Here are the specifics: 

• $158.5 million (27.3%) increase for the child care system at Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) for Smart Start Workforce Grants, Quality Contracts, apprenticeships and Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) caseload growth 
• $75 million (11.1%) increase for the Early Childhood Block Grant at Illinois State Board of Education for expansion of Prevention Initiative center-based and home visiting programs, Preschool for All and Preschool for All Expansion programs 
• $6 million (3.8%) increase for the Early Intervention (EI) program at IDHS to accommodate caseload growth, but no additional funding for provider rate increases 
• $5 million (21.8%) increase for evidence-based home visiting programs at IDHS to expand access to services and address compensation improvements 
• $5 million for the ECACE scholarship program, but no additional funding to ensure candidates currently receiving the scholarship can finish their programs 
• $14.2 million in operational funding for the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood 

Record levels of service delays continue to plague the EI system – delays linked to a shrinking workforce. Without annual rate increases, providers will continue to leave the program, meaning more infants and toddlers with disabilities and developmental delays will wait for months to receive the life-changing services they are entitled to by law. 

In addition, nearly 2,500 current ECACE scholarship recipients will need further scholarship support to complete their degrees. The lack of early childhood educators has resulted in programs and classrooms closing – limiting the opportunity for families to locate effective services for their children. 

Several other important measures impacting the early care and education system – and the families and workforce who are a part of it – have been approved by the legislature this session, including: 

• SB1 (Sen. Lightford, Rep. Canty) – authorizes the creation of the Department of Early Childhood 
• HB4959 (Rep. Gabel, Sen. Sims) – the FY 2025 budget implementation bill, which, among other provisions, codifies into law the ECACE scholarship program 
• HB4951 (Rep. Burke, Sen. Villanueva) – a revenue omnibus bill, which, among other provisions, establishes a permanent state Child Tax Credit for families eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and have children under age 12 
• HB5142 (Rep. Gabel, Sen. Collins) – requires, among other provisions, private health insurers to cover all pregnancy, postpartum and newborn care services provided by perinatal doulas or licensed certified professional midwives, including home births, home visits and support during labor. Insurance companies would need to cover home visits by board-certified lactation consultants, including the cost of recommended breast pumps, breastfeeding supplies and feeding aids. 
• HB4491 (Rep. Faver Dias, Sen. Johnson) – allows a child care director or qualified early childhood educator to be present during the opening or closing of the child care program 
• SB2675 (Sen. Villivalam, Rep. Croke) – expands eligibility to the Early Childhood Construction Grant (ECCG) program for not-for-profit early childhood providers that rent or lease from another not-for-profit entity

We expect the governor to sign and approve this final budget package and SB1 soon.

This suite of policy changes and funding increases was made possible by the commitment and diligent efforts of advocates across the state. Throughout the spring legislative session, parents, educators and advocates contacted state legislators thousands of times on behalf of Illinois families and those who serve them. Given there is more work ahead to address the critical gaps in funding for EI and ECACE, we and our advocacy partners look forward to working in the coming months to be sure both the administration and General Assembly understand the urgency of these problems. 

Here are some simple yet powerful activities that can cultivate positive mental health experiences:

• Establishing Rituals and Routines
  Rituals and routines provide a sense of predictability and stability for young children, helping them feel safe and secure in their environment. Consider incorporating the following rituals and routines into your daily life:
  • Morning and bedtime routines: Establish consistent rituals for waking up and going to bed, such as reading a bedtime story or sharing highlights from the day.
  • Mealtime rituals: Create special traditions around mealtime, such as setting the table together or sharing a favorite family recipe.
  • Transition rituals: Develop rituals for transitions, such as saying goodbye before leaving for school or welcoming your child home after a day apart. ​Don’t be afraid to be creative and make your own unique rituals as a family.

By consistently practicing these rituals and routines, you can instill a sense of familiarity and connection in your child’s daily life, promoting a feeling of safety and predictability.

• Exploring New Experiences
  While routines provide a sense of security, it’s also important to expose children to new experiences and challenges to support their growth and development. Here are some ways to encourage exploration and curiosity:
  • Visit new places: Take your child on outings to explore new environments, such as parks, museums or community events. There are many opportunities each month to gain free access to many of the popular museums and attractions throughout the Chicagoland area.
  • Try new activities: Encourage your child to try new hobbies or activities that spark their interest, whether it’s painting, dancing or playing a musical instrument.
  • Embrace nature: Spend time outdoors exploring nature together, whether it’s going for a hike, collecting and sorting leaves or playing in the backyard.

By introducing new experiences in a supportive and encouraging environment, you can help your child develop confidence, resilience and a sense of curiosity about the world around them.

• Cultivating Connection
  Building strong connections with caregivers, family members and peers is essential for promoting positive mental health in early childhood. Here are some ways to foster meaningful connections:
  • Quality time: Set aside dedicated time each day to spend one-on-one with your child, engaging in activities they enjoy and showing genuine interest in their thoughts and feelings. Even for the busiest of schedules, dedicating a small amount time together can have a tremendous impact.
  • Family traditions: Create special traditions and rituals that bring your family together, such as movie nights, game nights or weekend outings.
  • Social interactions: Encourage your child to interact with peers through playdates, preschool or community groups, providing opportunities for friendship and social development.

What is mental health?

At its core, mental health encompasses social, emotional, and psychological well-being. It’s about how we think, feel, and behave, and how we navigate the world around us.

Providing safe environments for children, where they can build relationships and connections with their caregivers and loved ones, has a positive impact on their mental health. These early interactions lay the groundwork for a child to learn and feel a sense of safety and security in the world.

In these safe and nurturing environments, children begin to develop what psychologists refer to as a secure attachment which Influences how children relate to others throughout their lives.

Why is mental health important in early childhood development?

At Start Early, we know that the foundation of a child’s social and emotional competence begins forming in the prenatal relationship and continues to be laid the very first days, months, and years of life, shaped by the interactions babies have with their parents and other caring adults. Babies thrive when they are securely attached to someone special—their mother, father or other primary caregiver—who knows and responds consistently and reliably to their needs.

Mental health is a lifelong journey that is shaped by our experiences, relationships and environments. We know from research that quality programs for infants, toddlers and their families can make a significant impact on their lives, a difference that can last a lifetime.

As we embark on this journey of exploration and understanding, let’s remember that mental health is not a destination but a continuum. By nurturing our own mental well-being and supporting those around us, we have the opportunity to build a stronger world for everyone to thrive as their best selves.

Centering family voice and fostering genuine co-creation spaces is complex work that will not happen overnight; it is evolutionary. And giving ourselves grace, knowing we are all in different places and that where we fall at any point in time will depend on various, ever-changing contexts (i.e., as often as we engage new families as partners in the work), is necessary. The promise of nurturing sustainable conditions for change is held within one key, foundational step — shifting mindsets to value families as experts, in words and action. A few relevant reflections from our team’s experiences providing support to advocate and public sector leaders seeking transformational change within and across their early childhood systems follow:

1. Shifting mindsets to acknowledge and leverage the expertise families hold regarding what best meets their diverse and unique needs is critical.
   When we approach engaging families from a deficit perspective (e.g., families are unknowing of what quality is or dismissing cultural contexts that also shape these definitions; families are unaware of resources or “hard to reach”), we consequently message that families are the problem and WE hold the answers to solving these challenges.
2. Families have valuable insight and perspective towards creating high-impact and sustainable solutions.
   Acknowledging that most systems, by design, limit access and opportunities for families to thrive, shifting our mindsets to prioritize families’ input better prepares us for the important and complex work of questioning dominant perceptions of quality and learning what the true barriers to access are. When we focus on addressing these root issues — WITH families — we get closer to achieving transformational change.
3. Families are valued as experts and the key drivers of systems change when their voices are centered and they are empowered and supported to LEAD co-creation efforts.
   Embracing this mindset and enacting aligned practices requires positive and trusting relationships and restructuring power dynamics (e.g. shared governance). These conditions prime us for critical and generative dialogue.

Need extra support with equitably centering family voice in your systems change efforts? Contact our team to learn more.

Start Early is pleased to introduce our Chicago Policy Agenda for 2024-2027. Chicago is positioned to make great strides toward a higher-quality, more equitable early care and learning system over the next three years and this policy agenda outlines key levers for achieving that kind of systems change.

Awareness of Chicago’s early learning issues among City leadership will be one of those key levers. After advocates in Chicago successfully garnered attention for early learning issues during the 2023 elections, Mayor Johnson outlined goals for early learning in his administration’s transition plan and has since embraced and revived the Every Child Ready Chicago initiative, which was launched under the Lightfoot administration just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The recently elected City Council has also seemingly made a renewed commitment to issues impacting Chicago’s young children with the revival of the Education and Child Development Committee, which now holds regular meetings under the leadership of Alderwoman Jeannette Taylor.   

Leadership changes within Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have also resulted in continued commitments to early learning, including furthering the expansion of universal full-day pre-k for every four-year-old in Chicago. In addition to hiring a new CEO in 2021, CPS is facing an unprecedented expansion of their Board of Education over the next four years that will open opportunities to expand the Board’s expertise and further democratize the range of issues it considers.   

As CPS receives increased funds from the state’s Early Childhood Block Grant under Governor Pritzker’s Smart Start plan, their leadership will need to contend with how to build on the progress that has been made to expand access to pre-k and do so in such a way that preserves and promotes equity within the mixed delivery system of school- and community-based early childhood education that gives families in Chicago the ability to choose the program that works best for their child. Doing so will require partnership with Chicago’s six federal Head Start grant recipients and the broader early childhood provider community in Chicago. Our hope is that this Chicago Policy Agenda will provide guidance on where to focus efforts and resources as the city embarks on this collaborative work.

On April 16, Start Early along with our partners at Child Care For All, COFI, Illinois Action for Children, Latino Policy Forum, Raising Illinois, SEIU, and We, the Village brought nearly 300 advocates down to Springfield to advocate for Illinois’ youngest learners. Advocates shared their perspectives with legislators on the impact that the creation of the Department of Early Childhood and increased funding for ECACE & Early Intervention would have on our early childhood systems. In visits with legislators, advocates also shared Raising Illinois’ Babies Can’t Wait postcards highlighting the struggles & successes Illinois families have had with Early Intervention.

Photo Gallery

Check out photos from Early Childhood Advocacy Day 2024

With just over one month left in this legislative session, we aren’t slowing down our advocacy efforts! Here’s how you can still participate:

• Contact your legislators
• Use our social toolkit to share more about the impact of Smart Start with your personal networks
• Share your Early Intervention story
•  To keep up with the work of the Illinois Policy Team you can also follow along on Twitter: @EarlyEdIL

Trivia Answer

Washingtonians currently have 67 special design license plates to choose from. To see the full list of special design options for license plates, visit the Department of Licensing (DOL) website. And while it is a little pricier, you can also personalize your own custom plate—there are a few constraints on which characters you can use, so be sure to check out the DOL website. There are a few banned custom plates, which you can see at this link. It’s important to keep things decent, or as my college friend always said, “only good clean fun!”

If the Legislature had passed SHB 2489, it would have created a new special license plate option featuring … Smokey the Bear and his popular slogan, “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires!” Washington would have joined our fellow Smokey fans in Oregon and Texas, who already have Smokey license plate options.

What could have been … A sample Smokey the Bear license plate
(Photo Credit: Washington State Democrats via KUOW)

Smokey’s association with fire prevention dates back to World War II, when there was a severe shortage of firefighters available to contain wildfires and much of the workforce participated in efforts directed towards different war-related activities. And while the bombings at Pearl Harbor did not directly cause a wildfire, the event still incited fear and concern. In response, the U.S. Forest Service established the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention (CFFP) program in 1942. Serendipitously, the film Bambi came out that same year, and Disney agreed that its characters could be used in the wildfire prevention campaign (spoiler: there are many traumatic parts of that movie, the wildfire only being one of them). Following on the movie’s heels, Smokey Bear was officially created August 9, 1944. His name honors “Smokey” Joe Martin, a courageous New York City Fire Department Chief.

A few years after the character was created, Smokey Bear became a national celebrity and got a real-life mascot: a little cub who survived a wildfire in the Capitan Mountains in New Mexico in 1950. At the time, forest rangers, local firefighting crews from New Mexico and Texas, and the New Mexico State Game Department worked to contain the fire when a crew member alerted everyone to a bear cub by itself near the fire line (a border used to help contain wildfires). According to smokeybear.com, firefighters got caught in the path of the firestorm and survived by lying face down on a rockslide; Smokey had taken refuge in a tree and was badly burned but was rescued by a ranger from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The ranger helped get him transported to Santa Fe for medical treatment, and the nation became invested in the little bear’s recovery after the United Press and The Associated Press published the story of his rescue. He lived most of his life at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., as he became the symbol representing the country’s federal conservation and wildfire prevention program.

Smokeybear.com reports that Smokey received so many letters of support and gifts of honey that he had to have his own zip code. He was returned to Capitan, New Mexico, upon his passing in 1976 and was honored with a burial at Smokey Bear Historical Park. So much bravery, both human and ursine!

Smokey’s campaign is the longest-running PSA in US history, so it makes sense that his catchphrase has evolved over the years:

• Originally, in the 1940s, it was “Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires.”
• 1947: “Remember… Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.” Presumably, the campaign wanted to shift a sense of responsibility to the reader.
• 2001: “Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.” This edit was to clarify that Smokey is referring to unintentional, human-caused fires.

Another perhaps little-known fact about Smokey the Bear is that his name was originally “Smokey Bear,” but the song written by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins added that small little word and ignited a fiery debate about what the bear’s *actual* name is. Once the song got popular, the new name spread like wildfire (is it too soon?). Smokeybear.com alleges that his name never changed and that it is officially “Smokey Bear.” No matter which name you prefer, Smokey is doing his job to spread awareness about forest fire prevention; hopefully you’ll be able to show your Smokey spirit sometime in the future!

Resources:
About the Campaign [smokeybear.com]
Only you (almost) can put Smokey Bear on Washington license plates [Washington State Standard]
Peggy Maxie, first Black woman elected to WA state House, dies [The Seattle Times]
Story of Smokey [smokeybear.com]
Smokey Bear [Wikipedia.org]
Why Washington cars could get a little Smokey in 2024 [KUOW]

Effective, Valued and Well-Compensated Workforce

The workforce is the backbone of the early childhood programs and systems that children and families rely on every day. We heard President Biden’s statement last night loud and clear, and we agree: public school teachers deserve a raise and “to remain the strongest economy in the world, we need the best education system in the world.” We also applaud the President’s commitment in last night’s speech to working towards public pre-K access for all 3- and 4-year-olds. We hope that in its work to support our nation’s education system, that the Biden-Harris administration will continue to lift up our workforce: the child care providers, home visitors, and others who deserve the wages, job satisfaction, and professional development opportunities that will help them remain in the early learning field. As Columba, curriculum director at an early learning center shared: “Being a teacher is hard work… if you’re not rewarded and appropriately compensated, you’re going to find something easier to do, often for the same amount of money or more. I see it too often.” We must work together to improve pay, benefits, and support for those who work in early childhood programs and help them stay in their roles by ensuring they can meet their own basic needs and are developing as professionals.

Climate Change

We applaud the President’s recommitment to environmental justice in the priorities he set forth last night: “We are also making history by confronting the climate crisis, not denying it. I’m taking the most significant action on climate ever in the history of the world… Taking historic action on environmental justice for fence-line communities smothered by the legacy of pollution.” The historic investments in environmental justice advanced by the Biden-Harris administration have the potential to connect children, families, and early care and learning providers across the country with resources that promote their resilience in a disrupted climate. As with the Shaping Futures Together agenda, Start Early and its partners heard through many parent and provider listening sessions that climate change and resiliency are top of mind for those who care for young children. We hope the administration’s commitment climate justice will extend to children and families and will encompass the solutions proposed in Flourishing Children, Healthy Communities, and a Stronger Nation: The U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan.

Conclusion

Start Early believes the federal government can act as a facilitator of strong early childhood programs and systems at the state and community levels. But policies and investments that program and system improvement at all levels of government must remain centered in the priorities and lived experiences of caregivers of young children. We applaud the Biden-Harris administration for aligning with the priorities we’ve heard from families and providers across the country, and look forward to partnering with the administration and those on the front-lines to move these important policies forward.