The Challenge:

The state of Massachusetts wanted to improve early education program quality across the state by testing a theory of change: they believed that effective program leadership is a key driver of early education program quality, but lacked rigorous evidence of how leaders’ impact on organizational performance improves child outcomes. To test their theory, the state created an Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) initiative to offer childcare leaders three intensive support models. Early Education Leaders, an Institute at University of Massachusetts Boston invited Start Early to co-create one of the ECSO’s by integrating the Start Early Essentials into its model design.

The Results:

Early Education Leaders and Start Early combined their expertise in instructional leadership to design a customized, state-wide leadership support program. Their two-year Essential Leadership Model centered Start Early’s evidence-based Essentials Framework and included the Essential 0-5 Survey for data collection on culture and climate, the Data Use and Improvement Toolkit to address problems of practice, and leadership training in the form of courses, communities of practice, and coaching.

Massachusetts’ theory of improving quality through leadership support is already showing promising results across the state. Third party evaluation of all three ECSOs shows:

1. Leaders have more confidence and engage in more positive leader practices.
2. Educators maintain a positive perception of program climate and are more likely to stay in the field.
3. Supports for leaders may be moving programs toward improvements in quality.

The Challenge:

A network of county partners wanted to improve the prenatal to age five early childhood system through greater coordination and investment. Before taking action, they needed to understand what changes would be most beneficial to the community and where their collective resources could be most impactful. These engaged leaders represented public and private sectors, including education, county government, the philanthropic community, and community economic development entities.

The Results:

As Start Early began its work in Lake County, Illinois launched Birth to Five Action Councils as a new regional early childhood infrastructure for early childhood systems – serendipitous timing that positioned Lake County partners for active engagement. Through the systems mapping process, the consulting team gathered comprehensive data, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups with families and early childhood professionals, and synthesized the learnings into a final report with strategic recommendations for priority actions.

The results:

1. Increased Funding & Access: With an actionable strategy to help Lake County scale, partners successfully advocated and applied for more public funds to increase early childhood access through expanded Head Start and state pre-K. Simultaneously an anchor donor, better able to understand gaps in early education access, stepped up to bring an Educare program to the County; interim Educare programming is already underway.
2. A Road Map for Future Coordinated Actions: The group is positioned with data-driven priorities and strategic actions that can further guide collective investments and help them continue to scale their impact across Lake County.

The Challenge:

Mississippi’s newly appointed State Early Childhood Advisory Council (SECAC) wanted to rebuild trust by setting an inclusive, transparent tone within the early childhood community and establishing a common system vision. SECAC sought a better understanding of how to leverage all available funding streams to move toward a more coordinated, sustainable, equitable birth to five early childhood system in Mississippi. In response to advocates, SECAC also sought ways to remove barriers and increase program access for children and families.

The Results:

SECAC and Start Early’s collaboration resulted in three important outcomes for SECAC:

1. Relaunched Council: The new SECAC now meets regularly and maintains clear communication with constituents. Through interviews, focus groups, and town halls SECAC is centering the voices of those served by its system and working toward a unified vision.
2. Comprehensive System Mapping & New Data-Driven Priorities: SECAC and its stakeholders now have a comprehensive map of Mississippi’s early childhood system and its strengths and opportunities. Drawing from this report developed by Start Early, SECAC has identified the state’s urgent priorities, including:
   • Address the early childhood workforce crisis and compensation issues to stem turnover and fill vacancies
   • Improve early intervention services and the state’s ability to serve families in their natural environment
3. Strategic Planning Process: SECAC adopted a new strategic vision framework, and system-wide strategic planning work is now underway in SECAC committees.

The Challenge:

As leaders in the RIght from the Start Campaign, a legislative and budget campaign to advance state policies for young children and their families in Rhode Island, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT (RIKC) and Parents Leading for Educational Equity (PLEE) worked together to center families of color as leaders in the coalition. They believed that integrating the priorities of families of children with disabilities and developmental delays into the coalition’s policy agenda was essential to improving access and equity for young children of color in the state’s Early Intervention (EI) and Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) programs. These highly effective, busy teams sought a framework of support to move their integrated work forward.

The Results:

Start Early Consulting worked closely with coalition leadership to establish and facilitate regular early childhood IDEA meetings that authentically include families of color – aligning member expectations, preparing participants for equitable engagement, and balancing power dynamics with neutral facilitation. Start Early then assisted the team’s translation of family needs into policy priorities.

This supported partnership launch set the RIKC and PLEE team up for several important outcomes:

1. Funding: RIght from the Start successfully secured a 45% Medicaid rate increase for EI in Rhode Island after 20 years of frozen rates. This increase also triggered equivalent rate increases from commercial health insurance providers to improve children’s access to Early Intervention statewide.
2. An Effective, Family-Centered Approach to Policy: RIght from the Start continues to center families in its coalition meetings and development of policy priorities. Its current EI/ECSE advocacy agenda reflects family priorities such as a bilingual workforce, multi-lingual supports for families, improved access to child care for children with disabilities and delays and more flexible strategies to deliver early childhood IDEA services in community-based settings that respond to the needs of families. A new early childhood IDEA task force for system leaders, families, and advocates is also a priority.

The Challenge:

Aware of barriers to accessing high-quality early care and education, Jefferson Ready Start Network decided to focus its upcoming strategic planning cycle on how to increase access to its affordable early learning programs across the region. JRSN needed new data on its rapidly changing population and ongoing high poverty rates and wanted to understand those statistics in the context of two significant local challenges: economic and cultural barriers to ECE access and the persistent impacts of the pandemic.

The Results:

Start Early Consulting delivered a Landscape Analysis with seven key research-based findings that demonstrated the early care and education supply and access gaps within Jefferson Parish. The consulting team then conducted stakeholder sessions and workforce surveys to process the results of the analysis and identify problems, root causes, barriers, and required supports to move forward.

This data and analysis resulted in two important outcomes for the JRSN team:

1. Funding: JRSN was able to successfully communicate the critical need for additional investment in early childhood education to its stakeholders and community.
2. Program Design: The analysis gave the JRSN team a data-driven understanding of particular service gaps for Latino and Hispanic families within the parish – and provided an essential foundation to guide further research and, ultimately, the launch of JRSN’s all-new program, the “Two-Generation Approach to Workforce Development and Early Education.”