In 2018, state leaders in Maine determined that their efforts to support children and their families were hampered by the lack of coordination among key stakeholders--early education and care providers, public school educators, and health and social services providers. Addressing these challenges would require new forms of collaboration both among…

The Illinois Child Care Collaboration Program promotes collaboration between child care and other early care and education providers, including Early Head Start (EHS), by creating policies to ease blending of funds to extend the day or year of existing services. While no funding is provided through the initiative, participating programs may take…

Touch-screen technologies, on-demand multimedia, and mobile devices are prompting a rethinking of education. In a world of increasing fiscal constraints, state leaders are under pressure to capitalize on these new technologies to improve productivity and help students excel. The task is daunting across the education spectrum, but for those in…

In response to the problems caused by categorical funding for services to children and families, the National Commission on Children recommended a series of changes in the organization, administration, and implementation of programs at all levels of government, to encourage a more collaborative and comprehensive service delivery system, including…

To ensure that all young children enter school in good health, ready and able to learn, and are socially and emotionally well developed, states are challenged by the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System (SECCS) Initiative to assure that services are coordinated, integrated and well managed. States must not only plan the delivery of services,…

During the past three decades, there has been an increase in knowledge about early childhood development. Early experiences can function as either risk factors or protective factors for a child's future health and development. This has led to concern about how current health systems contribute to the quality of the earliest experiences of life.…

The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) has launched a five-year initiative that will support state efforts to build comprehensive early childhood service systems. This initiative--the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (SECCS) Initiative--provides planning and implementation grants to the state and territory Maternal and…

In 1998, California voters passed Proposition 10, the California Children and Families First Act, which provides for an excise tax on tobacco products to fund parent education, health and child care programs that promote early childhood development for 0-5s. Since the adoption of its first Strategic Plan (2000), the Orange County First 5…

The purpose of this report is to provide the Center for Excellence (CfE) in Early Childhood Development with a set of recommendations regarding how to measure school readiness in Ventura County. This report defines school readiness according to the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) which identified the following three important components of…

The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities (CHCFC) has developed the School Readiness Critical Pathways (SRCPs) as an evidence-based conceptual model that links related outcomes and strategies. This helps to organize an array of broad and diffuse evidence regarding the strategies that produce school readiness outcomes for…

The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau has launched a five-year initiative that will support state efforts to build comprehensive early childhood service systems. This initiative--the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative (SECCS)--provides two year planning grants followed by three year implementation grants to the 50 state…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…

This report outlines the national and state environmental context for the SECCS Initiative in supporting MCH strategic planning in early childhood systems building. This strategic context has implications for roles, relationships, and activities within a planning process and ultimately an implementation process. It summarizes the opportunities and…

This report is designed to support the planning and implementation of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (SECCS) Initiative. It addresses a set of principles that these agencies can use to advance their planning process, reach out to new partners, develop collaborative strategies, and build a…

In 2003, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) released a "Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Health." In recognition of the critical role states play in the development of early childhood initiatives and of the unique contributions that state Title V programs can make to these initiatives, the Bureau operationalized their…