👋 Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.
The pandemic’s disproportionately harmful impacts on communities of color are “the results of generations of policies and decisions communicating what and whom we value,” says Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, former Surgeon General of California and author of The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity.
Public policies influence the health, social-emotional, and financial wellbeing of children and their families. When they aren’t applied equitably, disparities result. For example, though such federal policies as Medicaid and Early Head Start help millions of people, the impact can be uneven because states determine policy eligibility, benefits, and implementation. And states enact policies independent of federal policy, resulting in further variation in resources available to support families with young children.
Read on and click the links to go deeper.
1 big thing: Policy affects child and family wellbeing
From birth to age 3, the brain undergoes its most rapid growth. Chronic exposure to stressful physical and social environments during this time can hinder neurodevelopment, contributing to lifelong physical, cognitive, social, and emotional health issues.
Living in poverty, experiencing abuse or neglect, having a caregiver with poor mental health, and other adverse experiences hamper development — and are all too common. In the US, 2 of 3 children experience at least 1 traumatic event by age 16.
Helping caregivers raise healthy kids: Safe, nurturing, and positive relationships can help prevent and mitigate the impact of adverse experiences and promote healthy development. But for that to happen, the financial, social, physical, and mental health needs of caregivers must be met.
The potential of public policy: The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center identifies evidence-based policies and strategies to support infants and toddlers and issues an annual guide for states on how to promote nurturing environments for infants, toddlers, and families. The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Roadmap measures child wellbeing in each state and tracks progress on 11 policies and strategies that support the needs of young children and their caregivers, including:
The Center last year ran a simulation that compared resources available to families based on state policy choices. It found wide disparities. For example, a single mother working full-time in Kansas at the state minimum wage has more resources available than the same mother in neighboring Missouri.
- The reason: Missouri lacks a state Earned Income Tax Credit and paid family leave, and has higher childcare costs, leaving families with fewer resources.
Good policies aren’t enough. Implementation and administration can determine who benefits from public policy. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) helps feed about 6.5 million people per month. But factors like restrictions on eligible products and other state-level program regulations can impose burdens that harm participants.
- Since the 1980s, states offer exclusive WIC contracts to manufacturers in exchange for discounts on the price of formula — resulting in a winner-takes-all market dominated by a few companies that has contributed to the ongoing baby formula shortage.
WIC participants have been hit particularly hard during the shortage because their benefits cover a specific type of formula. If an eligible product is unavailable, they must either pay out of pocket for a different product or risk harmful alternatives like homemade formula and diluting formula to make it last longer.
2. Dispatches from the field: Family-centered policies help children thrive
Meet Dr. Cynthia Osborne, founder and executive director of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, and professor of early childhood education and policy at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development. While teaching young children, Dr. Osborne saw many factors outside the classroom influence her students’ lives. That led her to a career analyzing the intersection of social policy and institutions – like schools and childcare centers – and the need for strong public policies to improve children’s health.
A systems-level approach: “One change I have seen in the field is much greater understanding that there is not one policy or program or institution that can do it all to support families,” Dr. Osborne shares. “I have seen more coordination and collaboration, and thinking across systems. Policies that were traditionally not thought of as ‘early childhood,’ like minimum wage, Earned Income Tax Credits, or paid family leave are being accepted in the early childhood space — in addition to things like childcare and home visiting. ”
The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center’s recently-launched Equity Initiative guides states on how to implement policies promoting equity and addressing racial disparities. Dr. Osborne explains, “Our goal is to better understand the different impact state policies have had and often still do have on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups and identify solutions that will reduce long-standing gaps. We want to understand how and why policies aimed at supporting young children and families may be impacting groups differently through a review of the most rigorous research to date and by interviewing folks in the states who are both responsible for implementing these policies and who are being impacted by them”
Read the full interview here.
3. One smile to go: A nod to grads 😃
It’s graduation season! As students across the country enter the next stages of their lives, here are excerpts from a powerful commencement speech to celebrate the class of 2022. 🎓
At the 2022 Yale Class Day address, Reshma Saujani – founder of Girls Who Code, author of Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think), and 2002 Yale Law School graduate – reflected on President John F. Kennedy’s iconic call to duty, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Noting the massive decrease in public trust in the federal government, rising income inequality, and the deterioration of the US welfare system since the 1960s, Reshma pushed back on President Kennedy’s words. “Ask us what we can do for our country? Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Class of 2022, JFK’s words were not for you. Instead, he would want you to ask your country what your country can do for you.”
Reshma called on the graduating class to challenge the federal government, states, municipalities, and businesses to “tear down broken structures and build up equitable ones” by improving healthcare and childcare services, addressing climate change, and implementing other policy decisions to better serve the needs of communities. However, Reshma also recognized the need to first take care of oneself.
She explained, “Before you can ask your country what your country can do for you, you have to ask what you can do for yourself. Outside a Hindu temple in Queens, there’s a statue of a turtle, and the turtle is there to remind you that sometimes you’re at your strongest when you withdraw. That you have to go inward first before charging forward. Graduates, go inward. Heal yourself. Only then can you heal the nation. Because yes, yes, yes, your country needs you. Just not in the way JFK imagined. Your country needs you to take care of each other, and reimagine a world that better takes care of us.” 🐢🌍
4. The roundup
Learn about upcoming events, new funding opportunities, and jobs in maternal and infant health and early childhood:
- Promote resilience and child wellbeing: The New Jersey Department of Children and Families seeks an executive director to lead the Office of Resilience. Apply by June 16 to guide New Jersey efforts to address the impact of toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences.
- Join a team dedicated to the health of New Jersey children: The New Jersey Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics seeks a senior program manager to work in collaboration with the NJ Department of Health supporting maternal and child health initiatives.
- Support early care and education: The US Department of Health and Human Services is seeking a deputy director to serve in the Office of Child Care. Apply by June 7 to improve access to high-quality childcare.
- Black Infant Feeding Study: The Burke Foundation is partnering with the Perinatal Health Equity Foundation to conduct a landscape analysis of infant feeding practices among Black women and families in New Jersey. If you are a New Jersey resident who is pregnant or recently gave birth, please complete the interest form to participate.
- A report on early childhood leaders: Ascend at the Aspen Institute undertook a landscape analysis of the early childhood field to determine how to invest in leaders that reflect the diversity and lived experiences of communities. Register for their June 15th webinar to learn more about the report’s findings and hear from a panel of early childhood leaders on how to advance the field.
- Save the date: Mark your calendars for the third annual National Prenatal-to-3 Research to Policy Summit and the release of the 2022 State Policy Roadmap on October 13.