Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Young Children and Families: The View from the U.S. Jane...
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Transcript of Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Young Children and Families: The View from the U.S. Jane...
Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Young Children and Families:
The View from the U.S.
Jane Knitzer Ed.DDirector, National Center for Children in Poverty
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, NY, NY
April 26-28
Oslo, Norway
www.nccp.org
Overview
• Setting the Context
• On-the-Ground Challenges
• Emerging Strategies
• Using the Lessons
www.nccp.org
The Context: U.S. Demographic Realities
• Of the 10 million low-income young children in U.S. half are poor, half are near-poor.
• The younger the children, the more likely to be in poverty.
• The younger the children, the more harmful poverty is to developmental outcomes.
• Between 2000-2004 poverty among children under six increased by 16% (all children, 12%).
www.nccp.org
The Context: Defining Social & Emotional Well-being in Young Children
• The development of age-appropriate ability to:
– Manage emotions ( anger, frustration)
– Relate adults (parents foster parents)
– Relate to peers
– Feel positively about themselves (curious, safe in exploring the world, approach learning eagerly)
www.nccp.org
The Context: Key Research Findings
• The earliest parental relationships set the stage for healthy brain development
• Toxic levels of stress exposure have long-term negative impacts on brain development
• The more demographic and psychosocial risk factors the greater the odds of poor outcomes
• Poor social and emotional skills predict poor early school failure (which predicts later school problems and anti-social behavior
• There are known windows of opportunity for intervention
www.nccp.org
Perspectives from the Field
• Too many young children are sad, bad or mad
• Expulsions from child care (significant problem)
• Conflicts around cultural expectations
• Staff lack skills to identify or help high-risk children & families (e.g. challenging behavior or child or family trauma-related distress)
• Widespread barriers to effective parenting
• Primary care doctors not routinely addressing social & emotional developmental needs
www.nccp.org
Foci for Intentional Strategies to Improve S/E Well-being
• Promote social & emotional skills for early school success in young children
• Help parents (foster parents, kin etc) be more effective nurturers and teachers
• Expand competencies of other adult caregivers to promote healthy social & emotional development
• Ensure that seriously troubled young children & families get help
www.nccp.org
Building Intentional Services and Strategies: Principles
• Grounded in developmental knowledge
• Relationship-based
• Infused into existing early childhood networks and services (where children and families are)
• Family-centered
• Responsive to level of need
• Attentive to and respectful of community norms, cultures
• Judged by outcomes that are developmentally & policy relevant (e.g., early school success)
www.nccp.org
Emerging Practice Strategies To Help All At-risk Young Children and Families
• Ensure higher-risk young children are in high quality, comprehensive programs– Early Head Start, Head Start – Evidence-based home-visiting programs – Parent supports ( Incredible Years)
• Increase capacity of early childhood work force to promote s/e well-being in young children and families– Mental Health Consultation – Classroom-based strategies (DECA, Tools of the Mind)
• Engage pediatricians more actively – Emerging child and parent-focused screening models – Reach Out and Read – Medical & Legal Advocacy
www.nccp.org
Strategies to Help the Highest Risk Infants, Toddlers, Young Children & Families
• Embed more intensive family-focused services into early childhood programs– In Early Head Start: Family Connections– In Home-Visiting Programs: Every Child Succeeds
• Embed more intensive services into settings where higher risk families are concentrated ( courts, foster homes, shelters)– Screening, crisis intervention all young children after violence-
related trauma (Arizona) – Multi-dimensional foster care treatment for young children– Court-linked interventions ( Miami-Dade)
• Parent-support for higher-risk parents – Nurturing Parenting Curricula
• Interventions for young children with diagnosed emotional and behavioral disorders
www.nccp.org
Putting The Pieces Together: Through A Public Health Lens: San Mateo County, CA
• Touch Points
• Home-visiting programs linked to level of risk
• Data system to track outcomes
• Children’s budget
www.nccp.org
Toward the Future
• Support research on interventions
• Take strategies to scale
• Track outcomes linked to early school success
• Make the return on investment case for more intensive interventions
• Create more responsive fiscal strategies
www.nccp.org
If you would like more information, contact:
Jane Knitzer at
Or visit the NCCP web site
www.nccp.org