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Published: 17 May 2017

The Office of Child Development and Early Learning’s (ODCEL) Program Reach and Risk Assessment for Fiscal Year 2015-2016 provides useful information about the early learning landscape in Pennsylvania (PA).  Users can download county-level data about the number of children served by various programs and learn about the risk factors for school failure. We mined the report’s data and found the following results for the Commonwealth in 2016:

• The Nurse-Family Partnership, Parent-Child Home Program, and Parents as Teachers served 14,341 children across the Commonwealth by promoting early literacy and school readiness through reading and play.

• Healthy Families America served 259 children by helping families with histories of trauma, violence, mental health and/or substance abuse issues.

• Over 200,000 children in PA had access to early learning services.

• The state and federal Head Start programs reached over 33,000 children through close to 100 agencies.

• Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts provided high-quality pre-kindergarten opportunities to over 17,000 three and four-year olds in 2016.

• 66 school districts offered 9,000 pre-K slots.

• Over 90,000 children aged 0 - 5 with disabilities/developmental delays received early intervention services.

As Figure 1 below illustrates, overall one-third of children under age 5 received quality early care and education services in fiscal year 2015-2016. However, when care levels are broken down, the report indicates half of preschoolers received these services compared to one out of four infants and toddlers.

Figure 1. Children who Received Quality Early Care/Education in Pennsylvania in 2016

Source: Office of Child Development and Early Learning Program Reach and Risk Assessment State Fiscal Year 2015-16.

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Published: 25 April 2017

The long-term health of communities and children are deeply connected.

City Health recently released its inaugural report rating cities on their ‘healthiness.’ We're pleased to note that high quality early childhood programs were included as an indicator of health. City Health explains it here:

“High-quality pre-K improves children’s school readiness and success: they enter school better prepared and are less likely to repeat a grade or be referred to special education. Long-term benefits include higher high-school graduation rates, lower rates of crime and teen pregnancy, higher lifetime earnings, and better health outcomes.”

Philadelphia scored a silver medal overall, and in high quality early childhood education programs, meeting all four critical benchmarks (related to teacher training, class size and ratio, site visits) and 8 of 10 overall benchmarks, but scoring low on enrollment.

There are an increasing number of research reports indicating that high quality early childhood programs can have a positive impact on health from the start, and on a range of life outcomes as children grow, including academic success, social-emotional well-being, and long-term health. A recent presentation by Bartik concludes that significant long-term outcomes can be shown for large-scale pre-K programs if they are high quality or specifically targeted to disadvantaged populations of children.

At the same time, early childhood education alone is not enough. A recent study shows that city living can make asthma worse for children, for example. Children’s success in kindergarten has been linked to food security, and long-term life outcomes can be influenced by factors ranging from family stability, and segregation, to specific parent engagement indicators. For example, Penn State researchers report that:

• Promoting positive parenting practices and parent-child relationships can reduce behavioral problems.
• Promoting home learning activities and effective teaching strategies can foster early learning.
• Strengthening parent-teacher partnerships can boost academic and social-emotional skill development.
• Emphasizing a child's physical health can aid healthy overall development.

Resilience can also be a factor for children challenged by ongoing toxic stress, which may be exacerbated by living in poverty, experiencing health issues, or being hungry. Strategies to build resilience are still being clarified, but it is clear that positive relationships with caring adults, along with opportunities for creative play, exercise, and mindfulness, can help. High quality preschool can be a factor in providing those opportunities.

Joan Lombardi, from The Center for the Study of Social Policy recently discussed a growing movement to “involve the whole community in efforts to help children and families learn and thrive.” This is based on a range of concepts, including: 

• The ecological systems model that recognizes that children grow up in families, which are influenced by the communities around them and in turn by policies at all levels.
• The movement towards collective impact, rather than focusing on impact from a single program.
• The use of population-based data to drive towards results. 

Lombardi suggest a range of steps communities can take to strengthen and enhance the effectiveness of their efforts, including planning across sectors; developing strong connections and linkages among groups, and from families through the community; and developing integrated systems and dashboards to track the success of those efforts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched the 500 Cities Project in 2015, a useful source for current information on city indicators, “to provide city- and census tract-level small area estimates for chronic disease risk factors, health outcomes, and clinical preventive service use for the largest 500 cities in the United States.” The data for the largest cities in every state is included, to ensure all states are represented. 

Some data specifically related to Philadelphia changes over time are available here. The Pew Charitable Trusts has also released some case studies and infographics about how community development and health are related.

Last week NIEER described this report about cities offering universal preschool: “Child Care and Early Education Research Connections this week shared a Resource List providing a comprehensive list of city universal preschool initiative evaluations and research in the Research Connections collection. To count as universal, a city's program must aim to eventually provide universal access to publicly-funded preschool for all 4-year-olds using at least some city funds, even if it does not currently achieve universal access.”

The takeaway? It might take the whole city plus some high quality early childhood education to give every child the opportunity to succeed. Many elements that contribute to success are already in place in Philadelphia, and in other cities, which can provide examples of how to proceed.

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Published: 14 April 2017

Recent actions of the federal government have created significant anxiety and fear among immigrant communities in Philadelphia; many immigrants are worried about how new law enforcement and deportation priorities will affect their day-to-day lives.^1,2 Research demonstrates that the stress, anxiety, and fear undocumented immigrant parents experience in their day-to-day lives can have direct and indirect negative effects on their children, whether or not children are themselves undocumented. A recent article by Child Trends provides a succinct overview of the impact new deportation policies may have on children in the U.S. 

Click here to read more.
Click here to view the flyer.

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Published: 03 April 2017

We are excited to announce the release of new resources detailing policies and strategies for supporting young children experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania!

Best Practices in Early Care and Education for Young Children Experiencing Homelessness, written as part of the William Penn Foundation-funded Building Early Links for Learning (BELL) project, documents existing approaches and opportunities for serving young children experiencing homelessness in early education programs. The paper details the scope and distribution of young child homelessness in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, and includes actionable recommendations for local and state agencies, as well as for organizations serving the homeless, and for early care and education programs as they work with young children experiencing homelessness and their families. 

A companion piece provides supplementary data on early child homelessness, including a series of maps, charts, and graphs that help to contextualize where Pennsylvania stands in relation to other states in the U.S. View the infographic here. 

Our hope is that these pieces will serve to inform ongoing early care and education systems reform, including:

• Instituting policies to ensure that young children experiencing homelessness are prioritized for service in PHLpreK and other publicly supported early care and education programs, and that they receive comprehensive, high-quality services that address their needs;

• Enhancing collaboration between homeless-serving organizations and early care and education programs, including increased awareness of young children’s developmental needs in the processes and physical features of homeless-serving organizations; and more familiarity with supportive housing systems among early care and education staff; and

• Appropriate case management and other dual-generation services that assist the parents of young children experiencing homelessness with obtaining stable housing and employment, and support their ongoing health and educational needs. 

For additional information on the intersection of homelessness and early care and education, we encourage you to visit the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY)’s website and explore their resources page. 

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) has just released a brief on the impact of homelessness on young children as well.