2024 Year in Review: Empowering Families to Thrive

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From our roots in Chicago’s South Side and rural Illinois, we now influence early childhood programs and policies across all 50 states. Our commitment to creating a sustainable early learning system drives lasting positive outcomes for children, families and generations to come.

With the support of our donors and partners, we continue to lead the way in transforming early learning into a public good—accessible, equitable and locally tailored so that every child has an opportunity to reach their full potential.

Thank you for your dedication to our mission. With your partnership, we’ve deepened our impact, building a brighter future for America’s youngest learners. Together, we are stronger, and together, we transform lives.

Overview

In early 2022, Start Early, Chicago’s other five federal Head Start grant recipients and Chicago Public Schools formed an Advisory Committee to begin exploring how to achieve community-based services for children with IEPs enrolled in Head Start. After a year of research on other district models, gathering of parent and staff input and joint planning through frequent committee meetings, the pilot model was developed and launched in the fall of 2023. 

Parents in Chicago often enroll their children ages 3-5 in community-based organizations because they love and trust their local early learning program and because the program provides more convenient hours and comprehensive, year-long services for families. At the same time, Chicago Public School (CPS) is the agency that provides special education services for all children ages 3-5 who qualify for these services. Currently, most young children with disabilities must leave their community-based classroom, board a bus, transition to a CPS classroom and travel back to their community-based program in one day to receive their special education services. Some families choose to forgo services due to the disruptive nature of this transition. The goal of this pilot is to develop, implement, assess and institutionalize feasible strategies for delivering special education services to children with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) onsite in the Head Start programs in which they are enrolled. 

Are you an educator currently participating in this pilot? Access orientation and pilot training recordings here.

Have questions about this pilot? Reach out to inclusionpilot@startearly.org to get in touch with a member of the planning team.

This video is also available in Mandarin & Spanish.

Program Eligibility

CPS Itinerant teachers and related service providers (which currently includes speech language pathologists and social workers) travel to each participating Head Start program to deliver services in the Head Start classroom. Because this is a pilot program, eligibility is currently limited. Children are eligible to participate in the pilot if they meet all of the following eligibility criteria:  

• They attend one of the six participating Head Start programs: Educare Chicago, Paulo Freire Family Center, Chinese American Service League, Christopher House (Belden Ave), Henry Booth House– Near South, and Carole Robertson Center for Learning – Little Village  
• They have fewer than 275 special education minutes per week on their IEP  
• Their parent or guardian has given consent  

CPS itinerant teachers and Head Start teachers have dedicated planning time to discuss needs and goals of children in the classroom and develop strategies using both of their expertise to support all children. This time is important for teachers to develop a teaching relationship and implement inclusive classroom strategies together. 

All staff also have the opportunity to participate in annual professional development trainings and on-going joint communities of practice hosted by STAR NET, a statewide network that provides evidence-based training for teachers to implement inclusive strategies in their classrooms.  

Learnings to Date

Start Early conducted a thorough qualitative and quantitative evaluation during school year 2023-2024 through surveys and focus groups with pilot stakeholders, including the planning team, staff, and parents. Findings from the first year of implementation indicate:  

• Pilot staff expressed stronger belief in the importance of inclusion, the collaborative teaching model and the importance of children receiving services in the community-based setting after participating in the first year of implementation. 
• Pilot staff felt that they had developed new and improved skills related to early childhood special education after participating in the first year of implementation. 
• Pilot staff are building strong relationships across the Head Start and Chicago Public Schools systems.  
• Staff and parents alike report improved outcomes for children and are glad to be a part of the pilot. 

Team & Collaborators

This project is executed through a public-private partnership thanks to the many contributions of staff from Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, Carole Robertson Center for Learning, Chicago Commons, Easterseals serving Greater Chicago and Rockford and Henry Booth House.  

Special thanks to: This pilot project was made possible with generous support from Crown Family Philanthropies. 

Project Overview and Timeline

March-May 2024: Discovery

This phase includes a review of existing policies, research and data on family/child homelessness, identification of gaps in policies, research and data, and creation of an inventory of relevant past or current  initiatives focused on child/family homelessness  in Illinois or elsewhere across the country.

June-November 2024: Theory of Change

In this phase, the project team will collaborate with stakeholders, including people with lived experience, to create a Theory of change that clearly identifies the primary drivers of homelessness for Illinois families at the local, state, and federal level and articulates a strategy for preventing and ending homelessness among expectant parents and young children and their families in Illinois, complete with identified impact goals, objectives, and outputs/activities.  

December 2024-March 2025: Action Plan

In the final phase of the project, the project team will continue partnering with stakeholders to create an action plan that identifies a set of levers that are most likely to reduce homelessness among pregnant people and families with young children in Illinois over the next 5 years.

Other Project Activities and Components

• Convene an Advisory Committee of cross-systems experts and leaders, including individuals with lived experience, to provide support and guidance on project activities. 

• Compile and examine policies, research and data, and promising initiatives as it relates to homelessness among pregnant people and families with young children, with an intentional focus on youth who are pregnant or parenting, individuals experiencing homelessness who are living with or at high risk of HIV infection while pregnant, formerly incarcerated women parenting young children, and women and children experiencing domestic violence.  

• Conduct listening sessions and other engagement opportunities to gather input and feedback from experts, people with lived experience, and system leaders to inform development of the Theory of Change and Action Plan. 

• Create a public facing report detailing findings from the project, including a comprehensive Action Plan aligned to the Theory of Change that identifies priorities for impact in the current landscape. 

Key Recommendations

National Models

• Create curriculum, program materials, and use language that is more inclusive and representative of all caregivers, including gender non-conforming or non-binary caregivers, male caregivers, and caregivers who are not parents.
• Embed and allow for more individualization in service delivery to meet families’ needs; prioritize new and strengths-based measure of the quality and effectiveness of programs, such as parental efficacy and length of retention.
• Reduce educational requirements and create additional flexibilities for programs to hire individuals without a Bachelor’s degree, including developing guidance for how to hire former parent participants, in order to address vacancies and to reflect competency-based skills.

Federal Agencies & Funders of Home Visiting

• Coordinate federal funding streams and offer states added guidance on braiding across different sources (e.g. Head Start/Early Head Start, Title IV-E, TANF, Medicaid, etc.) for more efficient state home visiting systems. The Office of Head Start and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) should coordinate on allocation of funding, funding timelines and program requirements to ensure that state systems are able to plan around the braiding of these funding streams.

Illinois Agencies & Funders of Home Visiting

• Identify opportunities to extend and individualize services to engage a broad array of family needs and desires, including creating cross-model guidance on enhancements and modifications for priority populations.
• Align funding mechanisms and administrative requirements to alleviate the burden on programs, including streamlining data collection, compensation, monitoring and other requirements.
• Increase supports for programs surrounding workforce recruitment and retention, including implementing cross-funder compensation targets, hiring supports including sample job descriptions, pay differentials for bilingual staff.
• Increase access to supports including infant and early childhood mental health consultation.