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In this issue:

Programs for Young Children and Families: The Need to Collaborate

Children's early experiences have a significant impact on their future. Early experiences influence a child's ability to form positive relationships with adults and peers, affect a child's motivation and excitement toward learning, and provide the foundation for a child's intellectual development.

High-quality programs are effective.
Research in the last two decades has consistently found that high-quality early childhood development programs better prepare children, particularly disadvantaged children, for school and for the work force.

Low-quality programs produce negative effects.
In fact, there is also evidence that poor-quality programs can actually harm children. In a recent national study of child care staffing patterns, children in programs with higher turnover rates spent less time engaged in social activities with peers and more time "wandering." They also scored lower on a measure of cognitive ability compared with children in centers with more stable teaching staff.

Minnesota's Programs for Children--Artificial Distinctions Are Compromising Quality

Recent Minnesota citizen reports* found that the current system of children's programs is inadequate and includes ineffective or inefficient services. They found the programs are plagued with: fragmentation, inequity, and discontinuity.

Current services are designed to correspond to distinct problems and are administered by various agencies, each with its own focus and source of funding. The reports are united in their call for a collaborative approach to service delivery

Working Towards Collaboration of Services

Services must be comprehensive if they are to effect positive change in a child's life. Most programs cannot offer comprehensive family services. However, collaborative partnerships among programs can be developed to promote better outcomes for families and their children.

Individual programs focus on single agendas. Collaborative partnerships establish common goals; pool resources; and jointly plan, implement and evaluate services, policies, and procedures. Fundamental change in the way we do business is essential to the creation of an integrated service delivery system able to meet the total needs of the child and family.

In order to achieve such a collaboration, FACT FIND suggests that policy makers:

• study state regulations and eligibility requirements that impede collaboration and recommend revisions of rules to provide flexibility
• encourage state agencies to design a shared work plan for collaboration at the system level
• design incentives to promote collaboration among state agencies and among service providers at local levels
• examine/develop state and local funding strategies which result in maximized federal funding as well as pooled funding for service integration
• hold service providers collectively accountable to stated objectives which anticipate improved outcomes for children and families, rather than simply numbers of children served
  • Kids Can't Wait: Action for Minnesota's Children, Action for Children Commission, February 1992. Putting Children First: Coordinating Early Childhood Care and Education, Task Force, Commission on the Economic Status of Women, February 1992. Putting It All Together: Building an Early Childhood Development System for Minnesota, Minnesota Council on Children, Youth, and Families, October 1989.

Fact Find is published by the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108

ceed@umn.edu (email)
http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed (Web)

CEED provides information regarding young children (birth to age eight), including children with special needs, in the areas of education, child care, child development, and family education. CEED activities include research, training, and publications geared toward improving professional practices, supporting parents, and informing policy development.

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity employer and educator. The College of Education and Human Development is committed to recruiting, enrolling, and education a diverse population of students who represent the overall composition of our society. This publication is available in alternate formats upon request.

Copyright © 2004 by Center for Early Education and Development

These materials may be freely reproduced for education/training or related activities. There is no requirement to obtain special permission for such uses. We do, however, ask that the following citation appear on all reproductions:

Reprinted with permission of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108; phone: 612-625-2898; fax: 612-625-6619; e-mail: ceed@umn.edu, web site: http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed.