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How Do We Get There From Here? The Role of the Early Childhood Advisory Council in System Building

Helene StebbinsNH Early Childhood Advisory Council Inaugural Meeting

September 28, 2011

+Goals

What is a system?

What is the role of the Council in system building?

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+What is a System?

A group of related parts that form a complex whole

A way of proceeding

A set of principles

Parts Process Principles

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+Parts

Direct Services: Programs/services that directly touch children and families

Child care Head Start Medical home/health care Early Intervention Home visiting services Child welfare

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+Process

Infrastructure: Efforts that enhance quality and improve access to direct services:

Improvement strategies/QRIS PD/support for practitioners Standards Financing Leadership/Governance Stakeholder engagement/public will/communication Accountability/monitoring/data systems

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+Principles

Values that guide your work. Serve all children and their families Comprehensive (health, ECE, family supports) Collaborative Racial Equity Cultural Competence Respectful of the role of parents

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What Results Should a Comprehensive Early Childhood System Deliver?

Values and Principles Optimally, a comprehensive early childhood system will:

• Reach all children and families, and as early as possible, with needed services and supports• Genuinely include and effectively accommodate children with special needs• Reflect and respect the strengths, needs, values, languages, cultures and communities of children and families• Ensure stability and continuity of services along a continuum from prenatal into school entry and beyond• Ease access for families and transitions for children• Value parents as decision makers and leaders• Catalyze and maximize investment and foster innovation

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Early

Learning and Development

Health Family

Leadership and Support

Comprehensive services that

promote children’s physical,

developmental, and mental health

Nurturing relationships, safe environments, and

enriching experiences that foster learning and

development

Resources, experiences, and relationships that

strengthen families, engage them as leaders,

and enhance their capacity to

support children’s well

being

Thriving Children

and Families

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Finance Strategically

What Are the Functions of a Comprehensive Early Childhood System ?

Define and Coordinate Leadership

Create and Support Improvement Strategies

Enhance and AlignStandards

Ensure Accountability

Recruit and Engage Stakeholders

Early Learning and Development

HealthFamily

Leadership and Support

Outcome:Thriving

Children and Families

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Kansas ECCS Model

Minnesota EC System Functions

wilderresearch.org

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Michigan’s Great Start Initiative

+What is a System?

A group of related parts that form a complex whole

A way of proceeding

A set of principles

Parts Process Principles

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+System Building

The act of transforming a disparate array of programs and infrastructure supports into a coherent system of service delivery that meets the comprehensive needs of young children.

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+System Building

How do we get

there

from here?

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+What Makes A Successful Council?

1. Focus on Outcomes

2. Data

3. Leadership

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18Early Childhood Systems Working Group

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Early Childhood Colorado Framework

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+Data, Data, Data

Data is the foundation of system building

High-quality, coordinated, timely data is very difficult to get.

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+Every State Collects ECE Data

States Collect Child-, Program Site-, and ECE Workforce-Level Data by ECE Program

Source: Early Childhood Data Collaborative 2010 State Analysis, www.ecedata.org

+Leadership

Articulate the outcomes that will drive the development and use of coordinated state EC data systems.

Evaluate current and future data collection and linkage needs based on the state’s critical policy questions.

Strategically govern data collection and use, including ensuring the privacy, security and confidentiality of EC data.

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+Leadership

"[Y]ou want open airing of views and opinions and suggestions upward, but once the policy's decided you want rigorous, disciplined implementation of it. And very often in the government the exact opposite happens. People sit in a room, they don't air their real differences, a false and sloppy consensus papers over those underlying differences, and they go back to their offices and continue to work at cross‐purposes, even actively undermining each other.”

- Richard Holbrooke, quoted in the New YorkerSeptember 28, 2009

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