conducted by The Lewin Group. Additional reports will be forthcoming.

State of the States ECCS Initiatives provides an assessment of state ECCS systems-building activities. Further information on this topic is available on their State summaries Web page.

Is there a report or initiative you think should be highlighted here?
Please contact us and let us know!