Family Friend and Neighbor care gets attention

The Minnesota Department of Human Services has announced the recipients of a grant program for Family Friend and Neighbor (FFN) providers. DHS recieved $750,000 from the legislature in 2007 after Ready 4 K and our allies worked to show legislators the important role this type of care is to families. Minnesota is the first state in the US to put resources into FFN care and it has caused quite a buzz in the early childhood community.

One of the grant recipients, the Northland Foundation (based in Duluth) had this news feature in the local media.

The majority of children in Minnesota spend part of their time in FFN care during the day: whether it is a grandparent, next door neighbor, or nanny. FFN care is especially important in greater Minnesota where there are few programs and child care centers available for young families. It is exciting to see more attention and resources devoted to this area.

Why we do what we do

Reading a new report from the Partnership for America's Economic Success, Using Tax Credits to Promote High Quality Early Care and Education Services, I was particularly struck by the opening paragraph of the introduction:

America's long-term economic success depends on ensuring that children -- the next generation of citizens -- succeed in school and life (Heckman & Masterov, 2004). Advances in neuroscience underscore that young children learn from the earliest moments of life, and that learning is especially rapid in their first five years. The accumulated evidence from evaluations of high quality early education programs tells us children in those programs advance in intellectual, social and emotional competence in the short term, do better academically (in both reading and math) and socially in school, and generally live more productive lives as adults than children who have no preschool education or who have poor early educational experiences (Shore, 1997; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000; Brown & Scott-Little, 2003; Rolnick & Grunewald, 2003; Lynch, 2004; Gilliam & Zigler, 2004; Barnett & Ackerman, 2006).

The report goes on to explore the possibilities of using tax credits linked to quality standards to promote and finance quality early care and education opportunities. (View full report here.) To me, this introductory paragraph seems a great summary of the different aspects of why we work for quality early learning experiences for children; brain development, social and emotional development, future academic performance, and economic stability (both for the individual and the community). What do you think? How would you state your reasons for working on behalf of early care and education?

Early Childhood Research Collaborative

On Friday and Saturday the Early Childhood Research Collaborative, a joint effort of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota, held a conference on early childhood development, Critical Issues in Cost Effectiveness in Children's First Decade.

Minnesota Public Radio aired a story covering the event. Slides of the presentations from the workshops are available on the event website.

Early Childhood editorial in the Strib

Check out the StarTribune editorial Turning Child Care into Preschool published in Tuesday's paper. The editorial outlines some of the innovative projects going on around the state through the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF), as well as other state investments. 

One of our challenges is to show the legislature the big picture of how early childhood programming works for families. The legislature needs to see a broad system of early childhood care and education and to put resources into funding the whole system, not just bits and pieces for a few kids here or there. As Ready 4 K moves forward, one of our tasks is to simply show how this system works in Minnesota and how it can be improved.

What do you think? What do you see as important components of an early childhood system in Minnesota?