Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Development in Monterey County

Bright BeginningsAdvocacy, Community

The Monterey County Early Childhood Development (ECD) Advisory Group has been working hard over the past six months to engage key stakeholders, analyze local data and research, and identify priorities to achieve our goal of ensuring all children are well prepared for life and school by age 5.

We’re excited to share that this work is all coming together now in a “Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Development in Monterey County,” which will layout a road map for systems change in our county. We are planning a “soft launch” of the framework in April during the Week of the Young Child, April 16th – 20th.

The Strategic Plan aims to change the way we think about young children and their families, and the ways we all work together to support them. It is intended to guide strategic, collaborative action on early childhood to achieve better results for children and families, more quickly.

The group is working to develop priority strategies in four core areas, which local data and research show will make a critical difference to children and families:

  1. Empowered and resilient parents
  2. Concrete and social supports for families
  3. Supportive care-giving behavior
  4. Equitable systems to support all children and families

Results-focused goals for each of the priority areas will be used by individual organizations and agencies to take action and allocate resources. Action teams are already starting up to implement strategies, and to look at scaling up or improving strategies already being implemented.

Stay tuned for more details!