Across the country, state early childhood advisory councils are in their first year of implementation with federal ARRA support. Although the councils represent a common governance mechanism across states, they differ based on each state’s particular policy context. Within individual states, councils vary in their structure, membership and approach to implementation. Councils also reflect other characteristics of their state’s early childhood system, such as a strong public-private partnership or an emphasis on local collaboration.
These presentations focus on the council development and implementation process in both Colorado and Oklahoma. Council leadership from the two states draw on their experiences to highlight their successes and examine early barriers to council functionality, the challenges of navigating gubernatorial transition, and strategies for operating within current state fiscal environments.
Speakers:
- Jennifer Stedron, Executive Director, Colorado Early Childhood Leadership Commission | Presentation
- Debra Anderson, Executive Director, Smart Start Oklahoma | Presentation
- Rachel Demma and Amanda Szekely, National Governors Association, Center for Best Practices
Resources:
Q & A
Q. [Marian Lagerstrom, Iowa] Do either of these states utilize a statewide data information management system in order to evaluate and track investments in early childhood? Iowa is in the process of investigating how ours will work and I know some guidance would be greatly appreciated.
A. [Jennifer Stedron] Colorado does have a data system that tracks local expenditures on all prevention dollars (of which many are early childhood). This system wasn't designed specifically for early childhood but we will be investigating it's utility for our purposes. We are also looking at getting regular annual reporting of the state's EC budgeting, reported for each of the EC Colorado Framework's four domains. I think there are some good chances we'll be able to make that happen next year.
A. [Debra Anderson] Oklahoma does not currently have a unified or integrated data system across agencies, but have aggressively been setting steps in place to develop a plan for a data system. In a nutshell - we held a data roundtable with key stakeholders (about 70 people attended) to develop key questions Oklahomans want answered from a data system. We are having a workgroup meeting early next month to review the input from the roundtable, identify a process to obtain current key data elements within each agency data system, and eventually develop a request for proposal to design a data system that will address the priority questions identified by the roundtable participants.
This process has been guided by our outside consultant, and also incorporates the work of the Early Childhood Data Collaborative. Stay tuned - we are hopeful we will have something soon, however budget may impact the reality of getting a system in place in the near future.
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