When welcoming a new baby, all parents and families–regardless of zip code or family income–could benefit from additional encouragement and support. We know it takes a village to raise a child, but in the early weeks and months of a child’s life, it can often be difficult for parents to navigate and connect to various health, early care and learning, and other services and resources.

UNSS approaches may look different depending on local contexts, but typically, a nurse home visitor, community health worker, or other trained professional will connect with families at the hospital shortly after birth and offer to visit families in their homes at around three weeks following childbirth. During this visit, the UNSS home visitor will complete a brief maternal and infant health screening and talk with the family to identify interest in any additional supportive services, including medical care, household needs, early childhood education, emotional supports, or other community resources.

While universal newborn support services are common in other high-income nations, it is still an emerging concept in the U.S. Scaling UNSS in Illinois will require cohesive messaging to build greater awareness and support for these services and systems, which is why Start Early was given the opportunity to develop a toolkit of resources to build awareness of UNSS interventions.

The Illinois Policy Team at Start Early is pleased to release our annual Illinois Legislative Agenda, a snapshot of the budget requests and legislative priorities for which Start Early will be advocating during the spring 2023 legislative session in the state.

With the new legislative session underway, our team is focused on moving forward funding requests and legislation that will support families and providers across our early childhood system.

Our goals for the year include:

• Growing and strengthening the state’s early care and education system through an FY24 budget that includes the funding levels outlined in Governor Pritzker’s Smart Start Illinois proposal
• Creating a state family and medical leave insurance program
• Extending the sunset re: staffing flexibility in state preschool programs
• Codifying the state’s existing IDHS home visiting programs in law, among other priorities

Earlier today, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker delivered a bold plan to advance our collective vision for Illinois to be the best state in the nation in which to raise young children. His comprehensive, multi-year plan, Smart Start Illinois, aims to expand and strengthen early care and education services to help ensure all expecting families, infants, toddlers and preschoolers across the state have what they need to be happy, healthy and ready to learn.

Moreover, Start Early applauds the Governor and his administration for releasing a Fiscal Year 2024 (FY 2024) budget framework that proposes a historic $320 million in increased state funding for key early care and education programs, like child care, home visiting, preschool and Early Intervention.

“We thank Governor Pritzker for proposing the Smart Start Illinois initiative, a robust structure for strengthening and growing early child supports that are so vital for families with young children,” Ireta Gasner, Start Early vice president of Illinois policy, said. “This is a banner day for early childhood in Illinois, and Start Early looks forward to working with the Illinois General Assembly to enact a budget that does right by infants and toddlers across the state.” 

The budget proposal includes, among other provisions, the following funding increases: 

• $40 million for the Early Intervention program (34.5% over FY 2023) to increase provider reimbursement rates (10%), to address service coordination challenges, and to accommodate the program’s growing caseload
• $5 million for evidence-based home visiting programs (27.9% over FY 2023) to serve an additional 500-650 families
• $130 million to establish workforce compensation contracts with child care providers that will allow programs to increase staff wages
• $70 million for the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) (17.0% over FY 2023) to cover the program’s growing caseload and to improve its data system
• $75 million for preschool services and prenatal-to-age 3 programs (12.5% over FY 2023) to create thousands of new slots and improve existing program quality
• $100 million for the Early Childhood Construction Grant (ECCG) program

We are heartened by the administration’s acknowledgement that investing in the early learning workforce and facilities are foundational to sustainable program expansion. Today, too many early childhood programs, particularly those serving infants and toddlers, struggle to attract and retain educators and staff, most of whom are overworked and underpaid.

Start Early is eager to work with the Illinois General Assembly to approve a FY 2024 budget this spring that includes, at a minimum, the funding proposals laid out today. We couldn’t agree more with the Governor that now is the time for bold action.

Join Start Early in calling on our state legislature to prioritize our youngest learners today and during this new legislative session. Babies can’t wait.

Chicago’s mayoral and aldermanic election is just around the corner and recently candidates had the opportunity to weigh in on how they would tackle Chicago’s complex issues related to early childhood education. During a candidate forum hosted last Wednesday evening by over 20 organizations that serve families with young children across the city, seven of Chicago’s nine mayoral hopefuls spoke to an audience of hundreds of early childhood educators, parents, advocates, researchers, and other stakeholders.  

The Early Childhood Education Forum, led by Child Care Advocates United, put early childhood education issues front and center and enforced the notion that any successful mayoral candidate has a mandate to take action once in office to support the early care and education workforce and the families they serve. Participating candidates all gave recognition to the important role that early childhood education plays in addressing the needs of the whole child and their family and community. They uplifted the prenatal to five period as critical for intervention and spoke of the value of high-quality early childhood experiences in preventing later challenges in life.   

While all candidates participating in the forum demonstrated an understanding of the challenges faced by the early care and education system in Chicago, they offered few details on just how they would address the ongoing early childhood workforce crisis, better support community-based organizations, reconcile the competing priorities of Chicago’s mixed delivery system for pre-k, address issues arising as a result of fractured funding sources, and further support families to access the program that best meets their needs.  

Fortunately for the next mayoral administration and city council, early childhood advocates have provided a clear roadmap for addressing these challenges through their release of a Mayoral and Aldermanic Candidate Brief, which was distributed to every candidate running for one of these offices. Advocates have outlined steps for the city’s elected officials to work in partnership with stakeholders to invest in more capacity to lead the planning and administration of Chicago’s system of early childhood services and supports, address gaps in access to high-quality early care and education for all of Chicago’s children, and acknowledge the critical work of early childhood professionals by increasing support and compensation for the workforce.

For far too long the early care and education workforce has been undervalued and underpaid, despite the essential care and services they provide to children and families. This historic undervaluation has created a crisis–wages are so low that approximately half of early educators qualify for public benefits. According to fiscal year 2021 salary data gathered by the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, this inadequate compensation helps explain why almost 70 percent of child care centers stated they had early childhood teacher turnover over the past two years. Simply put, the workforce is in crisis. Without significant financial resources, our early childhood system is at risk of crumbling.

We’re listening. Start Early has been busy urging the state to direct more funding to the early childhood system so that it can finally begin to stabilize and the workforce can be better compensated at a wage they deserve and that is reflective of the important work they do to educate and care for our youngest learners.

Every year, our legislative and administrative policy teams, along with external partners, work on budget advocacy to secure higher investment across the entirety of the early childhood field. Last year, we pressed Illinois state legislators for a 10 percent increase for every building block in Illinois’ early childhood system: the Early Childhood Block Grant, Early Intervention program, the home visiting programs Maternal Child Home Visiting (formerly Parents Too Soon) and Healthy Families Illinois through the Department of Human Services, and the Child Care Assistance Program. These investments would go towards areas like child care programs, services for children with potential disabilities or developmental delays, and programs for pregnant parents and their babies.

Recognizing the need to stabilize our early childhood system, state legislators provided $64.4 million in additional funds for early childhood programs for fiscal year 2023, which began on July 1st. Through administrative advocacy, we’ve pushed state agencies to funnel a portion of this money toward compensation.

But these financial resources aren’t nearly enough to create a conducive early learning environment that serves all children aged 0-5 and it certainly isn’t enough to ensure our workforce is well compensated.  Due to the complicated nature of our early childhood system and its reliance on the blending and braiding of various funding sources, providers and directors struggle to keep classrooms open and cannot meet the needs of all children and families across the state. Even with our wins in fiscal year 2023, we still need more resources so we can serve more families.

That’s why during the Spring 2023 legislative session, Start Early will continue to work with our partners to advocate for a 20% budgetary funding increase for early childhood. This increase would mean an additional $119.6 million for the Early Childhood Block Grant, $23.2 million for the Early Intervention program, $2.1 million for the Maternal Child Home Visiting program, $1.5 million for the Healthy Families Home Visiting program, and $82.1 million for the Child Care Assistance Program. Governor Pritzker has indicated his intentions to make preschool available for every family throughout the state and to provide economic security for families during his second term. Ambitious plans require sizeable appropriations and a compensated and valued workforce.

We’ll continue to push the Illinois legislature and state agencies to invest in and improve early care and education programs so more people can view working in the field as a career and not just a temporary job.

Next week, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is holding the first 2 of 3 fall budget hearings, the first step in determining next year’s proposed education budget for the state. These hearings provide the early childhood advocacy community an opportunity to help shape the state’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal. Please consider participating *virtually or in-person* in requesting a 20% increase in state funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG).

Here’s how you can participate in the ISBE budget hearing process:

1. Visit ISBE.net/BudgetRequestForm, and enter your name and contact information.
2. Choose the hearing you’ll attend or select the option for submitting a written testimony. Written requests must be received by ISBE no later than Oct. 26.
3. Under the “Add Program Request” drop-down menu select “Early Childhood Education”
4. Enter $119,627,620.00 under the “Additional Requested Funding” section.
5. Under the field that begins with “Please provide the Board with a description of your funding request,” you will need to put further detail on the 20% ask.

Upcoming Budget Hearings:

• Oct. 4, 4-7 p.m. CT (Virtual)
  Registration deadline is Sept. 29
• Oct. 6, 4-7 p.m. CT (In-Person, Springfield)
  Written funding request must be turned in by Oct. 4
  
• Oct. 24, 4-7 p.m. CT (Virtual)
  Registration deadline is Oct. 20

Register Now

Contact us if you plan to testify or have questions. Thank you for speaking up for children and families across the state!