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The Early Learning Nation Collective is thrilled that you have decided to embark on a journey to become or grow an Early Learning Community.

Before you start, we recommend watching this informational video to help guide you as you use the Tool. You may also want to read through some key terms before you begin the Assessment.

Goal 4.3 Examples of Communities in Action

Houston, TX and Minneapolis, MN

Through a collaboration with UNICEF USA, Houston and Minneapolis became the first two cities in the United States to receive a Child Friendly City (CFC) designations. The initiative leverages local efforts to improve child well-being, prioritizing children’s needs in city planning and policy-making. Using the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child framework, it aims to create safer, more just, and inclusive cities. Minneapolis’s CFCI plan focuses on emergency management, youth voice in decision-making, community safety, and child rights education. Houston’s plan emphasizes children’s participation, access to mental health services, and child-responsive emergency planning.

Lexington, KY

In November 2023, Lexington, KY adopted the Imagine Lexington 2045 Comprehensive Plan, crafted after two years of study and public input, and designed to reflect the community’s vision. A key emphasis of the plan is park equity, with the goal of increasing the population within a 10-minute walk of a neighborhood park. The plan, along with the city’s “Rethink Open Space” initiative, aims to reshape zoning policy to ensure equitable access to green spaces for all neighborhoods.

Goal 4.3 Sample Action Steps

Level 1

Examine how public investments in community development projects are currently allocated across the community, whether residents’ priorities are addressed by those investments, and how land use policies impact different neighborhoods.
Use surveys, listening sessions at public spaces frequented by families, and other tools to learn about families’ needs and desires for the community and obstacles they face to accessing safe, affordable housing, public transportation, nutritious and affordable foods, health and dental care, and other community resources. Ensure listening sessions are physically accessible to all members of the community. Allow for multiple methods of communication and information sharing for both surveys and listening sessions.
Use community asset mapping to better understand how access to community resources, community safety, and environmental conditions—like affordable housing, public transportation, food, affordable high-quality early care and education, safe pedestrian corridors, safe and accessible public spaces, and health care—vary among neighborhoods leading to conditions where some children and families are disconnected from resources and opportunities that are available to those in other neighborhoods.
Consider how changes to zoning and building codes can encourage developers to consider the well-being of children and families.

Level 2

Create multi-sector coalitions that include families to help inform more effective and equitable policy development and implementation.
Create a Policy Council, similar to the Head Start model, made up of parents, caregivers, and other stakeholders who will be trained in policy advocacy.
Consider how public spaces and buildings can be used to co-locate services from different systems that serve overlapping populations, and identify existing policies and regulations that pose barriers to co-located services.
Designate city or county staff with early childhood expertise to advise decision-makers in public and private systems about how their decisions will impact young children and their families.
Gauge the success of efforts to make policies more supportive and responsive to families by tracking community listening sessions, monitoring the number of proposals that were driven by resident-identified needs or asking residents to assess the degree to which residents’ and parents’ voices are actively and authentically integrated into policy development and implementation.

Level 3

Formalize the consistent use of child or family impact statements in all land use and community development policies.
Ensure that child impact statements and other formal tools also consider disparate outcomes based on race, ethnicity, immigration status, income, and other demographic characteristics. For example, if high-quality affordable child care facilities are concentrated in one area of the city, who is disproportionately harmed?
Require city or county staff with early childhood expertise to review land use and community development plans, and include families’ voices in the planning process.

Levels

Level 1
Level 1 describes the starting point and is the first thing a community will want to establish on their path to reaching that goal. In many cases, the first level involves assessing the current situation in order to identify strengths and areas of need.

Level 2
Level 2 describes a community that is taking proactive steps and making some progress toward the goal. This may include communities where progress has been made in pockets, but those efforts are not benefiting the whole community yet.

Level 3
Finally, Level 3 indicates that a community has invested time, energy, and resources toward reaching this goal and is integrating its efforts across the early childhood system and with other sectors.

Not Started
If you or your organization have not begun assessing or considering a goal, please mark your level as “Not Started.”