Children thrive when families have the support they need. We know this to be true for the K-12 students in our City Connects programs. Overwhelming evidence shows that when we connect those students with out-of-school supports tailored to their strengths and needs, they have better outcomes in school and in life. Helping students and their families access what they need—whether it be enrichment programs, mentors, physical and mental health care, or housing and other necessities—has substantial long-term positive impacts.
For students in elementary, middle, and high school, these impacts include lower rates of chronic absenteeism and grade retention, higher academic performance and engagement, and increased high school and post-secondary graduation rates. We know that a whole-child approach to school is working for students in kindergarten through college. But what about our youngest children? What impact does holistic support have on infants, toddlers, and preschoolers?
To answer this question, the Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children teamed up with leaders from the University of Connecticut’s Applied Research on Children Lab and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. This partnership led to a new report, Strengthening Whole Family and Comprehensive Supports in Early Childhood, that delves into the impact of Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
Head Start and Early Head Start—which offer both early education and care and comprehensive support for low-income families—give us a window into the impact of whole-child, whole-family supports on the zero-to-five population. Supporting our youngest children often means supporting their caregivers, who, like their children, are experiencing a time of rapid change. Comprehensive services connect families to everything from parenting support, to health services, to developmental opportunities for children, to job training for parents, to housing, diapers, and other necessities. This support comes at a critical time, as research finds that prolonged exposure to adversity at a very young age can cause physical changes to the structure of children’s brains, with long-term implications for health and learning. Helping families mitigate the effects of poverty and chronic stress is pivotal to improving outcomes for children.
Data from Head Start and Early Head Start shows that this approach works. Caregivers who participate in Early Head Start are found to be more emotionally supportive, more likely to read to their child daily, less likely to engage in negative parenting strategies, and more likely to be employed. Children participating in Early Head Start programs demonstrate improved language, social skills, cognitive development, and academic achievement. While these programs are short-term, the benefits are long-lasting. Early Head Start children were less likely to experience maltreatment in the first 15 years of their lives due to early impacts on positive parenting behaviors and increased family well-being. Meanwhile, efforts by Early Head Start to increase learning opportunities in the home and decrease detached parenting when children were two and three years old led to increased academic skills for children in fifth grade.
Head Start and Early Head Start—as well as other programs that integrate child care and comprehensive services—play a critical role in supporting young families. We believe these programs can build on their successes by implementing best practices. Comprehensive support can be even more effective if it is customized to best support the individual strengths and needs of each child and their family, comprehensive to account for all domains and the levels of risk experienced by each child, co-created with caregivers to empower and engage families, coordinated to align efforts across a child’s early childhood program, family, and community, and continuous to adapt to the child and family’s changing strengths and needs. As with older children, the impact of holistic support for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers is significant, vast, and long-lasting. Integrating comprehensive support services with early education and care is a clear path to helping every young child thrive.
Read more about this approach in our new report, Strengthening Whole Family and Comprehensive Supports in Early Childhood.
