Homelessness among pregnant and postpartum persons and young children and their families is a significant, growing problem in Illinois. Housing insecurity and homelessness while pregnant contributes to an array of adverse maternal health outcomes. Similarly, homeless experiences during early childhood years can have lasting impacts on child health and development. Unfortunately, child and family homelessness is often less visible than homelessness among other populations and is therefore often overlooked by government officials and other community leaders. The result is that national, state, and local responses to persistent homelessness do not adequately address the unique needs and conditions that families experiencing homelessness experience.  

To address this critical issue, Start Early, the University of Illinois Chicago Center for Research on Women and Gender, and the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless are collaborating on the Housing Insecurity and Homelessness in Illinois among the Pregnant and Parenting project (HIHIPP). The project team will lead the development of an action plan to prevent and end homelessness for expectant parents, young children, and their families in Illinois. 

The U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services (HHS) declared a “renewed commitment and urgency” in supporting young children with disabilities and developmental delays when updating their policy statement on early childhood inclusion at the end of 2023. They noted that many key early childhood leaders “used the 2015 policy statement to drive changes in policies and practices to support the inclusion of young children with disabilities across multiple levels of the early childhood system.” The updated Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) rules reflect the urgent need to increase the supply and quality of inclusive child care and embed strategies to reach this goal.

Despite the positive change noted in the updated policy statement, the latest report using CCDF administrative data suggests that the percent of children receiving CCDF reported to have a disability was still low compared to several data points. So, while children with disabilities and delays are supposed to be prioritized, there is still work to be done to build more inclusive state child care systems.

“Building Inclusive State Child Care Systems” (April 2024) is a tool to continue driving this type of change. It is intended to support child care administrators, IDEA Part C and Part B 619 Coordinators, early childhood advocates, and other relevant groups by providing an overview of the requirements for inclusion of children with developmental delays and disabilities in child care programs and concrete ideas for taking action to make inclusion a reality. It can also be used by states who are eligible to apply for the next round of the Preschool Development Grants Birth through Five (PDG-5) program.

Start Early’s vision is for every child in the City of Chicago to have access to a continuum of high-quality early childhood services before birth and through age five that is equitable and culturally, linguistically and ability- responsive. Our work is cemented in our commitment to advancing racial equity and heavily informed by research, practice and the lived experiences of the families and professionals we serve at Start Early. Our latest Chicago policy agenda, covering city fiscal years 2024 through 2027, lays out our vision for policy and systems change that will promote access to quality early care and learning programs and services and effectively meet the needs of the children and families who need them most.

Since early in our organization’s history, Start Early has partnered across states and communities to shape, study, advocate for and enact early childhood programs, research and policies that support young children and their families. Over the past year and a half, we have engaged people from within our broad early childhood ecosystem – including from across the Educare Network – to develop our first-ever research and policy agenda that describes priorities identified by parents and practitioners. Families and staff across home visiting, Early Head Start and Head Start, child care, Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education programs shared insight about critical federal policies that could best support their families and could ensure all young children thrive.

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Read the Shaping Futures Together: An Early Childhood Research & Policy Agenda

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Each year the Illinois General Assembly passes legislation that can have an impact on families, or the organizations in our communities providing early childhood or related supportive services to families. Start Early leads on some of these legislative changes, often in coalition with others, and in other cases we contribute our early childhood lens and expertise to support the efforts of another lead organization. The 2023 Legislative Summary provides a listing of those bills that became law in the spring 2023 session that we thought would be relevant to families with young children and the field.  We hope that this is a resource you will download and share with colleagues and families alike. We are happy to provide additional information about any of these initiatives or connect you with other advocates where needed. Initiatives that were led by Start Early are marked “*”. 

Enrollment and retention data have long suggested the home visiting field could do more to meet the needs and desires of families, and workforce data point to challenges finding and sustaining a highly-qualified workforce. Start Early’s Illinois Home Visiting Caregiver and Provider Feedback Project used an organic, mixed-methods approach to understand what families and providers see as needed improvements to the home visiting system, and from this input, created precise recommendations.

The findings of this multi-year project carry significance for programs, model developers, researchers, systems leaders and policy makers. By actively engaging with the recommendations, leaders at all levels can ensure that resources are optimally allocated and can drive transformative change, paving the way for a more responsive, equitable and effective system that uplifts families and nurtures the healthy development of young children.

We encourage members of the home visiting field – including funders, model developers, researchers, program leaders, home visitors, and family participants – to read this report and identify the levers for change that they can act upon to strengthen and improve how the home visiting system supports caregivers and providers.

For questions about this report, please reach out to alowefotos@startearly.org.

We are excited to share our annual Start Early 2023 Year in Review, which showcases and celebrates accomplishments and growth from the last fiscal year (July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023).

In 2023, we continued to promote equitable access to early learning programs and services that positively impact children and families.

Please join me in celebrating the release of Flourishing Children, Healthy Communities, and a Stronger Nation: The U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan. Since its launch in June 2023, it has been my honor to serve as Co-Chair of the U.S. Early Years Climate Action Task Force, and I am grateful to my fellow Task Force members for their contributions and to Capita and the Aspen Institute for creating a forum for this important work. We owe the success of these recommendations not only to their hard work but also to the insights that were so generously shared with us by caregivers and other early childhood, health, climate and systems leaders through listening sessions.

Start Early believes that our early childhood system should be high-quality, equitable and responsive—and climate-resilient. Adapting and expanding our child- and family-facing services in the years ahead is especially critical to our ability to support those most impacted by climate disruption: pregnant people, infants, and young children, particularly those with disabilities and those impacted by environmental injustice and racism in America.

Together, the early childhood and climate change mitigation fields must look to the strengths and protective factors offered by our early childhood system to support these high-priority populations in the context of a changing climate. The challenge of climate change is daunting, but well-resourced, accessible early childhood systems are key in helping young children and their caregivers prepare and adapt. Child- and family-serving programs are key resources in both helping children and their families remain safe amid climate emergencies and helping them prepare for the future of our changed climate by building resilience, navigating information and resources and strengthening community networks.

We are setting a path for expanding and improving early learning and care programs and services in Chicago through research- and community-driven policies. Through this Chicago-focused Early/Head Start Research Agenda, we hope to:

• Elevate the voices and priorities of the communities that we serve
• Partner with staff internally at Start Early through Research Practice Partnerships to support data needs and practices, and externally with teachers, parents, and community partners through field facing projects to support program progress
• Drive collaboration by revamping and reinforcing the ways that Start Early’s local, state and national efforts align