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

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Overview

• Setting the Context

• On-the-Ground Challenges

• Emerging Strategies

• Using the Lessons

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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%).

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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If you would like more information, contact:

Jane Knitzer at

jk340@columbia.edu

Or visit the NCCP web site

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