ML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> center">A SYSTEM OF FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SUPPORTS FOR EDUCATION

The Working Group recognizes the primary importance of families in children’s lives and the impact of neighborhoods on family life. It recommends a system of services that addresses school readiness in all of its dimensions and also promotes family responsibility and involvement in children’s educational success. Finally, the report emphasizes building community capacity to promote children’s school readiness, achievement, and well-being.

School Readiness Centers

RECOMMENDATION 12: Enact legislation that will allocate resources to establish a network of neighborhood-based School Readiness Centers that gives all families access to essential services to meet children’s developmental needs.

“If, as research and common sense indicate, the family is the most important and effective resource available to any individual child, then the community and its institutions should make this resource the cornerstone of strategies to improve children’s well-being.”

The Basics of Family Support
Family Resource Coalition

WHY?

Children’s readiness for school is influenced by many factors, including a positive family environment, high-quality early care and education experiences, efforts to ease transition to school, and vital communities.⁵¹ The effectiveness of a multi-faceted program that addresses these factors is provided by the Chicago Child-Parent Centers. They demonstrated a 1:7 cost to benefit ratio by combining 1) a coordinated early education system for three- to nine-year olds, emphasizing language and number skills, 2) comprehensive child and family support services including intensive center-based parent activities, and 3) well-trained and compensated staff members with small class sizes and staff to child ratios. The 17-year longitudinal study demonstrated greater levels of school readiness at ages five and six, high school achievement test scores through age 15, less need for school remedial services, lower rates of child maltreatment, lower rates of juvenile arrest and high rates of high school completion. In addition, greater parent involvement in their children's school and satisfaction with their children's education, as well as higher expectations for their children's educational achievement were reported. By pursuing all of these aims, School Readiness Centers can help families meet their responsibilities and help children prepare for and succeed in school. They can also provide resources to early care and education providers, including home-based child care providers who often work in isolation.

Other states have found that family support initiatives can bolster children’s well-being and school readiness. For example, studies of a statewide family education program administered through Minnesota’s public school system show that a comprehensive family support program can be effective with many different families, can help to promote school readiness, and over time can help parents foster their children’s healthy development.⁵² Other evaluations of early intervention programs that incorporate home visitation show increased immunization rates, higher levels of stimulation of children by their families, and fewer confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect.⁵³ High quality home visitation programs connected with other services, such as center-based early childhood education, joint child-parent activities, and parent groups can produce meaningful results.

By acting on this recommendation, legislators can address these problems:

Many new parents do not know where to turn to find information, resources, or advice. Polls consistently show that as they make decisions for their children, promote their health and development, and arrange for child care, most new parents want and need help.⁵⁴ Families need information and services that are easy to locate and culturally and linguistically appropriate. Many California parents believe that a neighborhood center would help meet this need.⁵⁵

Many home-based child care providers work in isolation, without access to crucial information and resources. Among California children under age five with employed mothers, nearly half (47 percent) are in home-based child care arrangements (family child care, relative care, or babysitter); among those under age three, the figure is much higher (58 percent).⁵⁶ Their caregivers tend to have little contact with other providers and often lack access to training, information, or resources. School Readiness Centers can serve as a hub for these providers, linking them to a wide range of child-care and community resources. Studies show that informal care providers have a strong interest in expanding their knowledge and sharing experiences with their peers. Outreach services organized around an existing program (such as family resource programs or drop-in centers) can often make a difference. A study in Rhode Island found that kith and kin providers rejected “training,” but were interested in participating in “get-togethers.”⁵⁷ Staff at School Readiness Centers can provide outreach, resources, information, and networking opportunities that may be able to interest license-exempt providers in taking steps to raise quality and pursue licensing. A survey conducted in Los Angeles found that the great majority of license-exempt providers indicated an interest in becoming regulated family child care providers.⁵⁸

As their children move from one type of program to another, families need help with transitions--especially the transition to school. School Readiness Centers provide a needed nexus among families, early care and education providers, and schools to assist children and families in the transition from home to early care and education settings to kindergarten. Centers can provide continuity by offering information, sustaining needed services, and linking families to schools during the course of their child’s development from birth through the primary grades. The long-term study of the school-based Chicago Child-Parent Centers showed that children’s gains lasted through adulthood and were due, in part, to the continuity of services provided to children from age three through nine, as well as the comprehensive nature of the program, which included a multifaceted parent program and outreach activities (such as home visitation).⁵⁹ School Readiness Centers can provide these supports.

Many families have difficulty accessing community services and programs. Families seeking services and supports for their children often face a bewildering maze of systems with which they need to interface. This may be especially true for families with children of different ages and different needs. School Readiness Centers will coordinate, consolidate, and leverage local services and programs. A decade of experience with Healthy Start in California has shown that school-age children’s outcomes improve when families have access to multiple services at a single site linked to the school. Results reported in 1999 include: significant increases in math and reading scores for students most in need; decrease in family violence; improved student health care, especially preventive care; decreased student drug use and improved self-esteem and perceptions of support; and improved conditions for families in the areas of housing, food and clothing, transportation, finances, and employment.

A decade of research and practice has produced two key findings about early education. First, if early education is to strengthen school readiness, schools must play a major role. And second, schools cannot do it all, and they cannot do it alone. School’s capacity to effect change hinges on strong relationships community-based partners.⁶⁰ Over nearly four decades, Head Start has shown the benefits of linking programs and families with community-based services and resources.⁶¹ The challenge in California is to provide and coordinate those services which support the academic mission of schools. School Readiness Centers meet that challenge.

Many families face cultural and language barriers as they try to access information and services. Barriers are also high for parents who have disabilities, or whose children have disabilities. Families often report that they want and need more information about children’s needs and available services. This need is especially common among parents whose children have disabilities or other special needs, or who have disabilities themselves. Information must be available in the family’s native language and in a form that is accessible to families.⁶²

HOW?

Establish a network of neighborhood-based School Readiness Centers that gives all families access to essential services to meet children’s developmental needs.

Families, especially families with young children, need an identifiable neighborhood ‘point of entry’ to address their questions, service needs, and supports for their growing and changing family dynamics. School Readiness Centers will provide an array of services that families can choose to access, based on their particular interests and needs. Culturally and linguistically responsive service is essential to the mission of these centers.

School Readiness Centers will provide minimum core family services defined in the new statute and also serve as a platform for delivery of, or referral to, additional services designed to reflect local preferences and needs and to build on existing community services and strengths. Core services could include parent education and life skills classes, volunteering in the classroom and attending events with their children; child development activities such as play groups and learning activities that include developmentally appropriate literacy and numeracy activities; resource and referral links to community resources and services; outreach activities including home visitation, parent-to-parent support groups, drop-in availability, crisis intervention, health and nutrition services including health screening, speech therapy, meal services, and coordination of services for families; and a comprehensive program that supports children's transitions to school.

School Readiness Centers may be based in an existing organization that expands its mission and menu of services, such as Proposition 10 School Readiness Initiative sites, Healthy Start sites (funded via CDE), family resource centers (funded via DSS/OCAP), and parent/family resource centers (funded via DDS), schools, child development centers, resource and referral programs, libraries, or health care ‘homes.’ Or, in remote, sparsely populated areas, it may be a virtual network that gives families access to a multidisciplinary team of professionals and a range of services. Priority should be given to funding established effective programs.

School Readiness Centers can also help to identify and fill gaps in the health and developmental services families need to promote their children’s well-being and school readiness. They can help families access health insurance and connect with a health care home. At the same time, they can increase capacity of the community to identify and serve children in need by training individuals working in family-serving agencies or organizations.

Health Care Resources

RECOMMENDATION 13: Provide stable and continuous health care for children and pregnant women, develop a statewide system for issuing health and development “passports,” and expand insurance coverage.

“Early identification of children with developmental delays or disabilities can lead to treatment of, or intervention for, a disability and lessen its impact on the functioning of the child and family.”

Developmental Surveillance and Screening of Infants and Young Children
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001

WHY?
Quality health care, with an emphasis on optimal child development, is an important component of an effective school readiness initiative. While expanding children’s access to health care is itself a major challenge, it does not go far enough. Families also need access to care that addresses their children’s physical and oral health as well as their emotional, social, and cognitive development. Achieving this goal means overcoming significant barriers at the provider, practice, health plan, and community level.

A key strategy for promoting healthy development is to ensure that every expectant mother and every family with young children has access to a “health care home”—a one-stop source of health care, developmental services, and referrals to other human services. The concept has been championed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is also a cornerstone of Healthy People 2010, the national strategic plan for improving Americans’ health, developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

By acting on this recommendation, legislators can address these problems:
Reforms that only address educational needs cannot produce the necessary results. Raising achievement by California’s children remains a crucial challenge, based on elementary school assessments. It has not been possible to reverse this trend with education reform efforts that limit their focus to children’s academic skills or consider children’s needs only from the age of school entry.

The health care delivery system has gaps—and many children are falling through those gaps. California’s current health care delivery system lacks the capacity to meet the needs of all expectant mothers and young children. Fragmented and categorical programs mean that many children fall through the cracks. Moreover, the state’s ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups have significant disparities in their access to medical, dental, and mental health services; pregnancy outcomes; and children’s health and well-being.

Existing care often misses opportunities to address children’s developmental needs. Too often the health care services offered to expectant mothers and young children are not reflective of the most recent findings and advancements in childhood development and other fields of science. It is critically important that the standards of practice for child health are the most current and utilize evidence-based strategies and tools. In order to achieve this high level of quality care, a comprehensive multi-level effort will be required to appropriately train and equip health care providers.

The multiple risk factors faced by many families require new approaches. The multiple and pervasive nature of the risk factors challenging today’s families require us to think in new ways and seek multi-pronged solutions and integrated approaches to health, education, and the human services.⁶³ Health care providers alone cannot and should not address every aspect of children’s developmental health, family health, or community well-being. Carrying out this proposal will require effective, sustainable partnerships across disciplines (including health, education, human services, and family support).

Enact legislation to ensure that every California child has access to a “health care home,” including prenatal care.

Care for all children should be provided through a health care home with a primary care provider who offers services that are accessible, family-centered, comprehensive, coordinated, culturally competent, and linguistically appropriate. In addition to addressing the child’s physical health needs, the health care home must also offer comprehensive developmental screening and assessment services, especially during children’s early years, to support and enhance their cognitive, emotional, and social development.

Early and comprehensive prenatal care is essential to ensure that every child has the best start possible. Prenatal care must include ongoing regular care and visits, parenting information, nutrition services, and psychosocial services.

Enact legislation that funds a statewide health and development “passport” for every California child.

Each child must have a health and development passport that is portable and that chronicles the health services and developmental screenings and assessments received. The passport would provide families with current information about their children that they could share with service providers and educators to assure appropriate and coordinated support. The health and development passport would be established and maintained by the child’s health care home.

To increase the number of children covered, enact legislation to expand Healthy Families for children and their families with incomes up to 300 percent of poverty.

Many working families do not have sufficient discretionary income to purchase health insurance, thus limiting their child’s access to developmental screenings and assessments, prevention services, and medical care. Furthermore, family-based coverage is more effective than child-based coverage in increasing the percentage of eligible children who actually become enrolled.

Work and family engagement

Recommendation 14: Provide incentives for paid family leave and employer/workplace family-friendly practices.

“By the year 2010 it is likely that 85 percent of [California’s] labor force will consist of parents.”

National Economic Development and Law Center, 2001

WHY?

In From Neurons to Neighborhoods, the National Academy of Sciences called for “...better public and private policies providing parents with viable choices about how to allocate responsibility for child care during the early years of their children’s lives.” In particular, the study noted the importance of parental choice during the first year of life, stating: “During infancy, there is a pressing need to strike a better balance between options that support parents to care for their infants at home and those that provide affordable, quality child care that enables them to work or go to school.”⁶⁴

“Viable choices” is a key phrase. By promoting policies that allow parents the option of staying at home with their infants or reducing their work hours, California can support children’s the early, secure attachments to parents that have been shown to underlie cognitive development and school readiness. At the same time, the state can ease the high demand and costs for infant care, which is more expensive and tends to be of poorer quality than care for older preschoolers.⁶⁵

Employers can play a significant role in helping families care for their infants and toddlers through a variety of work-based policies, practices, and programs. Most large employers have long provided basic benefits, such as health insurance and maternity benefits. A small but growing number of employers are also addressing parents’ need for time off and flexible scheduling, opportunities to “telecommute,” assistance in finding or paying for child care, or access to high quality services on site.⁶⁶

Both parents’ and employers’ concerns must be taken into account. The goal is to craft a set of policies that balance the public interest in children’s developmental needs and school readiness, on one hand, and a productive, efficient private sector, on the other. Policymakers in other countries have shown that it is indeed possible to achieve this balance.

By acting on this recommendation, legislators can address these problems:

When parents’ child care options are limited, the state’s economy suffers. According to a 2001 study by the National Economic Development and Law Center, “By providing a stable source of care, the child care infrastructure enables working parents to earn at least $13 billion annually, a substantial and sustained contribution to the state’s economic growth and overall prosperity.”⁶⁷ Child care is especially critical for low-income workers, many of whom work non-traditional (evening, night, or weekend) hours or rotating shifts. In a study of five hundred Los Angeles residents, more than half had lost a job and more than two-thirds failed to seek a job because of difficulty finding child care.⁶⁸

Parents are facing a time crunch, and children are affected. When parents balance work with the care of young children, especially infants and toddlers, time pressures can be severe. In a recent statewide survey commissioned by the California Children and Families Commission, four out of five working parents said that they are exhausted when they go to bed at night.⁶⁹ Nationwide, the great majority of both fathers and mothers feel they do not have enough time with their children.⁷⁰ Half of parents with children under the age of three say they end most days feeling that they spent less time than they wanted to with their young child.⁷¹ And nearly two-thirds of fathers are not content with the amount of time they spend with their children.⁷² More than parents’ confidence and satisfaction is at stake. Research shows that time with parents has developmental benefits for young children; moreover, sick children recover more quickly and fully when cared for by their own parents.⁷³

Families lack the options they need to make parental choice a reality. Parental choice is widely considered to be a key element of any early care and education system. However, when it comes to infant care, parents’ options are limited. Few parents have access to paid leave, which would not only secure their jobs but also replace enough of their foregone wages to make full-time parenthood possible during their babies’ first weeks and months of life (or during adopted children’s first weeks and months with their new families). The United States is alone among the advanced industrialized countries in the briefness of our statutory leave and is among very few countries with unpaid leave.⁷⁴ Recent polls show that most Americans and Californians favor paid leave and believe that it is best if a parent is home to care for very young children.⁷⁵

HOW?

Enact legislation to create a paid family leave benefit that may be based on insurance models with contributions shared among employers, employees, and public funds.

Currently, new parents have very limited family leave options. Recent research indicates that there is strong support among all Californians for paid family leave for infant care. Parents, the general public, and opinion leaders all support leave for one or both parents.⁷³ Given the crucial nature of the early years of life, the importance of parents’ early and intense involvement with their children, and the costs of infant care, paid parental leave should be available for new parents.

Enact legislation to provide incentives for employers to implement family-friendly policies geared to helping parents carry out their parental responsibilities.

The current California tax credit emphasizes on-site child care centers. The state could provide incentives with varying credits for flexible benefit programs, flexible scheduling, job sharing, and flexible use of parental sick leave to promote employee productivity and facilitate employment among parents of young children.

Table of Contents
Summary	Introduction	Improvements	Early Care
Family Support	Epilogue	Appendices	Members