Starting Points
Program Overview

In 1991 the trustees of Carnegie Corporation approved the creation of the Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children. The task force's goals were to devise a coherent strategy to meet the needs of children in the first three years of life, to issue a report drawing on current scientific knowledge, and to propose an action agenda to ensure that children are provided with a healthy start.

Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children was released by Carnegie Corporation in April 1994. The report provides research evidence on the "quiet crisis" that young children face, and it offers a comprehensive set of recommendations to meet their needs. These include preparation for responsible parenthood, improved preventive health and child care, and stronger community supports for families. The report was influential in the recent extension of the Head Start program to infants and toddlers and has been taken up by some of the nation's governors, mayors, and business leaders as part of a variety of renewed and intensified efforts on behalf of young children.

To follow up on the report, the Starting Points State and Community Partnerships program was initiated by the foundation's trustees and staff members. This competitive grants program will enable states and cities to adopt and implement the reforms called for in Starting Points. Specifically, the goals of the initiative are to

• Promote widespread implementation of Starting Points' recommendations through the engagement of key state and community leaders, the improvement of public and private sector policies, the strengthening of program quality, and the development of systematic strategies to track the state's or city's progress in meeting the needs of families with young children, especially disadvantaged families
• Draw sustained national attention to strategies being tested in Starting Points sites--the grants network is also being designed to allow foundation staff members and national experts to monitor the impact of national policy changes under different state and local conditions and to test new public education strategies

Among the activities states and cities are working on to meet these goals include:

• Universal screening, home visiting, and follow-up systems of health care for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers that will seek to reach all families, with special attention to the most disadvantaged
  
• The combination of economic development incentives, such as improved employment and training programs for young parents, with child care and social supports in communities that are being revitalized through the federal Empowerment Zones initiative
  
• New comprehensive initiatives modeled after the Head Start program for children from birth to age three, such as "family resource networks" that will act as coordinating hubs for child care, child health, and parent supports
  
• Community outreach programs designed to prevent teenage childbearing and to improve life options for disadvantaged youth
  
• Innovative partnership initiatives using museums, churches, and neighborhood settlement houses as important resources for young families
  
• New collaborative governance mechanisms that allow the financial and staff resources of public and private agencies to be used more efficiently
  

Many grantees of the foundation's children and youth program have been closely engaged in the development of the network and are planning to use the Starting Points grant sites to monitor the impact of policy developments under different state and local conditions and to test new public education strategies.

Starting Points Web: http://www.carnegie.org/startingpoints
Starting Points E-mail: startingpoints@carnegie.org