Children, families, service providers, and policy makers are part of an interdependent system. Because agencies and policy makers often have the most influence on how families receive and benefit from services, it is the responsibility of service providers and public officials to ensure that the systems that provide programs and services are maximally beneficial to families and their children. To ensure that multiple service delivery systems are aligned and sustained, strong partnerships between community members, professionals, and policy makers are required to make the developmental needs of children through age 5 a priority in all sectors of the community.


Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children
The National Council of La Raza’s desire to stimulate a more thoughtful policy conversation on enforcement priorities is our motivation for investing in this study, and for seeking a well-respected research institution to conduct it. We asked the Urban Institute to design a study that assesses the impact of immigration raids on children and families and the institutions that support them, such as early childhood education centers and school systems. Their findings help remove the issue from the hyperbole which often surrounds it, and the report outlines implications for children, families, and communities.
Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children

Building Culturally & Linguistically Competent Services to Support Young Children, Their Families, and School Readiness
The purpose of this tool kit is to provide guidance, tools, and resources that will assist communities in building culturally and linguistically competent services, supports, programs, and practices related to young children, their families. By offering services in culturally and linguistically meaningful ways, communities can engage all families and support young children being ready for school.
Building Culturally and Linguistically Service Report » (pdf, 553 KB)

Improving School Readiness Outcomes: Lessons from Six Communities
This report describes six local government efforts to develop early learning systems to achieve the goal of school readiness—efforts that use federal and state resources but are locally owned. Selected by early childhood experts, these examples are some of the most sophisticated and comprehensive efforts in the nation that focus on achieving school readiness and creating extensive early learning systems.
Improving School Readiness Report » (pdf, 334 KB)

Unequal Opportunities for School Readiness
Systematic policies, practices, and stereotypes work against families and children of color to squander their potential, undermine their strengths, deplete their resilience, and compromise their outcomes. We need to understand the consequences of embedded racial inequities, how disparities are produced,
and how they can be eliminated in order to ensure that all children do well.
Unequal Opportunities for School Readiness Report » (pdf, 84 KB)

Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-Being in Rich Countries
This 2007 report card from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre focuses on the well-being of children and young people in the world’s advanced economies and provides the first comprehensive assessment.
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/

Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career
Quality Counts 2007 begins to track state efforts to create a more seamless education system by looking at performance across the various sectors, and at state efforts to define students’ “readiness” to succeed from one stage to the next.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/01/04/17execsum.h26.html

Village Building and School Readiness: Closing Opportunity Gaps in a Diverse Society
This resource brief, by the State Early Childhood Policy Technical Assistance Network (SECPTAN), is a compilation of several documents focusing on special issues and opportunities for building early learning systems in what have variously been described as vulnerable neighborhoods, disinvested neighborhoods, or poor, immigrant, and minority communities.
Village Building School Readiness Report » (pdf, 824 KB)

Education Policy Under Cultural Pluralism
This article focuses on policy cases that prompt the long-term question of how government can effectively balance the press for particular forms of schooling such as charter schools and community building, against its modern desire to integrate groups in large institutions.
Education Policy Under Cultural Pluralism » (pdf, 92 KB)

United Way Community Impact Report (2006)
In January 2004, the board and staff of United Way Silicon undertook the task of identifying the most pressing health and human services needs faced by Santa Clara County residents. This report provides a summary of our key findings
and their implications for health and human services delivery. And, it outlines the new Community Impact Strategy that United Way has adopted to address our community’s high priority issues.
United Way Community Impact Report 2006 » (pdf, 92 KB)

Building Bridges: A Comprehensive System for Healthy Development and School Readiness (2004)
Policy reports on crosscutting themes include strategic planning, communications strategies, financing, results-based accountability, cultural proficiency, and data analysis and use. Policy reports on programmatic topics include medical home, parenting education, family support, infant mental health, and dental health.
Building Bridges for School Readiness 2004 » (pdf, 404 KB)

The Role of State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems in Promoting Cultural Competence and Effective Cross-Cultural Communication
(2005)
If a service system is to be effective, it must address the culturally diverse needs of all the children it is designed to serve. While service systems undoubtedly have common components and service delivery goals, their practices and policies cannot take a “one size fits all” approach. Understanding the preferences, needs, and experiences of diverse families is a pre-requisite for developing such a system. State leaders who design and operate service systems need to be well informed about the characteristics of the populations they are serving.
The Role of State Early Childhood Program 2005 » (pdf, 319 KB)

Planning for the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative (SECCS): An Environmental Scan of Opportunities and Readiness for Building Systems (2004)
This environmental scan is meant to provide states with essential information about the
challenges and opportunities they face, as well as important information about potential resources that can be used to assure success. The scan provides an assessment of state capacities to improve their early childhood service systems, including both an assessment of resources and capacities that are available to state Maternal Child Health programs.
Planning for the State Early Childhood Program 2004 » (pdf, 594 KB)

Site Infrastructure, Administration, and Evaluation – Compendium of Resources (2004)
A list of references to research studies and practical resources regarding program infrastructure, administration, and evaluation to enhance school readiness efforts.
Site Infrastructure Compendium » (pdf, 123 KB)

America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2006.
Each year since 1997, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics has published America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, a report that includes detailed information on the well-being of children and families.
America's Children in Brief 2006 » (pdf, 1.5 MB)

Child Development, Children’s Mental Health and the Juvenile Justice System: Principles for Effective Decision-Making (2003)
An understanding of the principles of child and adolescent development and a consideration of children’s mental health is useful to decision-makers at all levels of the juvenile justice system. Judges, prosecutors, and public defenders are routinely faced with offenders of both sexes who are psychologically very different than their adult counterparts.
Child Development and Children's Mental Health » (pdf, 313 KB)

Evidence-Based Practice in the Early Childhood Field (2006)
This book defines the evidence-based practice movement and explains how it is empowering professionals to deliver the most effective interventions available. The authors examine how evidence-based practice is changing the way research is conducted and how various sources of evidence can be applied to solve real-world problems and used to inform critical policy decisions.
http://www.nprinc.com/early/ebpe.htm

Child Trends
This is the link to the Early Childhood Development section of the Child Trends website. It contains research briefs, executive summaries, full reports, speeches, presentations, briefings, and other publications. This section focuses on children’s development from birth through early elementary school and the features of high-quality environments, professional development for the early care and education workforce, and effective strategies for improving the quality of children’s early experiences, both at home and in child care.
http://childtrends.org/_portalcat.cfm?LID=51F75FAD-F095-4351-AEB50DFBAC4...

Science of Early Childhood Development
This paper presents a concise framework for understanding the science of early childhood and brain development as it relates to policies and programs that could make a significant difference in the lives of children—and all of society. Includes discussion of the 7 Core Concepts of Development and their implications for policy and practice.
http://www.developingchild.net/pubs/persp/pdf/Science_Early_Childhood_De...

Court-Community Partnerships
This brief describes four model court-community partnerships that apply research to court practices to improve outcomes for maltreated infants, toddlers, and their families.
http://www.abanet.org/child/practice&policybrief_march07.pdf

Chapin Hall Center for Children
Building knowledge to serve children is the mission of the Chapin Hall Center for Children. Located at the University of Chicago, Chapin Hall is a research and development center that brings the highest standards of scholarship and the intellectual resources of one of the world’s great research universities to the real-world challenges of policymakers and service providers struggling to ensure that children grow, thrive, and take their place in a formidable world. Working behind the scenes with lawmakers and government administrators, as well as on the front lines with program providers, Chapin Hall puts rigorous, non-partisan research in the hands of those who shape the programs and policies that affect all children in their daily lives.
http://www.chapinhall.org/

National Institute of Child Health & Human Development
The NICHD was initially established to investigate the broad aspects of human development as a means of understanding developmental disabilities, including mental retardation, and the events that occur during pregnancy. Today, the Institute conducts and supports research on all stages of human development, from preconception to adulthood, to better understand the health of children, adults, families, and communities.
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/

Invest in Kids
Invest in Kids is a Canadian charitable organization with a mission to help parents become the parents they want and need to be. It is dedicated to helping parents become the parents they want and need to be. By translating the science of parenting and child development into engaging, easy-to-understand, relevant resources for parents and professionals, Invest in Kids aims to strengthen the parenting knowledge, skills and confidence of all those who touch the lives of our youngest children to ensure the healthy social, emotional and intellectual development of children from birth to age five.
http://www.investinkids.ca
http://www.investinkids.ca/ContentPage.aspx?name=ourResearch

The Earliest Years: Review of Research, Best Practices and Wise Investments for Children Ages 0 through 3 (2007)
FIRST 5 Santa Clara County (F5SCC) recognizes that school readiness begins at birth and is interested in exploring how most effectively to increase its investments in programs for children ages 0 through 3. To support F5SCC in its decision making about promising programs for children ages 0 through 3, SRI International conducted a literature review of the factors that influence children’s health and development in the first years of life and programs that support their optimal development.
0-3 Literature Review Report » (pdf, 566 KB)

The Science of Early Childhood Development: Closing the Gap Between What We Know and What We Do (2007)
The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child has recently released a 16-page framework entitled The Science of Early Childhood Development: Closing the Gap Between What We Know and What We Do. The document includes a discussion of the seven Core Concepts of Development and their implications for policy and practice.
http://www.developingchild.net/pubs/persp/pdf/Science_Early_Childhood_De...

How to Support School Readiness & Success of Children, Families, & Schools (September 2007)
During the course of 5 working meetings, study circle members decided that enhancing school readiness and later school success requires a comprehensive approach involving parents, caregivers, educators, service providers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers. Efforts must guide families to optimally support their children’s education, while creating school systems that better serve the diversity of children who arrive. Approaches should not just focus on children the year prior to kindergarten entry. Rather, approaches must involve children from birth to age 8, because the development of self‐regulation and language skills starts early and extends through elementary school.
http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/www/products/Study%20Circle%20White...

School Readiness in Santa Clara County: Results of the 2006 Assessment and a Summary of Three-Year Trends
In 2001 a group of public and private funders who focus on early childhood development formed the Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness in an effort to insure that more children enter school ready to learn, and that the school systems are ready to accept the diversity of children that arrive. A clear picture of children’s readiness skills was needed before resources could be strategically targeted, and so the Partnership launched a three‐year benchmark assessment of school readiness in Santa Clara County. This report represents the third and final year of the three‐year benchmark of kindergarten readiness in Santa Clara County. This report serves as an addendum to the full report.
http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/www/products/Kindergarten%20Readine...