Early Childhood Systems: going beyond coordination to a shared understanding.

At a recent national meeting on Early Childhood, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners gathered to discuss new perspectives on coordination of early childhood systems and services. Below is a quote from the August 3 & 4, 2010 national conference “Childhood 2010: Innovation for the Next Generation” in Washington, D.C., co-sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Education and Health & Human Services.

“Experience shows that enhanced coordination of effort across service systems is desirable but that alone is unlikely to produce sufficiently greater impact if the systems are guided by different values and bodies of knowledge.

“What is needed instead is creative new thinking about how to apply a unified scientific understanding of the early childhood origins of health, learning, and behavior across multiple sectors.

“Every system that touches the lives of children—as well as mothers before and during pregnancy—offers an opportunity to leverage this rapidly growing knowledge base to strengthen the foundations and capacities that make lifelong healthy development possible.

“Investments in the early reduction of significant adversity are particularly likely to generate strong returns.”

See the report discussed at the conference -- The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood at http://developingchild.harvard.edu/library/reports_and_working_papers/foundations-of-lifelong-health

An excerpt: A vital and productive society with a prosperous and sustainable future is built on a foundation of healthy child development. Health in the earliest years—beginning with the future mother’s well-being before she becomes pregnant—lays the groundwork for a lifetime of vitality. When developing biological systems are strengthened by positive early experiences, children are more likely to thrive and grow up to be healthy adults. Sound health also provides a foundation for the construction of sturdy brain architecture and the achievement of a broad range of skills and learning capacities. This publication was co-authored by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs.