There's a small revolution going on in Alaska right now, one that just may usher in a different way of thinking about and meeting the needs of young children. In a new take on the old maxim, "think global, act local," a network of local partnerships is emerging to tackle early childhood issues on the ground.
This is doing business in a whole different way. Instead of relying on officials at the state or federal level to decide how and where to use resources, this approach assumes that people in the communities know better what their needs are and how to meet them. This approach also breaks down the walls that compartmentalize how services are delivered, walls that make it very difficult for service providers to work together.
What a concept: cadres of local representatives informing policy makers about the services needed in their communities and how they are best applied.
We know from an explosion in the field of brain science and a large body of research that growing children into thriving, contributing adults requires a whole lot of work at the front end, in the earliest years of life. What happens in a child's earliest years has profound impacts on cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development.
In the big picture, we know the solution requires investing more attention, more thought, and, yes, perhaps even more money into meeting the needs of babies and young children. As their children's first teachers, parents are responsible for ensuring their children have what they need to succeed in school and grow into healthy, productive adults. But what we have now is a scattershot approach. Many people and agencies are doing good work, but their effectiveness is hampered by structures that discourage coordination, leading to duplication, gaps, and lost opportunities to make the most of available resources.
Every community has myriad players with an interest or stake in early childhood: parents, child care providers, health care and social service agencies, school districts, and Head Start, to name the obvious. Businesses and other employers have a stake, too, because of their employees' child care challenges and their need for good workers in the long term. How can they work together to best meet the needs of young children?
With small one-year grants from Best Beginnings, nine communities in Alaska are taking up that challenge by organizing partnerships, or building on partnerships already in place, around early childhood development. The partnerships are patterned on a model developed by North Carolina's Smart Start Initiative, which has been very successful in other states.
Best Beginnings seed grants are going to partnerships in Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Juneau, Kodiak, the southern Kenai Peninsula, Mat-Su, Hoonah, Ketchikan, and Gustavus.
There's much to like in this approach.
Partnerships will improve coordination among early childhood programs and initiatives, resulting in more responsive and efficient use of resources. With greater coordination, services would be more effective, accountable, and better suited to local children and their families.
When you engage people from a wide range of sectors on a challenge, you get a wider range of perspectives, which leads to more creative thinking and ultimately better decisions.
You also get more effective advocates. As more of these partnerships crop up around Alaska, early childhood advocates will be able to communicate with other communities and with state and federal officials. They'll be able to compare problems and solutions, build best practices, and disseminate up-to-date information about the needs of young children and how those needs are being met.
Speaking with one voice, they will send a more effective message to policy makers and the general public, thus promoting needed change.
We have been failing many of our children. It's easy to point fingers -- at parents, at schools, at government. The fact is it's nobody's fault. We live in a very complicated world, with challenges far different from a few generations ago. It's nobody's fault that we're failing our children. But it is everybody's responsibility to work the solution.
Because early learning is everybody's business.
Abbe Hensley is Executive Director of Best Beginnings. Susan Anderson is President/CEO of The CIRI Foundation and Chair of the Early Learning Council. Best Beginnings is the statewide public-private partnership that mobilizes people and resources to ensure all Alaska children begin school ready to succeed.
By ABBE HENSLEY and SUSAN ANDERSON