Watch the Webinar Recording

To further explore what we learned, check out the recording of our webinar, Advancing Equity in Pre-K Access and Enrollment in Chicago: A Conversation with Researchers, Policymakers and Parent Leaders.

Key Learnings for Future Policy and Research
Although the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Chicago’s post-policy progress and resulted in decreased enrollment rates, our study illustrates how increasing access to school-based, full-day pre-K may be an effective policy strategy for increasing enrollment among high-priority students and making pre-K opportunities more equitable. It is a prime example of research informing policy and vice versa.

However, to truly address equity in ECE we need to rethink our systems, advance research and policy agendas that ensure sociodemographic characteristics do not predict a child’s outcomes, and integrate these efforts into the comprehensive services and supports we provide young children and families.

Continue the Conversation
Join the Early Childhood Connector to learn from and collaborate with peers and experts in the ECE field, as we continue our work to improve access for our youngest learners.

Music plays a huge role in our culture and our lives from theatre, to television, movies and important ceremonies. But did you know that it can also play a big part in your child’s development?

Lullabies, sing-a-longs, and nursery rhymes help build an intimate connection with your child, while also enhancing their fine and large motor skills and impacting their overall happiness. But don’t stop there, music and movement have so many benefits for your little one:

• Expressing emotions
• Awareness of movement and body positions
• Creativity and imagination
• Learning new words and concepts
• Develop large motor skills
• Improve balance, coordination and rhythm through dance and movement activities
• Improve small motor skills‐learning finger plays and playing musical instruments

Here are some play-based activity ideas you can use to get musical with your toddler or preschooler:

1. Dance party: Who doesn’t love a chance to dance it out to some fun music? Try listening to some music that gets your little one moving to the beat. They’ll not only be burning off some energy but also be working on their rhythm.
2. Sing along: Let your kid belt it! Children like singing and are eager to let it out without the self-consciousness that comes with adulthood. Try using songs that repeat words or melodies. You can’t go wrong with the classics like “Mary had a little lamb,” “The ABCs,” or “Old McDonald had a farm.”
3. Kitchen band: Let your child experience the thrill of playing a sold-out arena, aka your kitchen, with their DIY instruments. From upturned pots and pans, wooden spoons, containers filled with rice, or empty coffee cans the options are only limited by your imagination. By allowing your child to make a little ruckus with your kitchen things they’re learning concepts like loud and soft, as well as cause and effect when different materials hit wood, metal or plastic. So, have those ear plugs ready because this learning activity can go to eleven.

So until we can all get back outside and to our normal routines, we hope you’ll enjoy these activities and learning with your child through music and movement. Whether it’s hitting pots and pans with a spoon or singing silly songs, your child is learning through play and strengthening their bond with you.

Resources from our classroom to yours:

• Go Noodle 
• Sing along playlist 
• Dance playlist

Research on the Long-term Impacts of Investing in Parenting

Rauner and Heckman spoke at length about his research and the importance of investing in parents. While we typically think of education as programs that are delivered directly to a child, Rauner noted that programs such as prenatal services, universal newborn supports and home visits should be considered education initiatives given their profound connection to children’s education outcomes.

The discussion also touched on how increased parental engagement is one of the most interesting findings of the Perry Preschool Project. In addition to being more likely to be employed, have completed more education and to have stayed married, the Perry participants turned out to be better parents. In an upcoming study of Perry participants through age 55, Heckman shared that he expects to see returns on investment of more than 10 percent, given the additional health benefits and impacts on the children of participants.

Parental Support During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Turning the conversation to the present, Rauner and Heckman discussed our nation’s current circumstances and the tremendous stress families are under, especially those living in communities that are under-resourced. Rauner noted that the most important supports for families during the COVID-19 pandemic have been to support family functioning — helping parents be able to be emotionally present and reducing the level of trauma and stress in the home existing from issues like food or housing insecurity.

The discussion also touched on how technology can be used to help coach parents, including virtual cohort groups and telehealth home visits that provide a lifeline of community and mental health supports for parents who might otherwise be completely isolated.

Emerging Measures to Evaluate Readiness and Social and Emotional Skills

As early childhood development continues to evolve, particularly in response to the current environment, one key question is how to effectively measure readiness and incorporate social and emotional skills into every stage of assessment. Heckman shared that grades are often used to measure knowledge and cognition, but social and emotional skills have a significant impact on children’s grades — as evidenced by his findings of Perry Preschool participants who had improved grades because they were more engaged in school. In addition to broadening how we evaluate children’s progress, Heckman emphasized the importance of longitudinal studies, given their unique ability to demonstrate the long-term impact of early childhood interventions. The discussion concluded with the importance of continued collaboration among economists, early childhood education researchers, investors, philanthropists and psychologists to continue advancing the field.

In the last three decades, scientific research has demonstrated how deeply adversity in childhood becomes embedded into biology, behavior, and risk, and how these can be passed on to future generations. This body of science — Neuroscience, Epigenetics, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), and Resilience research, or NEAR — is one of the largest public health discoveries of our time.

Home visitors knowledgeable about the NEAR sciences and research are interested in bringing this information to families but worry about causing harm. The NEAR@Home toolkit addresses these concerns and provides strategies for engaging parents in discussing NEAR sciences and using the ACEs questionnaire in a safe, respectful and effective way for both home visitor and family.

Home visitors are uniquely positioned to help families mitigate the effects of past, present, and future adversity through supporting protective, responsive parenting and safe attachment relationships. The NEAR@Home process gives parents choice, offering information, assuring safety, being respectful, allowing time and space for reflection, and by always closing with hope and resilience.

The NEAR@Home toolkit was created, tested, and revised by home visitors, mental health providers, and other experts in the field of NEAR and home visiting in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The NEAR@Home toolkit is designed as a training manual with guided processes to help you learn and practice language and strategies to safely and effectively talk about the trauma of ACEs. We emphasize safety and reflective support for the home visitor as a critical element in this process.

The NEAR @Home toolkit was developed as a self-study process and is being shared without cost because we believe that all home visitors deserve to have access to this guidance. Many home visitors discovered that while self-study of the NEAR@Home toolkit was useful, they preferred a supported learning experience and have informed the development of NEAR@Home Facilitated Learning. Learning how to be safe, respectful, and effective while talking about the NEAR sciences with parents is a complex process that requires and deserves time and support.

The NEAR@Home Facilitated Learning process is very different from most training programs. Thinking about, talking about childhood trauma stirs feelings in all of us, whether ACEs are part of our life story or not. Our learning process is guided by Facilitators who are relationship focused, trauma sensitive, and fluent in infant mental health concepts and processes. The Facilitators model self-regulation, co-regulation, spacious listening, and reflective processes to walk with home visitors and supervisors through learning how to do a NEAR home visit. Implementation Science guides the structure of the learning process from a mutual exploration of fit and feasibility to follow up reflective consultation to support home visitors as they integrate these new skills.

In this blog post, Educare Learning Network member Drew Giles provides his perspective on how early care and learning administrators can support staff resiliency during rebuilding and recovery.

In spring 2020, Start Early partnered with the Educare Practice Advisory Committee, a broad group of Educare Learning Network members, to share our experiences and join in a conversation that is underway about the future of early childhood systems and supports in the United States. Through the Build It Back Better conversation, several consistent themes appeared, such as concerns about new ways to engage families, the increasing exposure of the digital divide and identifying equitable ways to address this major issue, and the need to prioritize self-care and wellness, not only for children and families, but also staff.

As a Northern California-based school director at Educare California at Silicon Valley, as well as a registered yoga teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to incorporate self-care strategies that support our organization’s climate and culture. The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on the lack of funding and positive treatment of early childhood educators, a fact that many of us already knew. While waiting for policymakers to address these issues, one small but impactful thing that I can do for the staff at my school is provide them with opportunities to practice self-care.

On flights, we’ve been trained that in the event of an emergency, be sure to secure your own mask before assisting others. The same is true for us as educators and human beings. We are often asked to do so much with fewer resources and time. In order for us to do this challenging — yet rewarding beyond compare — work, we must prioritize self-care into our program’s culture.

What is self-care, you might ask? According to PsychCentral, “self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self-care is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety. It’s also key to a good relationship with oneself and others.”

In this blog post, I will share five free things that all administrators can do to ensure that we rebuild and recover in resilient ways.

1. Begin meetings with breathing exercises

Whether you’re having an informal check-in with a colleague or a formal meeting with your program’s staff, begin each meeting by bringing attention to your breath. You can do this by coming to a comfortable seat, gently closing your eyes or finding a soft gaze in front of you, and taking three collective breaths as a group. This helps to calm and reset the mind and bring awareness to the present moment.

2. Encourage mindfulness breaks throughout the day

Taking mindfulness breaks throughout the day is a great way to recharge your energy, improve focus and increase concentration. There are several ways to take a mindfulness break, such as meditating in a quiet space, doing a few yoga poses under a tree or taking a mindful walk around your school by consciously focusing on your breath or your senses. What do you hear? What do you smell? What sensations are coming up, and how can you acknowledge those feelings?

3. Create a schoolwide culture of gratitude

Robert Emmons, the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, has revealed that gratitude can improve our social, emotional, mental and physical well-being. There are several ways to develop a gratitude routine in your program by building in time at the beginning of each meeting for staff to share gratitude for any other staff member, family or person in our school community. If your organization is new to this practice, be patient and consistent. At first, it may feel uncomfortable for your staff to publicly share gratitude amongst one another, but eventually, it’ll become an important routine that your staff will enjoy! As a school leader, it is incredibly important that we model this practice with our staff. The following quote is my personal mantra for how I live my life, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it,” by William Arthur Ward.

4. Embed self-care strategies into PD opportunities

We may not know what the professional development (PD) structure will be like when we reopen. Will it be virtual or in small groups? As program leaders, we have the opportunity to create the conditions for our staff to thrive. One of the ways that we can do this is by embedding self-care strategies into PD events. As a former director of professional development for a large urban school district, one of my proudest accomplishments included adding yoga and mindfulness classes for our staff to participate in… for credit! Find out what fills your staff’s “happy” buckets and incorporate those passions into your PD opportunities. Whether it’s working with a master gardener who can show staff how to plant a garden, structuring your PD so that staff can break out in small groups and have walking discussions outside, or inviting a local yoga instructor to facilitate a trauma-informed learning session, there are plenty of ways that you can embed self-care into your PD plan.

5. Practice self-reflection

Self-reflection is a great way to learn more about yourself, process your emotions and grow positively as a human being. At Educare, “reflective practices require conscious time and intentional thinking about school procedures and classroom activities; they ground staff in their work and build competence and confidence by allowing them the opportunity to consider the “how” and “why” of their roles in relation to children, families and co-workers.” Keep a journal and develop a consistent routine to jot down what’s going on in your life and the world around you. This may help you to process and make sense of current events, challenges and opportunities.

Early on in the pandemic, I came across a quote by florist Cecilia Tran that stuck with me, “Self-care means giving yourself permission to pause.” With so many changes and challenges coming at us, now — more than ever — we need to give ourselves permission to slow down as we focus on the basic needs and well-being of our children, families, staff and most importantly…our self.

Build It Back Better is a project of Start Early focused on identifying the critical questions that early childhood systems and services must ask as we rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic. The writings that emerge from the initiative center the experiences and voices of those most directly and disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s impact on early care and learning.

Drew Giles, MA, RYT, is an author, kids yoga teacher and leader in early childhood education. Since June 2018, Mr. Giles has served as Director of Educare Programs at Educare California at Silicon Valley, an innovative early learning school that narrows the opportunity gap for low-income children ages 0-5 and their families and caregivers. Drew has a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

In this blog post, Start Early (formerly the Ounce) policy analyst Kayla Goldfarb, shares parents’ and caregivers’ perspectives on rebuilding and recovery post COVID-19, including specific thoughts on economic security, community mental health and parent advocacy and engagement.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families and caregivers has been both broad and deep. The extent of economic, social and physical and mental health consequences, to name a few, is still unfolding, while daily life remains profoundly changed for families with young children at home. Yet, as a group of Educare families shared during a May 2020 Build It Back Better dialogue, despite the challenges presented, critical opportunities exist for the rebuilding of our early childhood system to better adapt to and support the needs and goals of families with young children.

Parents and caregivers continue to be concerned about economic security and the availability of both financial assistance and regulatory protections afforded as part of federal COVID-19 relief. As the broader economic effects of the pandemic have overloaded federal and local safety nets, families with young children who relied on public benefits prior to the health crisis have found it increasingly difficult to access supports and basic needs. For example, families who rely on the SNAP program, shortages at grocery stores and a strain on traditional community support systems like food depositories have created a barrier to receiving benefits. Similarly, for families struggling to pay rent, confusion over the patchwork of federal, state and local eviction-protections and the availability of legal recourse has left some families concerned over whether their landlords can still pressure them to pay rent.

For those enrolled in Medicaid, a lack of access to individual mental health services and other support systems has placed an added burden on the ability of families to cope with COVID-19-related pressures. Likewise, parents continue to be concerned about the developmental impacts and mental health needs of their young children who may not understand the changes to daily life. Reflecting on their current experience with early childhood programs, parents expressed a desire for more extensive community mental health services to attend to the needs of the whole family.

“I would like to see more community group therapy work because it’s not affordable when its one-on-one,” Janelle Jenkins, an Educare Denver parent, said. “There are a lot of families that could just use a boost, pulling out strengths and helping them to realize their potential — that’s all they need to get started and for their family to be successful.”

Additional concerns are top of mind for parents and caregivers as they contemplate the “reopening” of their states and return to work. The disruption of routine child care is particularly concerning for parents in essential sectors, like child care, who must now contend with where their own young children will be when they are required to return to work.

“The safety, financial stability, wondering where I am going to put my children in the event that I have to open up earlier, and they have a different tentative date to open?” Toshiba Davis, an Educare Oklahoma City parent and home child care provider, questioned.

While eager to provide support to families and children in their essential roles, reopening means risking the health and safety of their own families. This added, unique tension for caregivers and educators is exacerbated over uncertainty of what safety measures, including class sizes, PPE and business hours, will be in place when services reopen.

“When I do welcome the families back in, am I putting my own family at risk? Those are the things that worry me,” Toshiba shared.

As data continue to reveal the disproportionate health impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous and Latinx communities around the country, we clearly see profound equity issues for the early childhood workforce, which is comprised almost exclusively of women, 40% of whom are people of color.1

Despite these pressing COVID-19 related concerns, parents and caregivers remain focused on the ways in which stronger two-generational supports can more holistically address the needs and desires of families, in times of crisis and beyond.

“In order for our children to have hopes and dreams, parents need to have hopes and dreams,” Toshiba exclaimed. “I would love to see parents in my community get more education, […] so they can be advocates for their own children, because nobody can advocate for your child like you can. But, you’ve got to have the knowledge and the know how to do it.”

Parents and caregivers envision an expanded network of resources outside of the walls of their early learning and care environments, including after school and summer programming and robust math and financial literacy resources, to enable children to reach their potential from their earliest years.

“Financial literacy and education are very important — that’s my hope. It should be in all schools from the time they’re age 0 to 3”, Ealasha Vonner, an Educare Denver parent, said. “That’s my hope and dream because if we did have that in our schools, we would be better off right now.”

Build It Back Better is a project of Start Early focused on identifying the critical questions that early childhood systems and services must ask as we rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic. The writings that emerge from the initiative center the experiences and voices of those most directly and disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s impact on early care and learning. Join the conversation at the Early Child Connector’s Recovery and Rebuilding Hub.

Kayla Goldfarb is a policy analyst at Start Early, focusing her work primarily on home visiting and providing staffing support to the Home Visiting Task Force, a standing body of the Illinois Early Learning Council. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

1 Austin, Lea JE, et al. “Racial Wage Gaps in Early Education Employment.” (2019).
https://cscce.berkeley.edu/files/2020/02/RacialWageGaps-Early-Education-Brief.pdf