Making Young Children a Top Civic Priority:

1
Making Young Children a Top Civic Priority
Data to Guide Planning

• Data and Research Team Presentation to the
  City/Community Work Group
• July 10, 2007

2
Overview

• Key examples from around the world and pop
  culture
• Boston Demographics, strengths and challenges
• Boston History and current state of governance,
  accountability, funding, and public engagement
• Other initiatives in Boston and MA
• Questions and other resources

3

• What does a city and community that makes early
  childhood development a top civic priority look
  like?

4
Reggio Emilia, Italy
Infant preschool programs with innovative
approach that responds to child as a competent
learner and views environment as an
important teacher
Internationally renowned model, which Reggio
Children now promotes through advocacy, research
and professional development
Cultural value of child as collective
responsibility and parents desire for high
quality care that promotes critical thinking and
collaboration
City which values and responds to children and
families
5
UNICEF Childrens Cities

• Launched in 1996 to make cities liveable for
  all
• 867 total only two in the United States
  Chicago and Oakland
• Characteristics
• Developing a city-wide Children's Rights
  Strategy or a comprehensive agenda for building
  a Child Friendly City
• Creating permanent government structures to
  ensure priority consideration of children's
  perspective and coordinate efforts
• Ensuring assessment and evaluation of the impact
  of law, policy and practice on children
• Producing a regular State of the City's Children
  Report to monitor childrens status
• Investing in necessary programs through a
  children's budget
• Making children's rights known among adults and
  children
• Promoting children's active involvement in issues
  that affect them and taking them into
  consideration in decision-making
• Ensuring a child-friendly legal framework
• Supporting organizations and institutions that
  promote children's rights

6
Pop Culture Rankings

• Best Cities to Have a Baby in America (Fit
  Pregnancy)
• Boston is 1!
• Best States for Babies (Child)
• Massachusetts is 4
• Best Cities for Families (Child)
• Boston is 9
• Best Childrens Hospitals (Child)
• Childrens Hospital Boston is 2

7
Where do the rankings come from?

• Some things you would expect
• Pediatricians per capita
• Immunization rates
• Infant mortality rate
• Crime rate
• School spending
• Pupil-teacher ratio
• Paid leave laws
• Child care ratios
• Average cost of a 3-bedroom home

• And some that you might not
• Stroller friendliness
• Average commute time
• Number of sunny days
• Unemployment rate
• Future job growth
• Air and water quality
• Mothers breastfeeding at 6 months
• Infertility coverage and access to treatment
  options

8
How do we compare?

• Family Economic Self Sufficiency Index Based
  on a family of two adults, one infant and one
  preschooler
• Preschool Care Cost/Infant Care Cost

9
What do we know about Bostons birth to five year
olds and their families?
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Who are Bostons Young Children?
Children Ages 0 to 5 by Race 37,947 Children Ages
Birth to Five Total
non-Hispanic
SOURCES U.S. Census Bureau, 2000, Public Use
Microdata (PUMS) 5 Sample, BRA Research
Division Analysis U.S. Census Bureau, 2000,
Summary File 3 (SF3) data
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(No Transcript)
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What did we learn?

• Dorchester is home to 20 of 0 to 5 year olds.
• Age group is evenly spread in other areas - 7 to
  11 in Roxbury, Mattapan, East Boston,
  Allston/Brighton, Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park.
• 43 of householders with 0 to 5 year olds are
  foreign born.
• 47 of 0-5 householders do not speak English as a
  first language.
• 8300 (26) with limited English proficiency.
• Needs of children 0 to 3 are better met than
  those of ages 3 to 6 particularly for children
  with special needs.

Top Needs
Affordable, High Quality ECE (infant/toddler care)
Less Burdensome Systems
Family Support
Help Meeting Basic Needs
13
What else did we learn?
Some challenges
Some opportunities

• Families are overwhelmed with options and
  information
• Organizations do not collaborate and coordinate
• A lot of strategic planning but planning in a
  vacuum
• Strong models are not to scale and do not meet
  need
• Lack of information about quality

• Boston is resource-rich, abundance of health,
  early care and education, and family support
  organizations
• Lots of strategic planning DSS and other state
  agencies pushing for system development
• Boston has unique models Countdown to
  Kindergarten, ReadBoston, and Reach Out and Read
  and many more are growing

No citywide understanding of why the early years
matter!
14
What kind of Governance, Accountability,
Funding, and Public Engagement structuresdoes
Boston have for early childhood?
15
Bostons History The Office for Children

• Office for Children existed within the City of
  Boston under the Mayors Office of Community
  Partnerships from 1997 to 2002 focused on birth
  to 13
• Major focus was support for ECE providers through
  small quality improvement grants (500 to 4,500)
  for accreditation, staff training, parent
  engagement and moveable equipment
• Other projects
• Boston Childrens Week events for families
  during April school vacation, expanded to a full
  month
• Boston Family Resource Guide family info guide
• Room to Grow Report
• SummerFun Resource Fair

16
Boston Governance

• Many organization that impact young kids DEEC,
  BPS/Countdown to Kindergarten, ECE providers
  but none taking leadership with a holistic view
  of early childhood
• Community Partnerships for Children is the
  closest to a city-wide governing body but only
  focuses on ECE
• Boston Full-service Schools Roundtable brings
  together providers to provide non-academic
  support children in school but only focuses on
  K-12 (mainly K-8)
• No home within City for early childhood

17
Boston Accountability

• No city-wide standard/definition for school
  readiness yet
• No data on how many kids are ready for school
  yet
• No single source of information about Bostons
  young children yet?
• MA School Readiness Indicators Project state
  project in 2001 identified 35 key indicators
  working on measuring various indicators
• Lots of information from providers about services
  but little to no information from parents
  directly about needs and services

18
Boston Funding

• Focus of youth funding has been school-age and
  teens, mainly after-school programming
• Funders, like the general public, are
• slow to understand the importance of the early
  years
• reluctant to shift funding away from at-risk age
  group
• Boston Education Funders is Bostons city-wide
  education funding group but mainly interested
  in K-12 initiatives
• Providers are left to compete for limited
  resources that dont allow for much coordination
  and collaboration between systems

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Boston Public Engagement

• Several current and planned programs/campaigns
  focused on raising awareness about specific early
  childhood issues or targeting parents
• Very little focus on birth to three
• No campaign to promote city-wide understanding
  of the importance of early childhood
• FrameWorks Institute research highlights lack of
  public understanding of child development and
  needs
• Child development is a black box no model to
  explain it
• Child rearing happens in family outside actions
  irrelevant
• Day care isnt about child development
• School Readiness is confusing and can be seen as
  negative hurrying children, academic focus
  rather than social/emotional

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Connections to Other Initiatives/Planning
Refer to Other Planning and Initiatives handout
for more information
21
Questions?What other information does the group
have or want to guide our work?