The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) conducted the first ever multi-state study of the effects of the current immigration climate on young children under age 8. In 2017, CLASP interviewed early care and education providers, community-based social service providers, and immigrant parents in six states. The findings, detailed in "Our…

This report documents how the current immigration context is affecting the nation's youngest children, under age eight, based on interviews and focus groups in 2017 with more than 150 early childhood educators and parents in six states--California, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. This study was motivated by…

This paper presents a set of strategies and options that California can use to leverage Medi-Cal, the State's Medicaid program, to move toward an equitable, advanced health delivery system for its children. Close to five million children are enrolled in Medi-Cal, more than two-thirds of whom are Black and Brown children. California's program alone…

For more than a decade, the Foundation for Child Development, through the Young Scholars Program (YSP), funded studies about the early education, health, and well-being of children from low-income, immigrant families. Through YSP, the Foundation aimed to fill a gap in policy and practice-relevant research on young immigrant children. It invested…

Low pay, meager benefits, poor morale, and high turnover impact the daily experience of many early childhood educators in the United States. While public spending in early childhood education has substantially increased in recent years, it has mainly fueled expansion, not quality enhancement to help programs attract, compensate, and retain…

This report presents the results of First 5 California's 2004 statewide and regional study of the early care and education (ECE) workforce in licensed family child care. The goal of the study was to collect information on the characteristics of this workforce (i.e., educational background and potential need and demand for professional…

This report compiles recent research showing that quality child care and early education can greatly reduce crime and argues that California is in the middle of a child care crisis, with a shortage of quality, affordable care. Chapter 1 of the report presents research showing that at-risk children who participate in quality child care programs are…

The authors of this paper document how federal policy on child care and early education led to a decline in wages and education among staff in early childhood programs. The paper analyzes labor trends for the early care and education workforce over the past 25 years--notably, an overall decrease in educational qualifications, and persistent wage…

As part of a series of reports designed to support the implementation of Proposition 10: The California Children and Families Act and to provide comprehensive and authoritative information on critical issues concerning young children and families in California, this report examines home visiting as a service delivery strategy for early…

This issue of a publication informing health policy and health care services in California in support of Proposition 10, the Children and Families Act, focuses on building community support for preparing children to enter school ready to learn through the use of Proposition 10 Commissions. These Commissions would help ensure that school readiness…

This report of the Select Committee on California Children's School Readiness and Health, established in 2001, examines the relationship between the status of a child's health and its impact on school readiness and achievement. The report is intended to promote and facilitate continued dialogue, exploration, and research on student health and…

As part of a series of reports designed to support the implementation of Proposition 10: The California Children and Families Act and to provide comprehensive and authoritative information on critical issues concerning young children and families in California, this report reviews the research about early childhood brain development, examines the…

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 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…