The Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative

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The Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems
Initiative

• Building a better early childhood system through
  partnerships
• Christopher Botsko
• Altarum Institute

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Purpose of ECCS

• To support State Maternal and Child Health
  Agencies and their partner organizations in
  collaborative efforts to strengthen the States
  early childhood system of services for young
  children and their families.

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Why Did the Bureau Develop the ECCS Initiative?

• A growing body of research (Neurons to
  Neighborhoods) indicating that intervention
  during the early childhood period has long-term
  payoffs
• A long-standing commitment to systems-building
• A holistic perspective on health
• A realization that existing early childhood
  systems were fragmented

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Where Are We Going? One Model is a Community
Platform-Based Service System (Neal Halfon)
State-Level Agencies
Inter-Agency Coordinating Council
County/RegionLevel
Local Coordinating Council
Community-Based Platforms for Services
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Core Elements of an Early Childhood Development
System
Governance to set policy direction for the
comprehensive system
Standards reflect effective practices, programs,
practitioners and are aligned across the system
Provider/ practitioner support to offer technical
assistance and promote professional development
Families Supported and Children Thriving
Research development includes cross-system
data, planning, analysis, and evaluation
Monitoring to track program performance and
results based on standards
Parent Leadership development
Communications to inform families, providers, and
the public
Financing sufficient to assure comprehensive
quality services based on standards
Early Childhood Systems Working Group
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ECCS So Far

• Lots of exciting things going on, ECCS grantees
  are
• Designing new governance structures
• Working at both the state and community level
• Building partnerships across the whole realm of
  early childhood services
• Rethinking measuring outcomes and financing
  services

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How does ECCS promote evidence-based practice?

• Knowledge of best practices crosses professional
  disciplines and program lines, ECCS provides a
  setting where this knowledge can be brought
  together and acted upon
• Implementing best practices requires
  cross-agency/cross-discipline efforts and
  teamwork, ECCS provides the context for getting
  that done
• ECCS provides resources that allows grantees to
  have staff decided to systems building

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What is Needed for Continued Success?

• ECCS needs your support in order to continue to
  build more effective systems for children and
  their families