1-103 - Supporting Young Children’s Social and Emotional Learning through Cross-Program, Community-Wide Improvement Strategies

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

Social and emotional development in early childhood has attracted recent attention from federal and state policymakers and programs leaders (Gayl, 2017). Evidence of expulsions and suspensions for young children and disparities by race and gender have galvanized interest in innovative methods to support improvements in teachers’ practices in early care and education settings (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education, 2016). New approaches that emphasize community partnerships, learning collaboratives, continuous improvement cycles, and organizational capacity-building within and across early care and education programs are sparking a paradigm shift that holds promise for strengthening the system that promotes young children’s developmental outcomes. Kathryn Tout will moderate this conversation roundtable to examine critical questions about how new improvement methods are expected to work, why they are anticipated to be more effective than traditional professional development initiatives, the feasibility of implementing new improvement methods within existing systems and strategies for evaluating outcomes at multiple levels (programs, staff and children). Anne Douglass will reflect on the shift to emphasize constructs such as organizational culture and leadership in promoting and sustaining practice change among teachers and caregivers. Craig Bailey will address the importance of leveraging community involvement in supporting social emotional learning. Kimberly Boller will reflect on the effectiveness of co-design of initiatives in the United States and internationally and the use of data to inform practice change. Nina Hetzner will speak about federal priorities in understanding the feasibility of improvement methods and their potential to support young children.

Sub Unit

• Social Policy

Moderator

• Kathryn Tout, Child Trends

Panelists

• Craig S. Bailey, Yale University

• Kim Boller, Mathematica Policy Research

• Anne Douglass, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Nina Hetzner, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation