Today more than ever, positive mental health is being challenged by an ongoing pandemic and societal changes. During Mental Health Awareness Month, organizations and individuals across the country are promoting positive mental health and current services available and advocating for new and improved policies for supporting the mental health of individuals and their families.

Infant/early childhood mental health (I/ECMH) is a strengths-based focus on the developing ability of young children to form close and secure relationships, experience, manage and express emotions, and explore and learn from their environments. At Start Early, we recognize the importance of I/ECMH and know that it is just as critical as our physical health.

Historically, national data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that indicators of positive mental health are present in most children. From 2016 – 2019, which notably is pre-pandemic, parents reported that their child mostly or always showed affection (97%), resilience (87.9%), positivity (98.7%) and curiosity (93.9%) among children ages 3-5 years.

However, new reports from the CDC and the Surgeon General have highlighted major increases in adverse mental health symptoms among children, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fortunately, President Joe Biden and his Administration have demonstrated recognition of the critical need for federal action supporting positive mental health. Both their approved Fiscal Year 2022 spending package and his latest budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2023 released this spring shine a significant and unprecedented focus on mental health.

The federal Fiscal Year 2023 budget would allocate:

• $38 million for the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health grant program, which would expand access to evidence-based and culturally appropriate mental health services to young children ($30 million increase from previous year)
• $35.4 million for Project LAUNCH, which works to ensure that the systems that serve young children have the resources and knowledge to foster their social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral development ($11.8 million increase from previous year)
• $5.7 billion for health centers, including $85 million dedicated to embedding early childhood development experts in health centers
• $1.7 billion for the Community Mental Health Block Grant, which addresses the needs of adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbances ($895 million increase from previous year)
• $150 million for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which supports the development and promotion of practices that support children exposed to trauma ($78.1 million increase from previous year)
• $10 million for the Screening and Treatment for Maternal Depression and Related Disorders, which increases access to perinatal and behavioral health care ($5 million increase from previous year)
• $7 million for the Maternal Health Hotline ($4 million increase from previous year)

Federal legislation has also been introduced that would help meet the urgent mental health needs of families today, including:

• Early Childhood Mental Health Supports Act (HR 6509), which would bolster mental health services for young children enrolled in Head Start and other early learning and care programs
• Resilience Investment, Support and Expansion Trauma Act, “RISE” (S.2086), which would expand the trauma-informed workforce and increase critical mental health resources for communities, including community response and capacity and workforce development
• Services and Trauma-informed Research of Outcomes in Neighborhoods Grants for (STRONG) Support for Children Act (HR 3793), which would support local health departments in addressing trauma and ensure services are equitably accessible to all children and families
• Still to come is the Interagency Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care’s public report, which will outline best practices and recommendations for better federal support of children and families impacted by substance use disorders and trauma.

There is bipartisan support for wide-reaching and long-lasting reforms that can create a healthy foundation for all children starting at birth – reforms that should be built into any national mental health conversation.

Start Early is proud to partner with organizations nationwide to advance federal, state and local policy priorities that support I/ECMH and the mental health of families and caregivers. There is no better time to seize proposed opportunities that help ensure equitable access to mental health services and can set a child up for a lifetime of overall health and success.

On behalf of Start Early and Raising Illinois, I am honored to share our new report, the Infant & Toddler Child Care Roadmap, and shine a light on the urgent need to expand high-quality child care options for families with children under age 3 in Illinois. The infant-toddler child care crisis is acute, as current capacity of licensed child care in the state provides access to only 17.4% of all infants and toddlers, and unfortunately, the problem has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring 2020.

In fall 2021, a cross-divisional team from Start Early sought out to answer the question “what would it take for Illinois child care providers to expand their services to more infants and toddlers?” Our team conducted a literature review, researched approaches from other states, and most importantly, directly engaged child care professionals to learn about the challenges they experience providing infant-toddler care and their ideas for solutions.

The final Roadmap includes a detailed summary of our findings, as well as seven community-informed recommendations for increasing access to infant and toddler care in Illinois. As anticipated, themes emerged around workforce issues and cost of care, but we also heard a lot about supports for children with disabilities and staff and families with mental health concerns, community engagement, negative perception of the early childhood field and data.

As I reflect on the many conversations we had with child care owners, teachers and Child Care Resource and Referral staff, I’m reminded of the incredible strength, perseverance and dedication of our child care community, especially considering the unprecedented challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was eye-opening to hear how physically and intellectually demanding infant-toddler care can be and how common it is for child care programs to only break even or lose money when operating infant-toddler classrooms, highlighting how unsustainable our current economic model of funding child care is. Many professionals we spoke to also shared that, despite what we know about the critical importance of the first three years of life, their work with infants and toddlers is often devalued. They acknowledged a prevailing sentiment among the general public and even within the field that it takes less skill and education to teach and care for babies and toddlers, and that what they do is “just babysitting.” Indeed, our research found that on average, teachers who work with infants and toddlers earn $1.40 less per hour than their counterparts working with preschool-aged children.

The professionals who care for and teach the youngest children, during the most significant time in their developmental trajectory, deserve more from us. Children and families deserve more too. We invite you to read the Roadmap and reflect on the words of the child care professionals who contributed to the project. What can you do to raise awareness about this issue and show support for child care professionals and families? How can you help advance the recommendations in the report? If you need help coming up with ideas, consider joining the Raising Illinois coalition.

I’ll close by offering gratitude to everyone who participated in our focus groups, surveys, community conversations and otherwise contributed to this project. We look forward to sharing more about the Roadmap in the coming weeks and months, and our progress toward advancing the recommendations. Stay tuned!

While the home visiting field understands that parent leadership strengthens families and promotes optimal child well-being, engaging parent leaders in advocacy spaces is another crucial part of the equation for creating positive systems and policy change. As the home visiting field prepares for major federal advocacy opportunities like the upcoming reauthorization of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program (MIECHV), there is a pressing need for home visiting advocates and policy makers to elevate the voices and advocacy of families and parents of young children. But where can parent advocates build their advocacy muscle, and learn about opportunities to engage in support for early learning programs in their communities?

Building on the National Home Visiting Summit Advocacy & Policy Community of Practice’s Advocacy 101 video series, Start Early is proud to share a new set of videos that highlights the skills parents bring to the table as powerful advocates and elevates opportunities to grow as leaders in advocating for home visiting and other early childhood issues impacting families.

Last month, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Fiscal Year 2023 budget into law. The new budget includes increases in statewide investments in many core early learning and care supports for families with young children, roughly 200,000 of whom live in Chicago and stand to benefit from this additional funding.

These funds provide the opportunity to address longstanding early childhood workforce issues in the city that have been greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Outlined below are several of the most notable impacts of Illinois’ newest budget on Chicago’s youngest learners and those who support their healthy development and education.

EARLY CHILDHOOD BLOCK GRANT: $54.4 Million Increase

Start Early’s state budget analysis includes a welcome increase of $54.4 million (10% increase) in state funding for preschool, evidence-based home visiting services and center-based infant-toddler programs funded by the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). As is required by state statute, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will receive 37%, which translates to roughly $20 million of the $54.4 million increase previously mentioned.

Of this allocated funding, CPS has traditionally held on to 60% to fund their school-based pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs and sub-granted the remaining 40% to Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS), which are used to fund home visiting and center-based services in community-based programs. This breaks down to roughly $12 million more in funding directly for CPS’ pre-K programs and an additional $8 million in funding for DFSS community-based early childhood programs.

Notably, CPS recently made free full-day pre-K available to every 4-year-old in the city, causing so much excitement among families that the Chicago Early Learning registration site crashed shortly after the application went live. With universal access to 4-year-old pre-K on the horizon, Start Early calls on CPS to turn its focus toward ensuring that children in these classrooms have teachers who are well-qualified and supported. One way to do so is fully funding the City College’s Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship, which currently affords to only grant funds to fewer than half of the prospective early childhood teachers who apply each year.

With an increased need for early childhood professionals, the current funding level is inadequate for meeting the critical number necessary. In fact, a pre-pandemic analysis found that an estimated 3,000 new early childhood educators will be needed across the city by 2024 – a number that is undoubtedly now insufficient as a result of the pandemic and its heightened effects on the field.

In addition to supporting pathways to credentials for educators, Start Early also calls on the City of Chicago to prioritize using funds to encourage qualified staff to remain in the early childhood field. Incentives for improving staff retention in community-based early childhood programs must include increasing compensation for home visiting and center-based staff, as well as ensuring that educators in these settings have the resources and support necessary to meet the needs of children with disabilities and English Learners.

EARLY INTERVENTION: $7 Million Increase

This slight increase in state funding for Early Intervention (EI) comes at a time when child care providers and EI providers in Chicago report decreased access to services and long waitlists for children ages 0-3 with disabilities, as well as unmanageable caseloads for EI providers. It remains to be seen how the state will use these additional funds, but providers are calling for rate increases and other incentives to keep qualified individuals in the EI workforce.

HOME VISITING: $1 Million Increase

The Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) is set to receive an additional $1 million to support its Healthy Families and Maternal Child Home Visiting programs. Start Early is advocating for IDHS to prioritize stabilizing the workforce before growing the reach of services through an increase in compensation for home visitors. A compensation increase is supported by the salary floor requirements in IDHS’s competitive Notice of Funding Opportunity, with a higher minimum salary for Cook County (which includes the City of Chicago) due to the area’s higher cost of living.

In addition to the state’s budget bill, the Illinois General Assembly passed HB4242, a bill that, if signed by Governor Pritzker, would extend automatic eligibility for Child Care Assistance for parenting youth in care and families on the DCFS Extend Family Support Program (EFSP), effective July 1, 2023. The bill would also extend automatic eligibility to EI for infants and toddlers in the child welfare system, effective July 1, 2022. Given the proportion of children in the state’s child welfare system who live in Chicago, this bill is likely to result in access to critical services for thousands of the city’s children.

Understanding how these additional funds in the above categories are being allocated by the state to support families with young children is especially important as we head into the City of Chicago’s budget season, work to identify gaps and re-emphasize recommendations for the city’s investment of local funds to best serve the city’s early learning system.

Read Start Early’s analysis of the state budget to learn about other important legislative measures impacting the state’s early care and education system.

The Illinois General Assembly approved the state’s Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023) spending plan early Saturday morning. We expect Governor J.B. Pritzker will sign the package into law in the coming days.

The final budget (HB900) includes a welcome increase of $54.4 million (10.0% increase) in state funding for preschool, evidence-based home visiting services, and center-based infant-toddler programs funded by the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).

It also includes $7 million (6.4% increase) in additional funding for the Early Intervention program, fully restoring the FY 22 funding cut. The legislature also appropriated $1 million (6.0% increase) in new funding for Illinois’ Department of Human Services’ evidence-based home visiting programs, the first funding increase in nearly 20 years.

“This budget makes investments in several early childhood programs, including home visiting, and restores state funding of Early Intervention – which are key supports for our state’s youngest learners and their families,” Ireta Gasner, Start Early vice president of Illinois policy, said. “Approving a state spending plan requires difficult and critical decisions, and this year, the Pritzker Administration and the General Assembly made decisions that prioritize services for families with young children.”

State funding in the FY 2023 budget (HB900) includes:

• A $54.4 million (10%) increase in state funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant at ISBE
• A $7 million (6.4%) increase in state funding for the Early Intervention (EI) program at IDHS
• A $536,000 (5.3%) increase for Healthy Families at IDHS
• A $480,000 (7%) increase in state funding for Maternal Child Home Visiting (formerly Parents Too Soon) at IDHS
• Level-funding (0.0%) for the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) at IDHS, though the administration has committed to increase provider reimbursement rates twice over the next fiscal year
• A new $2.0 million appropriation to IDHS for deposit into the Off-Hours Child Care Program Fund (see below for further details)
• A $2.5 million appropriation to the Office of State Treasurer for the Children’s Savings Account Program.

In addition, Start Early and its partners have strongly advocated all year for the need to increase compensation for the early childhood professionals working for community-based organizations. We strongly encourage ISBE and IDHS to allocate a sizeable portion of these funding increases to boost compensation for teachers and staff working in child care centers, home visitors and Early Intervention professionals.

Several other important measures impacting the early care and education system (and the families that use it) have been approved by the legislature, including:

• HB4242 (Collins, Morrison) – a bill that:
  • Extends automatic eligibility to CCAP for parenting youth in care and families on the DCFS Extend Family Support Program (EFSP)
  • Extends automatic eligibility to EI for infants and toddlers in the child welfare system
  • Requires DCFS to pay child care providers the same reimbursement rates IDHS pays its providers through the CCAP program
  • Requires DCFS to report data on its child care program
• HB4999 (Gabel, Villanueva) – a bill that codifies into state law the timeline (30 days) by which services for families in the EI program must be initiated after a service plan has been approved
• HB1571 (Manley, Glowiak Hilton) – a bill that creates the Off-Hours Child Care Program at IDHS to help first responders and other workers identify and access off-hours child care
• SB3149 (Villanueva, Guzzardi) – a bill that requires the Illinois Student Assistance Commission and higher education institutions to provide information about the Child Care Assistance Program and the federal dependent care to students eligible for Monetary Award Program grants
• SB3032 (Fine, Morgan) – a bill that prohibits institutions of higher education from withholding academic transcripts from current or former students because of any unsettled debts with the institution.
• SB157 (Hastings, Zalewski) – a revenue bill that, among other things, expands the Earned Income Credit benefit for all filers; extends eligibility to the EIC for those aged 18-25, those above 65, and ITIN filers; and provides a one-time child tax credit

Join us on April 6 for Early Childhood Advocacy Day! Although we couldn’t be together in Springfield this year, we hope you can still raise awareness in support of early childhood services and programs. Recently, Start Early has developed several resources to support your legislative advocacy with our Advocacy in Action Series. We hope you can take the additional step to join us in one final push to legislators to ensure they prioritize early childhood funding in the state budget proposal.

The legislative session was much shorter than usual so we need your voice, your story, and your advocacy to ensure our youngest learners and their families can continue to receive the services and supports they need in order to thrive. The pandemic has been particularly difficult period for so many that we need your stories to show our lawmakers why these investments are critical.

Why Advocate

Advocacy: building support for a topic or issue. Advocacy allows you to use your voice and share your story on how an issue, policy or decision has or may impact your life or the lives of those you love. Each year, legislators make important decisions at local, state and federal levels that have real impacts, and you should feel empowered to contact your legislators to help them understand what their decisions mean for communities. For example, crafting a state budget is one of the most important things legislators do. Your advocacy can ensure they consider and priorities early childhood priorities in their decision-making.

Regardless of the time of year, advocacy can drive pivotal change. It takes time to develop a relationship with legislators and their staff, so reaching out to them outside of the legislative session can amplify and drive recognition of the early childhood issues facing families and communities every day.

We understand that you are busy and often have competing priorities making it difficult to find the time to advocate. So, we developed several resources to help explain the legislative process and created videos to guide you through several easy-to-use opportunities for advocacy.

We also encourage you to educate and share resources with your personal and professional networks. By encouraging others to be advocates, we can amplify the diverse needs of children and families in communities and ensure other perspectives are shared with legislators. It’s also an opportunity for diverse stakeholders to offer solutions.

Start Early is excited to announce Dionne Dobbins as Vice President of Research and Evaluation. In her role, Dionne will lead the Research & Evaluation division and oversee research efforts under Start Early’s expanded Head Start grant.

“Dionne has dedicated her career to thinking about how child, family, and community outcomes can drive and influence policy efforts. She has a strong interest in using research in applied settings and reaching non-researchers by developing tools and resources relevant to their work,” says Rebecca Berlin, chief learning officer at Start Early.

Most recently, Dionne served as the Sr. Director of Research at Child Care Aware of America, where she set the research agenda for the organization and led a team of researchers in executing it. Notably, she led the production of the popular Child Care Aware of America annual report on the Price of Child Care used among many researchers, policymakers, and advocates. Dionne has led research projects for Head Start, child care, family literacy, military child mental health, and early childhood financing. She is also a former Head Start Fellow who supported the leadership team at the Office of Head Start. She holds a doctorate in applied developmental psychology from the University of Miami and did her postdoctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Dionne’s extensive systems-level, research-to-practice expertise, with a strong understanding of how to create a unified data picture from diverse sources of information will be invaluable to Start Early. We are thrilled to have Dionne join Start Early and support our efforts to produce research and evaluation data that is relatable, easy to understand, and centers equity,” Berlin concludes.

Follow Dionne on LinkedIn.

The Illinois Policy Team at Start Early is pleased to release our annual Illinois Legislative Agenda, a snapshot of the budget requests and legislative priorities for which Start Early will be advocating during the spring 2022 legislative session in the state.

With the new legislative session underway, our team is focused on moving forward funding requests and legislation that will support families and providers across our early childhood system.

Our goals for the year include:

• Securing additional funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant at the Illinois State Board of Education and voluntary home visiting programs, the Early Intervention (EI) program, and the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) at the Illinois Department of Human Services
• Codifying existing timeline for the initiation of EI services
• Expanding eligibility to CCAP and EI for kids involved in the child welfare system
• Passing legislation to create paid family leave program, among other priorities

Earlier today, Governor J.B. Pritzker introduced his administration’s proposed Fiscal Year 2023 (FY 2023) budget framework, which includes a welcome increase of 10% in state funding for preschool, evidence-based home visiting services and center-based infant-toddler programs funded by the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).

Unfortunately, the budget proposal maintains current funding levels for other key early childhood programs, like Early Intervention (EI), the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) and IDHS-funded home visiting programs. A more holistic approach to funding early childhood is needed to ensure the state can address the many disparities currently experienced by expecting families and those with young children based on factors like race, income and geography.

“To have the early childhood system our youngest learners deserve, Illinois must approve meaningful increases in state funding every year for the core programs and services families with infants, toddlers and preschoolers need,” Ireta Gasner, Start Early vice president of Illinois policy, said. “We thank Governor Pritzker for his thoughtful education budget, and look forward to working with the Illinois General Assembly to increase funding for the remaining key early childhood programs by 10%, particularly those operated by the Department of Human Services.”

Start Early believes we must build an early care and education system that provides young children and their families with high-quality educational and child development services and supports, beginning prenatally. Only with annual funding increases will we have a system that is resourced to improve the earliest days of a new baby’s life, to ensure young children with disabilities and developmental delays receive the supports they need to thrive, and to provide quality care to families facing considerable challenges.

Despite the notable appropriations approved annually by the General Assembly, early childhood services in Illinois remain woefully underfunded and programs face a critical workforce shortage, fueled heavily by low wages. The final report published by the Pritzker administration’s Commission on Equitable Early Childhood Education and Care Funding states the problem plainly: billions of additional dollars in state and federal funds will be needed over time. The state must make a meaningful down-payment in FY 2023 to build toward a system that serves all children and their families effectively – from birth through kindergarten entry.

Today’s budget proposal comes on the heels of many praiseworthy actions taken by the Pritzker administration over the past two years to support early childhood programs during the global pandemic. Without initiatives like the Child Care Restorations Grants, the Child Care Workforce Bonus and the new Strengthen and Grow Child Care Grants, the state’s early childhood system may have crumbled. That said, these short-term programs funded with federal relief dollars do not translate to the kinds of permanent, systemic improvements the state so desperately needs.

Start Early is eager to partner with the legislature and the administration to build the early care and education system that works for every child in Illinois.

By Joan Lombardi

Over the holidays, I heard the term metaverse across multiple media platforms. From TV talk shows and the news to newspaper articles, the concept was everywhere, and I wanted to understand what it means. Meta seems to have several meanings depending on how it is used – as a prefix it sometimes means transformation or transcending.  In the “tech world” the metaverse seems to be referring to some overarching system that would transcend the different parts that make up that world today.

While not totally grasping this emerging concept, these ideas are not completely new to a student of child development. We can relate to the idea of an overarching system evolving beyond its current collection of parts to create an all-encompassing approach to achieving a common goal.

We know health, learning and behavior are connected, and holistic child development requires an integration of these elements that transcends their parts; health affects learning, learning affects health, and social-emotional development affects them both. We also know development begins early, with each stage building on another. Moreover, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory has grounded our thinking: we can’t separate the child from the well-being of the family. They both depend on supportive communities and policies.

As we enter 2022, let’s recommit our energies to creating a system that could be thought of as meta-care. This approach would go beyond a collection of isolated programs and services to an interconnected system supporting the whole developing child. In this community, the parent, childcare provider, physicians, home visitors, teachers, local librarians and housing agencies all matter for a successful start in life.

Last year, I had the opportunity to talk to several parents, providers and local leaders across the country. Each was working to build these connections to make their community “the best place to raise a child.” I recognized four common elements in these initiatives:

• Firm beliefs in centering all actions on family and caregiver voices to improve their living and working conditions
• Commitment to equity
• Processes for data tracking and mapping services
• Continuous improvement mechanisms that include ongoing partnerships across services and sectors

The country’s future depends on how we care for young children and families. In the upcoming year, our hope remains that landmark federal legislation is passed to provide the critical investments we need. When this happens, implementation will move to the states and communities and new opportunities to work together will emerge. We must renew our efforts of support to assure a robust continuum of care: from healthy births to children thriving at age three, at five and beyond.

It doesn’t matter if we use a new term like meta-care; what matters is that we intensify our pursuit of better outcomes for all children. Let’s allow the needs of families and caregivers to guide our actions, transcend old boundaries and make a system of caring a reality for the next generation.

Dr. Joan Lombardi is a national and international thought leader in early childhood. She has been a key collaborator and consultant to Start Early in a variety of ways over the years.