Caring Causes: Pritzker Children's Initiative

 Ten local communities from across the U.S. have been selected as recipients of a three-year grant from the Pritzker Children’s Initiative (PCI), all determined following a national, year-long competition to identify innovative community-based efforts to improve outcomes for infants and toddlers.

 

Each grantee organization will receive the grant funds in support of a strategy for a strong and sustainable infrastructure to improve access to programs and services which offer a foundation for a strong start for the community’s youngest children, crafted by the grantee and a dedicated coalition of public and private partners. The coalitions and their members will join other national, state and local organizations as part of the National Collaborative for Infants and Toddlers.

 

The goal of the Pritzker Children’s Initiative Community Innovation Grant competition is to identify exemplary community or regional models with the potential to impact at least half of a respective community’s total at-risk population within five to seven years, and that can demonstrate meaningful progress toward this objective within the three-year grant period. PCI anticipates that this work may collectively impact as many as 50,000 infants and toddlers by 2023, and potentially double that number by 2025.

 

These highly anticipated grants are intended to fuel the implementation of thoughtful plans to increase access to and participation in high-quality services by infants, toddlers and their families, which will ensure greater likelihood of future success in school and in life. The expectation is that with this funding, the grantees and their partners will cultivate the conditions necessary to develop strategies and systems to effectively and equitably reach their at-risk populations under the age of three, beginning prenatally. PCI sees that these community models will include approaches that can be shared, replicated and scaled statewide and nationally.

 

“Supporting strong prenatal-to-three efforts in communities across the nation is key to expanding the numbers of young children in the United States with access to high-quality programs and services.  We believe that by beginning prenatally and continuing these supports after birth, we are setting infants and toddlers on the path to success in school, and in life, is work upon which we can all agree,” said Gerry Cobb, the director of the Pritzker Children’s Initiative. “We are pleased to support the priorities of the deserving recipients through these grants, and want to build upon the innovative work being done by their outstanding public and private partners who have come together on behalf of the nation’s youngest children.”

 

The 2020 PCI Community Innovation grantees are: The United Way of Coastal Fairfield County (Bridgeport Prospers), Bridgeport, Connecticut; Children’s Trust of Alachua County, Alachua County, Florida; Agenda for Children, New Orleans, Louisiana; the Baltimore City Health Department, Baltimore City, Maryland; First Steps Kent, Kent County, Michigan; Ready for School, Ready for Life, Guilford County, North Carolina; the Adirondack Foundation (Adirondack Birth to Three Alliance), Adirondack Region, New York (including Clinton, Essex and Franklin Counties and the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation); Learn To Earn Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio; Trying Together, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and the Tarrant County Health Department (in partnership with My Health My Resources), Tarrant County, Texas.

 

Through its Pritzker Children’s Initiative, the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation has been a champion of quality early learning for almost two decades. The Pritzker Children’s Initiative supports organizations and coalitions in states and communities to expand equitable access to and participation in high-quality services for infants, toddlers, and their families across the United States.

 

The National Collaborative for Infants & Toddlers (NCIT) brings together early childhood leaders, policymakers, and practitioners committed to advancing policies and programs that ensure every child from prenatal to age three has the support he or she needs for a strong start in life.