HEALTH AND SCHOOL READINESS

Including Health in a School Readiness Agenda: Lessons from Illinois

Written for BUILD by Carey McCann of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, this brief shares valuable lessons and strategies from Illinois' experience in pursuing a comprehensive school readiness policy. It also provides concrete examples of efforts to affect policy change in health and mental health systems.

New! Issue Brief:  Connecting Child Health and School Readiness
By Charles Bruner, Build Initiative and Child and Family Policy Center.  This issue brief describes research and practice that documents the broad role for the health system in improving children’s healthy development and school readiness. Bruner also explains how policies can help ensure that young children receive preventive and developmental health care; establish links between child health, early learning, early intervention and family support systems; and improve the environments in which children live.
 

Spending Smarter: A Funding Guide for Policy Makers and Advocates to Promote Social and Emotional Health and School Readiness
Spending Smarter is a publication of the National Center for Children in Poverty designed to help policy makers, agency officials, families, and other advocates maximize the impact of existing funding streams to support positive social and emotional development, early intervention and treatment strategies that can improve school readiness.
Summary   Full Report

A Stitch in Time: Calculating the Cost of School Unreadiness
Charlie Bruner, Executive Director of the Child and Family Policy Center, presents information and approaches to make the case for investments in early childhood by focusing on the investment potential of early childhood services in school readiness and other desired results.

Unequal Opportunities for School Readiness
A brief from the Race Matters series from the Annie C Casey Foundation the focus is capturing why creating equal opportunity for school readiness is important.  Furthermore, the brief highlights the consequences of unequal opportunity in early education and strategies to ensure equity in school readiness.

Illinois’ Infant Toddler Set-Aside:  What It Is and How it Works to Promote School Readiness
In this paper, the Ounce of Prevention Fund discusses the Illinois Early Childhood Education Block Grant, the creation of the set-aside for infants and toddlers, and the types of services funded through the set-aside.