What Does It Take to Be an Early Learning Community?

During this webinar, we learned about a powerful new set of free online tools that communities can employ to ensure that families with young children have all the opportunities and support they need to promote their children’s early learning and healthy development. Cailin O’Connor of the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Anna White of National League of Cities described how their organizations collaborated in the development of these tools and how they are now working with communities to utilize them. 

White described the North Star vision of Early Learning Communities as places where pregnant women and young children are healthy; children are ready to succeed in school; and children live in safe, stable nurturing families and neighborhoods. She also introduced the four “Building Blocks” that are present in Early Learning Communities: Community Leadership, Commitment and Public Will; Quality Services That Work for All Young Children and Their Families; Neighborhoods Where Families Can Thrive; and Policies That Support and Are Responsive to Families. O’Connor walked participants through the two tools and explained how they could be used to craft and implement an action plan, tailored to a community’s assets and challenges, to promote those building blocks. 

These tools were developed in partnership with a cohort of communities from across the country that piloted them and informed their refinement. Two leaders from Kansas City, one of those cohort communities, joined the webinar to explain how the Early Learning Community tools can complement grade-level reading efforts. Mike English of Turn the Page KC explained that Kansas City’s former Mayor Sly James helped launch a third-grade reading effort in Kansas City and described how local leaders translated the four building blocks into an action plan. Julie Holland of Parent Leadership Training Institute – Kansas City, who served as the education advisor to Mayor James, shared how the tools provided a framework for partners to come together to align systems and build community awareness of the importance of the early childhood years.