The Montgomery County Children's Alliance partnered with School Readiness Consulting (SRC) to lead an intentional and community-driven planning process to design the plan. That process involved creating The Foundational Action Plan to provide a set of clear actions for the Montgomery County Children's Alliance to focus on and organize around. It is meant to build on the ongoing work and momentum that exists in order to address the real and big challenges young children and families face every day. It offers a road map to highlight important next steps for the Alliance to contribute to creating a stronger and more equitable early childhood system.

This framework was developed in partnership with Mile High Early Learning to support staff in developing essential knowledge, skills, and awareness to participate in ongoing conversations and critical reflection around race and equity within the MHEL learning community and beyond.

SRC conducted a national landscape to illuminate gaps, inconsistencies, and opportunities for which philanthropic investment could catalyze equitable improvements in K-2 practices at scale and aligned to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s existing strategy. In partnership with the foundation’s Early Learning Team, SRC identified and workshopped the highest opportunity approaches to shape a proposed equity-centered investment strategy.

The North Carolina DCDEE Stakeholder Engagement Study was conducted to learn from and strengthen connections with the early childhood community. This study focused on understanding how well the Division has done in the past to provide opportunities for community members to share their experiences and feedback, as well as gathering input on ways the Division can improve its engagement efforts in the future.

This report presents the findings and key considerations from an evaluation effort conducted by School Readiness Consulting (SRC) to support the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE). The study aimed to answer three research questions related to qualitative research, storytelling, and stakeholder input. The report presents findings that highlight the perceptions, experiences, and recommendations of various stakeholders involved in early childhood education and care in North Carolina, including DCDEE staff; early childhood directors, administrators, and teachers; Family Child Care Home Providers; and families. This effort is a significant step in the Division’s ongoing effort to evaluate the way it collects and uses qualitative data to inform policies, improve program implementation, and enhance the services it provides to children and families.

The Michigan Racial Equity Leadership Cohort Experience aimed to build up the capacity of leaders to make systems change at the community level and scale knowledge about and actions to improve racial equity across the state of Michigan. To best take advantage of this short-term, limited-funding situation, the effort emphasized equipping leaders to move equity work forward at the community level as a way to support sustainability and begin to impact the system.

This Strategic Refresh represents updates to Minnesota's 2020 strategic plan. Updates are more representative of the needs of the community as the state has reinvigorated, reshuffled, and reshaped the system’s priorities.

This report presents findings regarding the implementation of local community resource hubs, an approach piloted by 13 Minnesota organizations and dozens of designated partner agencies, with the support of federal Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) funds, along with considerations to promote the expansion of similar family and community resource hub models through a supportive state-local infrastructure.

This report presents findings regarding the implementation of local community resource hubs, an approach piloted by 13 Minnesota organizations and dozens of designated partner agencies, with the support of federal Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) funds, along with considerations to promote the expansion of similar family and community resource hub models through a supportive state-local infrastructure.

This toolkit was primarily designed to support the regional teams participating in the PDG B-5 Sustainability Community of Practice facilitated by SRC. This toolkit may also be a useful tool for a wide range of stakeholders in Michigan’s early childhood system who are interested in sustainability.

When we say “equity in the early childhood system,” what do we mean? In partnership with Vanguard Strong Start for Kids, this effort aimed to explore this question. By leading with voices of the early childhood community, the Side by Side Playbook was created as an accessible, interactive resource to provide community-informed solutions toward meaningful change within the current structures that govern and define the early childhood system.

The National Association of State Leaders in Early Education's strategic plan serves as a road map to guide the work of the organization over the next 5 years and define the leadership role of the Executive Committee as catalysts and facilitators of the work.

Michigan’s Collective Early Childhood Action Plan provides a comprehensive overview and approach to meeting the state's four early childhood outcomes. This effort is a culmination of a 2-year needs assessment and action planning process and builds on and aligns with previous strategic planning efforts across the state.

This validation study evaluates the Hope Starts Here (HSH) imperative metrics for success and examines the early implementation of the HSH initiative (2020 and beyond) to inform future evaluation efforts. The research questions that guided the validation study were designed to help explore the face validity and the content validity of HSH metrics and were determined based on HSH's priorities.

This implementation study focuses on the experiences (including successes and challenges) of different stakeholders in the early stages of implementation of the Hope Starts Here initiative.

This report provides an overview of key findings and considerations as Michigan considers ways to strengthen its approach to Family Child Care Networks across the state.

This equity-focused rubric was developed for reviewing Minnesota's Preschool Development Grant (PDG)–related documents. The equity rubric, designed under the Minnesota PDG Guiding Principles, assesses indicators of best practices for advancing equity within each document that focus on the experiences of children, families, and communities facing racial, geographic, and economic inequities.

The city of Seattle has a history of investing in its youth and has funded education-based initiatives since 1990. In response to the growing understanding of the benefits of preschool for children and communities, the Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) launched a demonstration phase of the Seattle Preschool Program (SPP). This initiative aimed to meet three goals: (1) increase access to full-time preschool for three- and four-year-old children across the city; (2) ensure that the preschool program is one of high quality by using a research-based curriculum and offering culturally responsive, engaging, and nurturing adult-child interactions; and (3) eliminate the racially disproportionate kindergarten readiness gap. DEEL contracted with SRC on two occasions to conduct process evaluations of the SPP. Efforts informed a series of case studies and reports (2019 and 2021) that were developed to share findings and recommendations focused on improving SPP and advancing early learning opportunities for all children in Seattle.