The rapid rate of brain development occurring in early childhood creates a period of both high opportunity and high vulnerability. This period offers a critical window of opportunity to impact later health, well-being, and ability to contribute to society. Ensuring the right supports and environments during this period is critical for achieving positive outcomes later in life.
Having responsive relationships with adults, growth-promoting experiences, and healthy environments for all young children helps build sturdy brain architecture and the foundations of resilience. Meanwhile, significant disadvantages can disrupt the developmental process and lead to diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, and social problems, including homelessness and domestic violence.
Creating the conditions that support young children and their caregivers sets the stage for improved health, economic, and social outcomes that are the foundation of a vital and productive society.
Our primary population for this work is families with children, prenatal to five, based on the significant brain development, and thus opportunity for impact, that occurs during this period.
A secondary focus of our work is adolescents and their families, since adolescence represents a second period of high brain development and plasticity.
The vital work in this area overlaps with our grantmaking efforts in Healthy Women and Girls Childhood through a two-generational approach to improve both child health and women’s health.
Our work in this area focuses on four, highly related approaches:
Our goal in this work is to foster the conditions that create positive experiences for young children and their families. Success looks like:
Contact
Kim McPherson, MPAff
kmcpherson
Learn more about Kim here.
Only 50% of Central Texas kindergarteners enter school ready to learn; children who are low-income are less likely to enter kinder ready to learn – only 38% are kinder-ready.
The poverty rate of children in Central Texas age 0-5 years old is 15 percent. Living in poverty is linked to higher levels of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and lower presence of resilience factors.
Fewer than 10% of Central Texas families who have young children and are low income have access evidence-based home visiting programs. In rural counties this number is even lower.