Science, Policy and Children

A few weeks ago I attended The Center on the Developing Child on Science, Policy and Children: Informing the Process to Improve the Outcomes.  Ruth Kagi, a Democrat from Washington and Wes Hayes a Republican from South Carolina discussed the difficulties they faced in passing state legislation related to early child development. Here's a short recap: Jack Shonkoff did his spiel on the scientific and economic evidence to support investing early in children.  You may know his talk (the importance of early relationships, the of impact stress on health and behavior outcomes etc.).  Jack highlighted a two-tiered approach to reducing disparities:

1) basic health services & good quality early care and education and

2) targeted services to at-risk children who are experiencing toxic stress. Next Ruth Kagi gave an overview of policy and advocacy efforts in Washington state. She outlined the challenges she faced in gaining support for bills related to early care and education, home visiting and other initiatives related to early development.  Her main obstacle was overcoming policymakers’ belief that early child development is a parenting matter.  A catalyst in changing this perspective was an article from the local paper which highlighted research from the U of Washington on brain development and the societal benefits to intervening early.  After the article came out Ruth invited Jack Shonkoff to speak to legislators about his work.  Ruth emphasized the important of science bridging the bipartisan gap. Soon afterwards a bill was passed to create a Department of Early Learning. In addition a public-private partnership was created called Thrive by Five The partnership is charged with:

• building public awareness and support around quality early education
• developing a statewide architecture for quality improvement
• evaluating outcomes
• tracking success in 2 communities

This year the WA legislature also passed a bill that invests $3.5 million to support a home visiting program that uses the Nurse-Family Partnership model (!). The bill passed with support from police and sheriffs who argued that it would be more beneficial to invest in home visiting than putting money towards paying for a new police chief.  Thus far WA has invested $136 million in early care and education.  Kagi said that one important factor in their success was that the Governor was a key player and supporter in passing these important pieces of legislation. Next Wes Hayes gave a short overview of the current developments and initiatives in South Carolina.  Until Jack Shonkoff came to speak to several legislators, he said, most of them felt that early education and care was glorified babysitting. Like in WA, scientific research and evidence lead to bipartisan support.  South Carolina created a department of early education called First Steps.  While Hayes acknowledged the importance of providing programs for infants and toddlers, he said that most of the current efforts in South Carolina are focused on creating kindergarten for at-risk four year olds.     You can read more about the lecture in an article  from Harvard Science.