Connecticut’s Governor Ned Lamont has a bold vision for the long-term success of his state: He wants to make Connecticut the most family-friendly state in the nation. And he and other state leaders are grounding that vision with a forward-leaning investment in early childhood. Under the leadership of Beth Bye, Commissioner for the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC), they are going deep and wide in building a strong early childhood system because they believe that being family-friendly is a pragmatic, economic decision essential to secure the state’s future.

I am impressed with the comprehensive approach Governor Lamont and Commissioner Bye are taking to design their early childhood strategy, and think it is worth shining a spotlight on it for other states to consider.

Last month I was honored to join a convening of Connecticut’s government and advisory leaders, policymakers, and early childhood experts to participate in a panel discussion, “Shaping Connecticut’s Tomorrow: A Conversation with Early Childhood Leaders,” alongside Ellen Galinsky, President of Family and Work Institute, Michelle Kang, CEO of NAEYC, and Commissioner Bye.

When Connecticut’s leaders talk, I hear three themes that I think will ensure their success:

• Align your leaders and your resources
• Don’t play favorites: invest in all the essentials for a strong system
• Plan for multi-generational success

Align your leaders and your resources

Connecticut created a shared understanding and alignment around early childhood for the state’s governance bodies through its Blue Ribbon Panel Report. Connecticut is fortunate to have multiple entities, beyond the OEC, that provided guidance and input into the design of a system that will transform early childhood care and education. Together they co-created and committed to a plan featuring common priorities:

• Workforce and Quality
• Equity and Access
• Systems Building and Funding and Costs

I recall a conversation I had with Commissioner Bye several years ago about ways states could address the entire early learning system by taking an approach that better aligns all its resources. The Blue Ribbon Panel Report maps smart resource alignment and allocation to achieve shared goals – for example, providing stable housing for families in addition to high quality early childhood education, and health screenings to address the needs of the whole child. Additionally, as Connecticut strengthens their focus on Birth through Age 3, they are comprehensively approaching the infant/toddler funding challenge by blending and braiding federal and state funds to remove some of the burden on programs.

Don’t play favorites: invest in all the essentials for a strong system

Connecticut’s holistic approach to addressing early childcare and education is comprehensive and thoughtfully weaves together all the elements necessary for a high-quality, equitable early childhood system. Too often states invest unevenly, which diminishes (and sometimes undermines) their overall impact.

The Blue Ribbon plan prioritizes equity for the families with the greatest needs, prioritizes the success of the early childhood workforce, and focuses on stabilization and system building.

I want to particularly call other states’ attention to Connecticut’s focus on the early childhood workforce. The Connecticut plan highlights the importance of providing high quality professional learning for teachers, including career pathways for ECE professionals to get their credentials and increase their knowledge so that they are eligible to receive higher wages. We know that quality professional learning can provide powerful and rich onboarding to staff new to the field and improve the work environment to create a culture that is inclusive and supportive and fosters ongoing learning. As a field, we want to develop professionals’ skills, knowledge, effectiveness, and confidence to increase retention and wellbeing. And Connecticut is showing us how.

Plan for multi-generational success

Family voice is evident throughout Connecticut’s plan and early actions. From philosophically focusing on parents as their child’s first teacher to engaging with parents as thought partners in the convening I attended, Connecticut shows a commitment to thinking about the success of young children through the lens of the whole family. They encourage and prepare families to use their voices to advocate for the needs of their young children now, through their elementary years, and beyond. For the Governor’s “most family-friendly state” vision to be achieved, this is essential.

The early childhood ecosystem must include fully funding early learning and care, as we cannot provide high quality childcare on the back of parents. Connecticut understands that in order to do so, the state will need to provide equitable community and policy supports for parental leave, childcare subsidies, affordable housing and health care screening so that opportunity gaps are addressed. These investments in families create intergenerational benefits that will have a wide-reaching and lasting impact, from the socioeconomic success of individual households to the growth of the entire state’s economy.

Frederick Douglas said, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” I am heartened to see Connecticut carry out his words through policy and planning that invests in the early years. A family-friendly state indeed; let’s all pay attention to Connecticut’s next steps together. This is a model worth watching.

The National Home Visiting Summit offers leaders across home visiting an opportunity to learn and share about innovative practices in the field, build connections with each other, and leave with actionable steps to promote systems change. Our team heard from Jackie Cordova, HIPPY Program Director with Parent Possible in Denver, CO, about the impact the Summit has had on the work she does. Here is Jackie’s Summit story:

As our team plans for the 2025 National Home Visiting Summit set for February 12-14, 2025 in Washington, D.C., we’re inspired by the lasting impact of what attendees across the home visiting field learn and take back home each year to support systems change across programs, research, and policy.

The plenary sessions, workshops, and poster presentations at the Summit create opportunities for learning and connection. They also spark many attendees to share key takeaways and describe actionable steps to use their learning to transform home visiting at a systemic level from where they are in the field. For me, the Summit offers an opportunity to see the work I do in home visiting in Illinois as part of a wider system supporting families. The Summit enables me to bring home innovative ideas to support the field in my role providing training and technical assistance. My team and I have observed that other attendees at the Summit also share the inspiration and call to action I receive at the Summit.

At Start Early, we point to Research, Program & Policy Partnership (RPP) as our guiding framework for data usage among our early childhood programs and services. RPPs consist of collaborations among different teams working toward improvement that is informed by research to understand what works and what does not work, and to allocate resources effectively for the most effective and sustainable progress.

To ensure continuous quality improvement, we recently sought to gain a better understanding of data literacy among Start Early’s Early/Head Start (E/HS) staff and how they currently use data for improving practice. We also recognized this as an opportunity to reaffirm the important role of RPPs in implementing effective changes through data.

Data Literacy: the ability to meaningfully explore, understand, use and communicate with data

The Early/Head Start Network and Research & Evaluation teams collaborated to conduct and analyze the annual Staff Data Utilization Survey from May 2023. This survey measured understanding of and experiences with data from various E/HS staff members across multiple Start Early programs.

Key Findings

95% of the 235 respondents reported that data is an important piece to serving children and families (Figure 1), affirming how important it is that all staff have the training and resources they need to understand and use data.

Figure 1

Our findings also highlighted that many staff, particularly content area specialists and coordinators, family support specialists and home visitors, reported overall high enjoyment, confidence and understanding of data use and management.

Other staff, specifically assistant and lead teachers, expressed less enjoyment in understanding and using data and noted the need for more personalized training in data use and management.

A common hurdle for staff in using data was found to be a lack of time available to enter and work with data, making it essential to find creative solutions that fit into busy schedules.

The Power of Research, Program & Policy Partnerships

Our findings confirmed and emphasized that ongoing training and professional development opportunities were needed. Thus, the Early/Head Start Network partnered with Start Early’s professional development experts, which provides customized professional development trainings for early childhood professionals, to develop a one and a half day training for its E/HS staff later that year.

This training was open to all E/HS staff and focused on breaking down steps in data analysis and utilization, creating awareness and understanding of data terminology, and building confidence in using data to inform practice.

Overall, training participants shared that they learned helpful tools, gained confidence and, as a result, now have a better understanding of data utilization for their work. All participants said this training met their professional development needs and would recommend it to their colleagues.

Conclusion

This example highlights the crucial role that exploring data literacy plays in informed decision-making and enhancing outcomes for children and families. The collaboration between Start Early’s Early/Head Start Network, Research & Evaluation and professional development teams led to a successful training program and demonstrated the value of this ongoing work. We are committed to continue using the RPP framework, showcasing how collaboration can bridge research and practice in data literacy and drive meaningful improvements in programs, policies and practice for children and families.

If you’re interested in exploring how an RPP framework and other tools can drive improvements in your early childhood system, please reach out! You can get in touch with Start Early’s Research & Evaluation team via email at Research@startearly.org.

Earlier this month I had an opportunity to participate on a panel at the Hunt Institute Summit alongside my good friend Connecticut Commissioner of Early Education, Beth Bye and Stanford Professor, Phillip Fisher. During the panel, we engaged with legislators, mayors, city council and school board members from 49 states and the Virgin Islands.

We were all gathered in one room to talk about the importance of early care and education.  Our conversation focused on four critical components of growth and impact for ECE programs identified by The Hunt Institute within their State Snapshots 2024 report:

• Access
• Affordability
• Funding
• Quality

Over the three-day Summit, we discussed how various states rank on each of these areas. Additional detail regarding the state rankings can be found in The Hunt Institute’s State Snapshots 2024 report. Currently, no one state is doing well in all four areas. In fact, most states scored around a 2 on a scale of 1-4 in each area.

Summer is in full swing! Along with the fun the season brings, young children, expectant parents, and those who care for them face many decisions about how to safely navigate heat, poor air quality, extreme weather, and more. Compared to the general population, infants, young children, and pregnant people are more susceptible to the effects of extreme heat.

It is important for child care providers to know how to manage these environmental risks as they plan to keep children and staff safe. Child care providers are also in a unique position to support families by providing resources and guidance to keep children safe while at home.

Below are some common questions caregivers might have about how to protect young children and families from extreme heat and resources to help answer them:

• How do I know when it’s too hot for infants and young children to play outside?
  • Check out this informative Child Care Weather Watch Poster from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. This resource tells us how to determine if the weather is suitable for outdoor play for infants and young children, both when it’s cold and hot outside.
• How can I find heat-related health information specific to my community?
  • Type your ZIP code into the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Heat and Health Index (HHI) tool. This tool helps you prepare for hot weather, prevent heat-related illnesses, and learn about the effects of heat on health.
• How do I know when extreme heat is coming to my community?
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) HeatRisk Forecast color-coded map shows a seven-day heat forecast and health risks. CDC also has a HeatRisk Dashboard with resources for high-heat days, local air quality details, and actions to stay safe. The CDC has guidance for heat health, focused on children with asthma, people who are pregnant, and people with cardiovascular disease.
  • Looking for heat updates in your inbox? Check out the Monthly Climate Outlook Reports by the HSS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) with forecasts for heat, drought, wildfire, hurricanes, and more for your region. Use this link (the “OCCHE” subscription option) to sign up for the monthly reports via email. See this link for the August report.
• What heat-related emergencies are happening in my community?
  • The OCCHE and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) NEMSIS Heat-Related EMS Activation Surveillance Dashboard has a map and graph with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) data about heat-related emergencies. The information is useful for knowing heat-related risks in your area.

We encourage child care providers and those supporting networks of providers to share these resources broadly. Climate change is an early childhood issue and programs supporting young children and their families need tools to be responsive and climate-resilient. These resources can be helpful not only during the summer, but year-round, as communities around the globe face an increasing number of extreme weather events.

Interested in other resources supporting early childhood professionals? Sign-up for our newsletter here.

Looking for helpful resources about air quality? Find them here.

Announcing Start Early’s Exclusive Partnership with ACSES

Start early is pleased to announce our new partnership with ACSES, a research-based approach to equitable classrooms developed by Stephanie Curenton, Ph.D. The Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES) is a valid and reliable observation tool and framework for measuring and supporting equitable sociocultural interactions in early childhood classrooms.

Now more than ever, we see the challenges facing our early education system and workforce. Black children are more likely to be suspended and expelled compared to their peers from other racial groups¹. There is also a tendency to quickly label a child’s behavior as “challenging” without taking into consideration children’s emotions, strengths, or developmental needs. This unfair discipline and mischaracterization can isolate racially, culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Meanwhile, teachers may experience burnout from managing their classrooms without sufficient resources. Without adequate support, it is challenging for teachers to center the experiences of diverse learners in their classroom and to provide intentional and positive learning environments for all students.

The Start Early and ACSES partnership will support early childhood educators at all levels with tools and strategies to address these challenges and build more equitable classrooms and education systems. Through professional learning, coaching, collaboration across peer groups, and measurement, we will prepare teachers and leaders to:

• Adopt the ACSES approach and integrate culturally relevant and anti-bias behaviors into their practice
• Facilitate equitable interactions with children to improve outcomes and peer relationships
• Develop skills to provide equitable discipline, individualized instruction and culturally sustaining social emotional learning opportunities

”I believe in the capacity of our workforce to learn and grow in their knowledge and commitment to equity,” says Dr. Curenton. “ACSES is not simply about creating a classroom environment that is more welcoming of social and cultural differences, but also about creating an education system that values and supports early educators to be the best they can be. ACSES is about investing in our workforce.”

As the exclusive professional learning partner for ACSES, Start Early will collaborate with Dr. Curenton to develop and deliver comprehensive professional learning for early childhood educators and program leaders. We will co-design PL opportunities with ECE teachers and leaders to make sure they are relevant and match the daily realities of working in an ECE classroom and program.

A Journey to Infant and Toddler Mental Health

As she became a program manager, Adrienne found new meaning in working with home visitors and parent educators through reflective supervision, making time for them to slow down and think more deeply about their practice. By shifting the focus to the home visitor and their needs, it could have significant impact on the delivery of services to families. Adrienne felt a growing desire to learn learning more about infant and toddler mental health, which led her to the Infant Toddler Mental Health certificate program and Portland State University’s Early Childhood Inclusive Education Master’s Degree. Drawn in by the school’s strengths-based and collaborative approach, and infant mental health classes’ exploration of the dynamic between parent-child or caregiver-child relationship in particular, the program reinforced her beliefs of how these interactions profoundly shape a child’s development while impacting the parent’s journey. One that Adrienne sees as a delicate dance that requires understanding, empathy, and advocacy.

The Dance of Parenting

As Adrienne shared, mothers, in particular, often struggle with self-doubt when it comes to parenting. “We tend to focus on our perceived shortcomings rather than celebrating our strengths. Home visiting that supports infant and maternal mental health can step in to bridge this gap. By supporting parents, we empower them to build strong attachment relationships. It’s not just about the child’s growth it’s about the parents’ growth too, and as home visitors, we can be a part of facilitating this transformation firsthand.”

Unseen Impact

Home visitors rarely know the full impact of their work. However, home visitors all have stories that demonstrate the power of the program to support families. Adrienne shares one story of a distressed mother who truly believed she couldn’t handle parenting. Her daughter’s tantrum at a bouncy house left her feeling inadequate and unequipped. By exploring the mother’s strengths, emphasizing and reminding her of the effort she put into creating enriching experiences for her child, despite the challenges of the moment, she was able to recognize that she had persevered through the challenge, and she was able to do it because she knew it was beneficial for her child. Leaning into the strengths-based aspects of the interaction and being able to normalize these emotional moments helps parents recognize their worth.

The Luxury of Strengths-Based Approaches

In trauma-informed principles, like those at the center of the hope-filled, compassionate NEAR@Home practice for addressing childhood trauma, being strengths-based is essential. Imagine entering someone’s home and focusing on what they’re doing well instead of pointing out flaws. It’s a necessity to be able to see what is going right —one that reveals genuine strengths. When home visitors are able to help parents see the best in themselves, we empower them. It’s not about rigid rules; it’s about acknowledging their efforts. Even after tough experiences, it’s critical to be able to take a step back and appreciate the positives—a parallel process that enriches the practice.

Continuing to Emphasize the Positive

Maternal and infant mental health isn’t just about fixing problems; it’s about celebrating strengths. Home visitors hold a unique position—to witness growth, resilience, and love within families. As Adrienne continues in her role leading Washington’s training efforts and expansion of NEAR trauma-informed practice, she believes in the power and potential of these strengths-based approaches to empower families to build strong and healthy relationships that will last a lifetime.

Authentically and meaningfully engaging families in systems design and improvement work requires careful attention to how we value the expertise and lived experiences of these critical partners. Oftentimes, there is a contrast in our espoused beliefs and actual behaviors (explicitly or implicitly). How conscious are we of the disconnect? What tools and frameworks exist to help us as systems leaders on our journeys to be more genuine in our beliefs and equitable and liberatory in our practice? Here are some key insights from Start Early Consulting’s work focused on centering family and provider voice.

Systems leaders aiming to engage families more equitably and effectively in systems design and improvement efforts need to assess their progress towards meeting these goals. Start Early has developed a self-assessment tool focused on cultivating family leadership in systems building work through the establishment of Family Councils. Framed as a continuum for developing capacities, the tool incorporates tenets of the Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership framework.

Focusing on the Needs of Early Childhood Professionals

The word “innovation” can be perceived as a buzz word. We see it everywhere – in job descriptions, in resumes, organizational websites, etc. and people almost instinctively pay attention to it. And rightfully so… it’s desirable to think of new ways of doing something, especially if it saves time, human effort, and money.

And yet, I often wonder if designing relevant and engaging professional learning for today’s early childhood educators is a matter of innovation, or rather a matter of focusing on the learner and what matters most to them.

The field of adult learning has provided some principles about how adults learn…and there have been research studies to confirm these. I like to think of these as conditions that we can create to center the needs of adult learners. Here’s a few of them:

• Give learners choice
• Respect learners and meet them where they are
• Show, don’t tell them
• Let learners practice
• Make it relevant

These conditions that support adult learning help us shift our focus from what we want (learning designers, subject matter experts, etc.), to what learners need. In my work at Start Early, we’re focusing on learner needs through centering equity using inclusive facilitation and offering microlearning.