Improving Health and Development through Access to Childcare Initiative

ABOUT

We are building access to high-quality childcare by developing an accessible and affordable model childcare center. Comprehensive, high-quality childcare is a foundational component of community health support. Children immediately reap benefits from high-quality early childhood experiences and support. We leverage the system for wrap-around all-day services by both supporting the cost of quality and creating an affordable and accessible model of care, supporting work and school attendance for families.

Our Impact

We envision the opening of a child-development center that operates via a private public partnership between Head Start and a non-profit community-based organization. An important shift will be in community recognition in the value of childcare as an economic and health support. The local public-private partnership will serve as a model for replication in other areas of the county and sets the stage for community-based coalitions creating what is needed to drive and sustain change.

BUILD PRINCIPLES

BUILD and its communities apply bold, upstream, integrated, local, and data-driven (BUILD) approaches to improve health in communities that are adversely affected by upstream factors.

Bold

Our partnership focuses on the long-term shift of equitable, affordable, high-quality early childhood care and education that is accessible by all members of the community. Leveraging resources, utilizing public-private partnerships, and developing local policies that will support a comprehensive child development center ensures that families can afford and reach care for their children.

Upstream

Access to childcare is both a social and economic opportunity as well as a strategy to mitigate toxic exposures to stressful experiences. High-quality childcare provides the protective factors for children and families experiencing toxic stress, while also giving families greater economic stability through work and education support.

Integrated

This collaboration draws on the momentum in the community recognizing a critical need for childcare access as an economic necessity. The inclusion of health partners and community leaders elevates the concepts of early childhood not only as an economic support, but also as a fundamental strategy for ensuring better community health.

Local

This partnership is locally driven. The partners sit within the neighborhood, directly serve the community in which the project resides, and serve the mission of bring partners and local voices together to create sustainable changes that move residents from surviving to thriving. Neighborhood residents, local business, and local leaders will be in two-way communication throughout the project.

Data-Driven

The initiative leverages varied source of community and clinical data to track increased economic stability, reduced employment vacancies, improved infant mortality rates, and reduced rates of child abuse/neglect.