Using Strengthening Families to Meet the Goals of Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge

About Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge • More than $1 billion in competitive state grants • Three rounds of awards between 2011-2013, 20 state • Opportunities for public comments on goals, priorities and criteria Successful states: proposed ambitious plans and targets to raise program quality, improve outcomes for young children and increase the number of high-need children who are attending high-quality early learning and development programs.

RTT-ELC: Building Systems to Improve Quality •

Absolute Priority:

Promoting School Readiness for Children with High Needs •

Application Centerpiece:

Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement Systems

Key Opportunities in RTT-ELC • Help families build protective factors and build parent capacity; • Involve parents as partners and decision-makers; • Support children’s social and emotional development; and • Leverage resources and build partnerships across systems

Help families build protective factors and build parent capacity “Building Blocks” of a high-quality system: • Early Learning and Development Standards • Comprehensive Assessment Systems • Early Childhood Educator Qualifications • Health Promotion Practices • Family Engagement Strategies and • Effective Data Practices

Help families build protective factors and build parent capacity Definition of Family Engagement Strategies:

Culturally and

linguistically responsive strategies [that are] are successfully used to engage families, help them build protective factors, and strengthen their capacity to

support their children’s development and learning

Source: Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge, 2013 Executive Summary, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop earlylearningchallenge/applicant.html

Involve Parents as Partners and Decision-Makers

• Involvement in RTT-ELC planning and implementation • Involvement in early childhood assessment processes and resulting decisions for individual children • Guidance to support early learning and development standards at home • Inclusion of family engagement and protective factors content in workforce competencies, teacher preparation and professional development

Support children’s social and emotional development •

Workforce Knowledge and Competency Framework

includes effective behavior management strategies that promote positive social and emotional development and reduce challenging behaviors •

Health Promotion standards

include involving families as partners and building parents’ capacity to promote their children’s physical, social, and emotional health •

Competitive preference

: Identifying and addressing health, behavioral, and developmental needs from 0 – 5 and building families’ capacity to address these needs

Leverage resources and build partnerships across systems • Organization and alignment of the system to provide the diversity of services and supports needed by children and families • Leveraging existing resources to promote family support and engagement, including through “home visiting programs, family resource centers, family support networks, and other family-serving agencies and organizations”

What RTT-ELC Grantee States are Doing • 20 states received RTT-ELC grants • 13 included plans to build on existing Strengthening Families work or initiate or deepen early-stage efforts • Strategies align to the five core functions that support Strengthening Families implementation and sustainability

Alignment to Core Functions of Strengthening Families Implementation • Build an Infrastructure to advance and sustain the work • Build parent partnerships • Deepen knowledge and understanding of a protective factors approach • Shift practice, policies and systems toward a protective factors approach • Ensure accountability Source:

Core Functions Of Strengthening Families™ Implementation, CSSP, [link]

• For more information CSSP Issue Brief: Using

Strengthening Families To Achieve Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge Goals (2014):

http://www.cssp.org/reform/strengthen ingfamilies/2014/RTT-ELC-and-SF.pdf

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Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge

website: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetoth etop earlylearningchallenge/index.html