RECENT GRANTS (2007 to 2010)
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP): $30,000 (2010), $30,000 (2009), $50,000 (2007)
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonprofit organization, founded in 1968, that conducts research, policy analysis, technical assistance, and advocacy on issues related to economic security for low-income families with children. The Foundation has provided support to CLASP over the years for a variety of projects. In 2007, the Foundation funded CLASP to develop materials and offer technical assistance to promote the expansion of services to infants and toddlers through Early Head Start.
In 2009, CLASP partnered with the National Women’s Law Center to assist state and local early childhood advocates to promote implementation of effective programs and initiatives related to the America Recover and Reinvestment Act, which allocated $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, $2.1 Billion for Head Start and Early Head Start and $13 billion for Title 1. The Foundation funded this joint effort.
The Foundation supported both organizations again in 2010 for joint work to explore the challenges and opportunities experienced by child care center directors in the implementation of state QRIS systems and thus help states create comprehensive early care and education systems.
The Center for the Study of Social Policy: $50,000 (2007), $30,000 (2006)
The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) was established in 1979 with the goal of providing public policy analysis and technical assistance to states and localities. The Strengthening Families Initiative was founded on the belief that quality early childhood programs can act as a first line of defense against child abuse and neglect. Foundation support in 2006 enabled CSSP to customize technical assistance to three of its pilot states in an effort to create stronger linkages between the early childhood and child welfare systems. The Foundation’s 2007 grant funded continued work with the states, the development of materials and a symposium.
Children’s Hospital Boston: Family Connections: $50,000 (2009), $50,000 (2008)
Family Connections is a mental health outreach project at Children’s Hospital that serves as a resource to Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Family Connections has created a literacy-based prevention and intervention model in Head Start and Early Head Start Centers in Boston to help preschoolers, their teachers and their parents discuss emotions associated with mental illness, especially depression. This intervention project, Tell Me A Story, supports child care staff and helps build skills in using circle time and books as an opportunity to address such topics as self-regulation, anger, sadness, loss or crisis in the lives of young children. The Foundation supported the addition of a book on maternal depression to the series as well as the development of a curriculum guide in 2008 and in 2009 funded the creation of supportive parent materials. Foundation funding was also used to explore broader dissemination of the materials.
Docs For Tots: $35,000 (2008), $30,000 (2006), $59,470 (2005), $39,500 (2004)
Docs for Tots was founded in 2003 as a nationwide network of doctors who advocate on behalf of young children and their families. Physicians are trained to assist advocacy organizations to promote policies and practices that will improve the health and development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. The Foundation provided funding toward a three-year project begun in 2004 to develop an advocacy agenda, establish two state chapters and provide assistance to its policy network members. In 2008, the Foundation awarded a grant for Docs for Tots to develop materials and resources to encourage clinicians to create an “early childhood” home in their practice, bridging the medical world with early childhood community resources.
Education Commission of the States: $30,000 (2007)
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) was established in 1965 to help states develop effective policies and practices in public education. ECS provides data, research, policy analysis and technical assistance. Foundation funding supported the redesign of ECS’s Early Learning website in order to present current early childhood education research and policy information to ECS constituents.
Food Research and Action Center $45,000 (2008)
Founded in 1970, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is a national nonprofit organization committed to ending poverty-related hunger and improving nutrition among low-income people in the United States. It works with a wide array of partners at the national, state and local levels and has been a staunch advocate on behalf of the nutritional needs of poor children and families.
The Foundation grant was toward a project to assure greater participation in the WIC program, the supplemental food program for women, infants and children, by culturally diverse and immigrant communities. FRAC highlighted successful outreach strategies and nutrition education methods for immigrant and non-English-speaking families and advocated for the needs of immigrant communities in the implementation of the new WIC food package.
FrameWorks Institute: $30,000 (2008), $17,580 (2007)
The FrameWorks Institute was established in 1999 to advance the nonprofit sector’s communications capacity by identifying, translating and modeling relevant scholarly research for framing the public discourse about social problems. FrameWorks designs, manages and publishes communications research to prepare nonprofit organizations to expand their constituency base, to build public will, and to further public understanding of specific social issues.
Support was given in 2007 for a review of the contributions of strategic frame analysis to our understanding of public thinking about early child development health and education and the related debates in how to frame these issues for better public engagement and support. This grant resulted in a chapter in New Directors for Youth Development (Winter 2009) entitled “Lessons from the Story of Early Child Development.” The grant in 2008 was for an early childhood development toolkit which included “core story of development,” talking points, sample op eds, case studies and other resources for advocates and others in the early childhood community.
Georgetown University, Center for Child and Human Development, National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health: $45,000 (2009), $40,000 (2006)
The Center conducts research, training and technical assistance to the field to build comprehensive community service delivery systems for children with mental health and/or substance abuse needs, and their families. The Foundation funded a study in 2006 to provide information on best practices in early childhood mental health consultation programs by conducting site visits to six programs that demonstrated positive child, family or early childhood staff/program outcomes. An online scan was conducted of the Children’s Mental Health Directors and Early Childhood Comprehensive System Coordinators in all the states to learn of their activities. The grant resulted in the publication, “What Works? A Study of Effective Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Programs.”
The grant in 2009 enabled the Center to highlight the major findings of the study through a series of 10 webinars and follow-up twitter discussions. This dissemination strategy was also the beginning of work on a fidelity tool that would use a consensus process around the values, principles and components of early childhood mental health consultation, competencies and qualifications.
Jumpstart for Young Children:$30,000 (2008)
Founded in 1993 by four Yale college students, Jumpstart recruits, trains and mentors college students to help young children develop skills to enter school ready to learn and succeed. Providing approximately 300 hours of tutoring and mentoring during the school year, Jumpstart corps members work with pre-school aged children around language, literacy, and social skills and a 28 percent improvement in skill acquisition by young children has been reported as a result of these efforts. In 2008 the Foundation gave support toward a three-year evaluation of a revised curriculum that focuses specifically on language and literacy outcomes.
Louisiana State University Health Science Center: $75,000 (2007)
Joy Osofsky, Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Louisiana State University, has worked with Judge Cindy Lederman to develop an evaluation, intervention and treatment model to help break the cycle of abuse and neglect for young children, adjudicated youth and their families. The trainings are designed to provide judges with a comprehensive overview of early childhood brain development to assist them in the decisions they have to make about children in their courts. The Foundation supported a project to expand the reach of the work to more jurisdictions around the country and the development of a curriculum, manual and toolkit for training.
Motheread Inc.: $50,000 (2008)
Established in 1987, Motheread is a national organization working to transform literacy practices in homes and schools. Originally established in Wake County, North Carolina as part of the Smart Start initiative, Motheread is a research-based early literacy program that focuses on assessing and improving early education and childcare classroom practice and environments. Motheread has 7 state affiliate offices and nonaffiliated programs in 35 states. The program employs a highly trained cadre of national trainers to deliver the program which has had some impressive results in North Carolina. The Foundation provided support in 2008 to enable Motheread to pilot early literacy training in a train-the-trainer format. Using an on-the-job training model, Motheread offered curriculum and mentor training to Childcare Quality Enhancement (CQE) experts in Alabama as a pilot to see if the program can be expanded in this format.
National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds: $45,000 (2008)
The National Alliance for Child Abuse and Prevention Funds, founded in 1989, is a national membership organization that provides training, technical assistance and peer consultation to state Children’s Trust Funds (CTF) to strengthen their efforts to prevent child abuse. Established by legislation in the early 1980’s, CTFs are supported through federal and varied state funding structures. Collectively, state Children’s Trust Funds distribute about $100 million in funding to support community based child abuse prevention strategies. The Foundation provided funding to help states infuse the Strengthening Families protective factors model into state Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS).
National Association for the Education of Young Children: $46,554 (2009), $25,000 (2008), $50,000 (2007)
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is a membership organization dedicated to early childhood education professionals. Its primary commitment is to improve the quality of care and education provided to young children. NAEYC has taken the lead on professional development, creating systems of accreditation and championing early childhood education policies that reflect good research and good practice. In 2007, the Foundation provided general support to NAEYC.
The Foundation awarded a planning grant in 2008 to enable NAEYC to begin to develop atool to measure cultural competency in the development of state Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS). In 2009, the Foundation funded a two-year project to pilot the competency tool in a number of states and provide resources as well as technical assistance help programs move to higher levels of cultural competence.
National Black Child Development Institute: $40,000 (2008)
Founded in 1970, NBCDI is a national advocacy organization focused on improving outcomes for African-American children and their families through systemic change, focused primarily on assuring quality childcare and education. The Foundation provided a planning grant to enable NBCDI to work with two Accreditation Facilitation Projects of the National Association for the Education of Young Children to see how NBCDI could best provide support to assure access to accreditation and to serve as a resource and support center to child care communities that want to participate in the accreditation process.
National Center for Children in Poverty: $48,621 (2008), $45,000 (2007), $40,000 (2005), $30,000 (2004)
The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is dedicated to promoting the economic security, health, and wellbeing of America’s low-income families and children. Using research to inform policy and practice, NCCP seeks to advance family-oriented solutions and the strategic use of public resources at the state and national levels to ensure positive outcomes for the next generation. In 1996 NCCP released its first Map and Track report which provides information on state initiatives focused on promoting the healthy development of young children and their families in all 50 states. The 2005 grant was toward a survey to obtain information about state investments for infants and toddlers for the Map and Track report. The Foundation’s 2004 grant supported the convening of key stakeholders to explore how programs, communities and states are mobilizing to promote attention to infant mental health. A field survey of efforts to address the needs of vulnerable infants and their families was conducted as well as the development of an issue brief entitled “Helping the Most Vulnerable Infants and Toddlers and Their Families.”
In 2007 the Foundation made a grant to convene a meeting to discuss how home-visiting programs can strengthen their capacity to better serve the most vulnerable infants and toddlers and their families. A report, State-based Home Visiting, was produced as a result of the meeting. The grant in 2008 was for a survey of state infant and early childhood mental health services and initiatives with a special focus on states with exemplary programs or policies. The publication, Social-emotional Development in Early Childhood, What Every Policymaker Should Know, was produced with this grant.
National Council of La Raza: 2007 ($40,000), $25,000 (2004)
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) is a national organization devoted to promoting educational opportunities for Hispanic children. In 2004 the Foundation awarded a grant to enable NCLR to develop a birth to three agenda and publish a report with policy recommendations which resulted in Buenos Principios: Latino Children in the Earliest Years. The report provides socio-demographic information, school readiness factors and recommendations in regard to the early education of Latino children. With the Foundation’s 2007 grant, NCLR expanded the dissemination of the publication to affiliates in states with emerging Latino communities, such as Arkansas, Illinois, and Georgia. In addition, Foundation support enabled NCLR to create a series of state fact sheets.
National Women’s Law Center: $30,000 (2009), $35,000 (2008)
The National Women’s Law Center has been at the forefront of landmark legal and public policy initiatives to improve the lives of women, girls and families since 1972. In 2007 the Center released the report entitled Getting Organized: Unionizing Home-based Child Care Providers. The report provided a snapshot of the growing union movement within the child care field. The Foundation provided support in 2008 for an update to the report on state unionizing efforts on behalf of family and family, friend and neighbor child care providers.
In 2009 the Foundation funded the Center, in partnership with the Center for Law and Social Policy, to assist state and local early childhood advocates and policymakers in implementing effective programs and initiatives related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 which allocated $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCBG), $2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start and $13 billion for the Title 1. Through this project both organizations provided timely information and technical assistance through a series of webinars and written materials.
The New America Foundation is a nonpartisan public policy institute that covers a broad spectrum of economic, domestic and global issues, including education. Its Educational Policy Program houses the Early Education Initiative that promotes a high-quality and continuous system of early care and education for all children, birth to age 8. The Early Education Initiatve has placed major attention on pre-K through 3rd grade issues. The Foundation awarded its grant for a more deliberate focus on issues of young children birth through 3, especially in the widely read blog, Early Ed Watch.
NIDCAP Federation International: $50,000 (2008), $50,000 (2006)
The NICAP Federation International (NFI) was established in 2001 by Dr. Heidelise Als to develop and support a worldwide collaborative community of trainers, health care systems, professionals, families, and other partners to assure that the highest quality of individualized, developmentally supportive, family centered care is available to all newborns in intensive and special care nurseries. NICAP – Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program – is a comprehensive, evidence-based approach for caring for premature infants in new born intensive care nurseries. With its grants, the Foundation supported the pilot testing of a certification program to promote best practices and the use of family supportive approaches in newborn intensive and special care nurseries.
Prevent Child Abuse America: $40,000 (2008), $37,000 (2007)
Prevent Child Abuse America is committed to home visiting as a strategy to promote family and child wellbeing. It sponsors Healthy Families America, a program that offers home visits and other services with the goals of promoting positive parenting, encouraging child health and development, and preventing child abuse and neglect. With its grants in 2007 and 2008, the Foundation supported the creation of four statewide coalitions with the major home visiting programs to provide information, generate interest and build support for home visitation services in anticipation of federal funding for such supports to families.
Reach Out and Read: $35,000 (2009), $25,000 (2007)
Established in 1989, Reach Out and Read (ROR) provides parents with early literacy support by offering developmentally appropriate advice as well as culturally and developmentally appropriate books to take home, during regular pediatric visits. Through the program, physicians and nurse practitioners receive early literacy training, books to distribute to their patients and a volunteer who reads to children in the waiting room and models good early literacy techniques.
The Foundation supported the Leyendo Juntos project, a three-year project designed to improve the delivery of the ROR model to Spanish-speaking families. Foundation funding was used to ensure that the early literacy guidance given to Spanish-speaking families was culturally relevant and appropriate. A guide and fact sheets were created for medical providers to use in the exam room as well as Spanish-language materials for pediatricians to distribute to families to encourage reading together.
University of California San Francisco, Child Trauma Research Project: $48,207 (2007)
The Child Trauma Research Project at the University of California San Francisco offers assessment and treatment to children birth through five who experience domestic violence or other interpersonal trauma. The Foundation’s grant supported the development and piloting of a Diversity Training Protocol and Manual for early childhood mental health clinicians. The protocol focuses on training practitioners to develop intervention skills that are consistent with the culture, values and contexts of the families with whom they work.
University of North Carolina, Greensboro: $49,922 (2008), $28,603 (2006)
In 2006 the Foundation provided support for Catherine Scott-Little and colleagues to analyze the early learning guidelines (ELG) for infants and toddlers developed by approximately 20 states. This analysis reported in Inside the Content of Infant-Toddler Early Learning Guidelines revealed areas of children’s learning and development that were not addressed sufficiently. For example, one area that was seldom addressed was the development and learning of English language learners and dual-language learners. And some of the ELGs were not age appropriate for infants and toddlers. The 2008 grant supported the development and dissemination of tools to help states which are either creating ELGs for infants and toddlers or are in the process of revising them.
Urban Institute: $49,484 (2009), $50,000 (2008) $50,000 for a forum (2008)
Created in 1968, the Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues to foster sound public policy and effective government.
In October 2006 the Urban Institute released a report that explored how immigration enforcement activities in three communities – Greeley, Colorado, Grand Island, Nebraska and New Bedford, Massachusetts – have affected children and families. The Foundation provided funding in 2008 toward a follow-up to the original research to gather more in-depth information about affected families and their children, especially infants and toddlers resulting in Paying the Price: Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children.
In 2008, the Foundation also funded the Urban Institute to bring together state and federal budget experts, early childhood policy experts and advocates, key decision-makers and their staffs, researchers, and the philanthropic community in a half-day forum about the interaction of federal and state budget decisions for children from birth to age three. This forum resulted in the publication, “Infants and Toddlers in State and Federal Budgets: Summary Report from Urban Institute Roundtable.” This led to the 2009 grant to work with state leaders on the intersection of health and early childhood to change how child and family health is viewed and treated so that families and child development would be at the core of the delivery system for young children.
Voices for America’s Children: $65,000 (2009)
Voices for America’s Children is a national child advocacy membership organization with 60 members in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands working to promote the positive and healthy development of children through public policies at local, state and federal levels of government. The Foundation supported the efforts of the School Readiness/Early Care and Education Advisory Group chaired by Charles Bruner that works with state affiliates so that they can promote policies to ensure that children and their families receive the services and supports they need to enable children to start school prepared for success.
Yale University, Ed Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy: $60,545 (2008), $58,580 (2007)
In 2004 Walter Gilliam, working with Ed Zigler, conducted the National Prekindergarten Study to collect classroom-level implementation data in 55 state prekindergarten systems. The Foundation provided support to include an analysis of expulsion data and resulted in a finding of surprisingly high numbers of young children being expelled from pre-schools.
Subsequently, Walter Gilliam conducted a random-assignment evaluation of the Connecticut Early Childhood Consultation Program, a large scale early childhood mental health consultation system. Findings revealed a statistically significant decrease in teacher reported behavior problems in pre-school classrooms relative to the control group. In 2007 the Foundation began its support of a three-year study, “Effects of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation with Infants and Toddlers,” that included infant-toddler classrooms in a follow-up evaluation of the Connecticut state-wide program,
ZERO TO THREE: $50,000 (2009), $50,000 (2008), $50,000 (2007)
ZERO TO THREE’s (ZTT) mission is to support the healthy development and well-being of infants, toddlers and their families. Through its many program, ZTT informs, trains and supports professionals, policymakers and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers. The Foundation has supported ZTT consistently over the years and in 2007 funded the development a new interactive state policy component for its website to provide a framework for organizing state policy information, allowing users to search for information by either state or topics. The award in 2008 was for the development of a toolkit and other web-based and print resources to support the policy work of ZTT, including Early Experiences Matter: A Guide to Improved Policies for Infants and Toddlers. The 2009 grant supported the work of ZTT’s Policy Center.
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