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Creating an enviable life for all kids: A Q&A with Nancy Anderson, retiring early intervention and special education leader

by | Jun 21, 2016 | Educators and Workforce

Creating an enviable life for all kids: A Q&A with Nancy Anderson, retiring early intervention and special education leader

Nancy Anderson and Early Works partners visit South Shore School in Washington state.

Nancy Anderson, who leads Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education services in Multnomah, Hood River, and Wasco counties, is retiring after 40 years helping children achieve success. Although Anderson holds titles with both the Multnomah Early Childhood Program and the David Douglas School District, her work has spanned much more than these titles alone suggest. She is admired statewide for her leadership around professional development, has been an integral thought partner for educators and administrators, and has played a key role in the creation and success of the Early Works initiative at Earl Boyles Elementary. There she helped create a preschool that was funded by multiple agencies, including MECP.

The Children’s Institute is grateful to Nancy Anderson for her years of public service, dedicated to improving all children’s lives. “Nancy was fundamental in launching the Earl Boyles preschool program and in advocating for full inclusion of children with special needs in a universal preschool setting” says Swati Adarkar, President and CEO of Children’s Institute. “Nancy has been a key partner, not just for the Children’s Institute and Early Works, but across the state. She has pushed everyone to innovate, and has fought hard to improve the odds for all Oregon kids.”

“Nancy has been a leader in EI/ECSE since the very early beginnings of this statewide program,” says Anderson’s colleague Judy Newman, the Co-Director of Early Childhood CARES and a member of the governance consortium for Lane County’s early learning hub, the Lane Early Alliance. “She is a critical thinker and innovator, always striving to stay improve services and supports based on the current evidence in the field. She asks important questions and challenges us all to constantly evaluate what we are doing and to grow and change as needed.”

We talked with Anderson about her career, the current state of early intervention in Oregon, and what policymakers can do to ensure all kids have an equal shot at success.

CI: Why is the interplay between early intervention and early childhood education so important? For example, why should preschool teachers in public settings be dually accredited in special education and preschool?

NA: When I think about early childhood or our K-12 systems, kids come to us from wherever they are – there is a lot of diversity. If you have a group of 20 kids, 17% of them have a delay or disability, and/or are dual language learners and/or have experienced trauma. So what do staff need to do be able to deal with that? Teachers need to know enough in each area to be able to [address the diversity of issues]. That is where the importance of dual accreditation comes from – if the teacher has no background in knowing what to do with students with special needs, having a special education specialist come in once a week isn’t going to make a big difference. For kids with disabilities, inclusion early in school sets the stage for inclusion later and leads to greater success for graduation rates and career success.

CI: What has been your role in Early Works and the preschool at Earl Boyles?

NA: Years ago we first sat down with Swati Adarkar and a group of partners from around the county, asking what do we need and where should we do it? We decided to move forward with a preschool in the David Douglas School District. The Community Needs Assessment for the area showed that, out of all the things, the community really needed access to preschool. So we thought: If we built a preschool model what would it look like? We wanted the preschool to service all the kids in the catchment area, so we could impact the trajectory of kids prenatal to age 3 [P-3], and into the K-12 system. We worked to include kids in Head Start and Early Childhood Special Education. All of the detail work to get the preschool started was really complicated, hard work. You really have to have people who want to figure it out and who are willing to do hard work. But does it need to be done? Yes.

CI: Tell us about your statewide leadership around professional development.

NA: Last year, [Former] David Douglas Superintendent Don Grotting and I went to the Oregon Department of Education to offer a summer institute for professional development that would be open to anyone in the state. We created the institute in partnership with the Early Learning Division, Oregon Department of Education- Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education and the David Douglas School District. It was phenomenal. It was so popular that the department wanted to do it again this year, and extend it to an entire week. This year’s institute is offering seven courses on topics like coaching, dual language learners, and positive social emotional development. Educators from all sorts settings attend – child care, K-3rd general education, community preschool, Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education, and Head Start.

We learned people are really hungry for P-3 professional development and learning – and for something that isn’t just a day long.

CI: What are you most proud of having accomplished in your career?

NA: There isn’t any one project or initiative. It is probably more that I’ve always tried to ensure that kids and families have a shot at a full life – both at school and in their community. My focus has always been on making sure kids and families have what they need to be successful and have an enviable life. And think I’ve been pretty successful in making that happen!

CI: What drives you to push innovation at both the state and district levels? How have you gotten partners, teachers, parents, others, to buy in to early childhood investments?

NA: One of the things that makes a difference is to share some different experiences with them – show them what is positive and possible. People come to their work with certain experiences or lenses – and sometimes just don’t know what is possible! One of my biggest jobs as a leader is to really make sure I am bringing forward those stories and experiences of the partners and families we are working with to support their hopes and dreams.

For example, when talking to a parent of a young child with Down syndrome, they may have a dream of their child attending college. However, people in their life may be telling them it’s not possible. I might say ‘Oh! I hear you thinking about your child attending college in the future. Do you know that Northwest Down Syndrome Association is working with local colleges on a program called “Think College” which ensures students have access to college? It is possible!’ You have to kind of change the conversation.

And that is what Early Works has been about – showing people that it is really possible. At Earl Boyles, parent engagement has changed and they are getting great outcomes. It is important to share these stories and also share the data that shows things work. Once you put vision and outcomes together it is hard to say no.

CI: What is the number one thing parents and teachers could do to help more students succeed?

NA: For staff, kids, and families, the recognition that “this isn’t it.” There is always more to do. Things can be better. And when we bring people on board who understand that, we can always do even more.

CI: What is the top thing policymakers could do to help more students succeed?

NA: To ensure that whatever policies are being made to ensure kids have that best start – that it includes all kids. That when we say “all” and “every” that we really do mean “all.”

Keeping the glass half-full: Yoncalla’s parenting education series puts parents first

by | May 19, 2016 | Parents and Families

This year’s parenting education series in Yoncalla simply feels different. Although Erin Helgren, Early Works site liaison for Yoncalla, has facilitated the evidenced-based parenting education series in Yoncalla for many years, she says she has “never seen a group of parents and caregivers quite so excited about coming to class.”

Helgren first facilitated the series through the North Douglas Relief Nursery, and is now doing so as a staff member of the Children’s Institute. Although it is often a struggle, particularly in rural areas, to recruit parents for an education series, the Yoncalla group has an outstanding attendance record. Furthermore, Yoncalla parents are not only using the series as an opportunity for personal growth, but are also as a vehicle to more deeply engage with their fellow community members. Helgren says such a connectedness “can lead parents to exchange information about local supports and offer to help each other out.”

When parents first hear the term “parenting class” they tend to think the program is intended to address their deficits as caregivers. Instead, the Yoncalla program focuses on positive components, including: stress reduction, self-care, communication skills, anger management, and developing appropriate expectations for children. Helgren emphasizes that “the class is much more about self-discovery than it is about improving parenting skills.” Of course, this self-discovery only serves to strengthen parenting skills, and results in what Helgren calls mindful parenting.

Yoncalla Parent Earl Carlson, who has participated in the classes, says he has benefited from the reflective nature of the classes, saying they present “a way to stop the problems where they are at, identify them, back up and do what we can to correct them, and then also to help our children that are going through the same problems with us. And that is in itself a healing for the entire family, which, in turn, becomes a healing for the entire community.”

Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence that shows that parenting education isn’t just good for the parents, but also produces positive outcomes for children. According to a report from the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative, “parenting education has been linked to multiple benefits for kids, including drops in child abuse and neglect rates, better physical, cognitive and emotional development in children, and reduced youth substance abuse.” Helgren uses the Make Parenting a Pleasure curriculum, an evidence-backed curriculum to inform the series. Like many comparable parenting education series across the state, Yoncalla’s program is made possible because of a partnership. In this case, the partners include the South Central Early Learning Hub, the OPEC parenting hub at Douglas ESD, Early Works Yoncalla, the North Douglas Family Relief Nursery, Yoncalla School District and the Children’s Institute.

Although the research shows the positive outcomes, Oregon does not currently direct state funding to parenting education. Instead, a group of foundations and universities recognized the importance of strengthening parents’ ability to support themselves and their children, and committed to funding the work themselves. The resulting initiative, called the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative – or OPEC – is committed to providing these services to as many communities as possible, with the goal of creating a sustainable statewide system for all parents to access opportunities like those in Yoncalla.

Dana Hepper, director of policy and program at the Children’s Institute, says parenting education series could and should be brought to more parents across Oregon. For that to happen, the state should consider how to embed parenting education into a broader system of care, she says.

“The Parenting Education Hubs have created an opportunity to blend other funds from Early Learning Hubs, Coordinated Care Organizations, and local Departments of Human Services to support parents,” she says. Such funding and collaboration would create more points of entry for parents to hear about and enroll in parenting education classes – for example, a pediatrician referring parents to a local parenting education series, home visitors providing parenting education as a complementary service, and incorporating parenting education into the state’s 211 referral line. All of these would increase parents’ ability to, in Carlson’s words, “make the unobtainable obtainable…for (parents) to understand that here is not only help, but that help can be effective.”

Keeping the glass half-full: Yoncalla’s parenting education series puts parents first

Facilitator Scott Sublette shares honey he harvested with a Yoncalla couple during the parent education class.

So how does parenting education help parents and family members make the unobtainable obtainable? First-time parenting education facilitator and long-time Yoncalla-area resident Scott Sublette uses an analogy that sums up a key message of the series. “Imagine you have a pitcher of water,” he says. “When you start your day, the pitcher is full.” But, as you get the kids to school, as you deal with a frustrating client at work, as you blow a tire on the way home from work – the water level slowly lowers, he says. Sometimes, your day is so bad the pitcher is empty; sometimes your day is so good it is filled to the brim. The parenting education series Sublette facilitates is less about learning how to be a “good” parent and more about learning how to keep that pitcher – the receptacle for your mental resources, energy, and patience – full, Sublette says.

In rural Oregon, this can be particularly difficult. Activities that urban dwellers take for granted – quick trips to the grocery store, hopping on the bus to work or a doctor’s appointment – can be major struggles for people living in rural areas. “The yearly parenting education series helps community members support one another,” says Helgren. “They learn to manage their emotions and daily struggles, connect with each other in an environment that can produce a sense of cultural isolation.”

Additionally, in Yoncalla, the social aspect of the group is almost as important as the content of the classes. Typically, parents who enroll in the program meet for the first time at the initial session. Many parents can be hesitant to attend, either because of the intimidation of meeting in a formal setting with people they do not know, or because of logistical obstacles like transportation, childcare, or the class occurring at mealtime. To address these obstacles, the program helps cover transportation costs, make sure developmentally-appropriate childcare is available, and provide dinner to the group.

Sublette’s participation as co-facilitator has helped create more trust between the parents in the series and allowed the group to gel, says Helgren. Also, in part because of his participation, this year’s parent cohort is 40 percent male – a significant change from previous years and from parenting series in general around the state (where the average participant rate is nearly 70 percent female). With Helgren’s and Sublette’s guidance, the series has become a point of connection and identification for the parents. Helgren says when she asks participants, “What is something you do for yourself?” many of them respond “Come to class!” The connectedness parents experience is not only important for their emotional health, but as Helgren says, “gives them an opportunity to ask questions and connect with others in the community who might be experiencing similar obstacles.”

Normally, parents meet once a week for 10 weeks. This year, there is such enthusiasm for the series that the parents in the group asked that the class be expanded to 13 weeks. Then, they asked that it be expanded indefinitely.

In the future, Helgren dreams that more parents and community members like Sublette and Carlson will be trained in facilitation, and that the leadership of the parenting education series – the responsibility of helping parents understand how to fill up all of those pitchers – will fall to them. Given the potential positive impact of parenting education on children, parents, and the community, funding such efforts would be well worth the effort.

Partnership strengthens preschool in Yoncalla

by | May 4, 2016 | Educators and Workforce, Preschool, Teacher Voice

It’s late morning on a sunny Wednesday in Yoncalla, Oregon and 14 preschoolers are gathered on a colorful alphabet rug. Most are cross-legged, but several are wiggling, struggling to contain their excitement. All eyes are on Jill Cunningham, the Yoncalla library’s branch manager, who has come to visit their classroom at Yoncalla Elementary. They are singing This Old Man together, complete with hand motions.

“What rhymes with three?” Cunningham asks, holding three fingers high.

“Tree!” A girl in pink shouts.

“I like it,” says Cunningham.

“He played knick-knack on his tree,” they sing.

Cunningham is a frequent visitor to the preschool class, which is taught and operated by lifelong Yoncalla resident Cassie Reigard. Reigard is operating the preschool that was started decades ago by her grandmother – who just recently passed away. Reigard’s mother ran the preschool after her grandmother, and Cassie took over when her mother retired.

The Yoncalla school district provides space at the elementary school for Reigard to operate the program. And this year, the partners that are part of the Early Works initiative at Yoncalla have supported Reigard to receive professional development and assistance that will help her students be ready to succeed in kindergarten. Teaching preschool is in Reigard’s blood and she is a great person for Early Works to support. After all, she has dedicated her career to Yoncalla’s young children.

Partnership strengthens preschool in Yoncalla“I love the kids. I love watching them learn; I love teaching them,” Reigard says.

The professional development and help that the Yoncalla School District and other Early Works partners have provided Reigard has resulted in a new opportunity for her to serve more kids from low-income Yoncalla-area families. The South-Central Oregon Early Learning Hub – its service area includes Yoncalla – was one of nine early learning hubs in Oregon that last month was awarded some of the new state funding to support high-quality preschool for children from low-income Oregon families. Some of that funding now will be going to help kids in Yoncalla.

The Children’s Institute has worked closely with the state to ensure the passage and develop the program, called Preschool Promise. The program will support high-quality preschools in a mix of settings, including public schools, Head Start and private, community-based programs.

Jan Zarate, Yoncalla School District superintendent, said Reigard and the school district submitted a joint application for the Preschool Promise funding; the South Central early learning hub plans to fund their effort. “We are going to get the opportunity to pull more partners to the table and do more braiding of funds” says Jan Zarate, Yoncalla School District superintendent.

When she heard the news, Reigard says, she was ecstatic. “I feel very excited for the children in our community and the opportunities this will provide for them,” she says.

Zarate says that while the support from the school district and other Early Works partners was important in helping to secure the Preschool Promise funding, so was Reigard’s experience and foundation in the Yoncalla community.

“Cassie’s capacity to build relationships with people and make them comfortable is amazing. Parents trust her,” says Zarate. “There are also areas to grow and there is a personal commitment on Cassie’s part to know more and be even better prepared.”

Reigard says the Early Works support for her professional development is very helpful. “I’m always open to improving anything that I can,” she says.

Partnership strengthens preschool in YoncallaAt a recent conference at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, she learned some new strategies to help her students understand the reasons behind their feelings. “I’ve struggled with some students in class that don’t know how to handle their feelings and so I’ve really been able to take them aside and talk about their feelings and really just work on supporting them emotionally,” she says.

A very important new tool was added to Reigard’s teaching arsenal this spring: the Ages & Stages Questionnaire, or ASQ. A developmental screening survey that is simple for parents to complete, the ASQ pinpoints developmental progress in children up to age five, allowing teachers, caregivers, and service providers to understand what individual supports a child might need to be healthy and ready for school.

Almost all of the preschool parents agreed to participate, and Reigard loved conducting the screening survey. “It was one of the best things I could have done to develop a more personal relationship with parents and to understand their children better,” she says.

Partnership strengthens preschool in YoncallaIn addition to relationship-building, the screening survey helped Reigard tailor her instruction to her students’ needs and interests. “Not only did it show what I need to work on in specific areas with the students, but it clarified reasons why some students were more behind than others, not just academically.”

Finally, the screening survey led to Reigard being able to refer several students to additional programs and services that will help the students in their learning.

In the future, Reigard plans to conduct the ASQ screening in the fall, ideally even before school starts, to inform her teaching from the beginning. “My goal is to connect with families and work together with them to help prepare their children for kindergarten,” she says.

Early Works is focused on supporting Reigard, and other teachers and service providers in Yoncalla, to learn and hone new strategies to help students succeed. At the same time, the Children’s Institute is working hard at the state level to help advocate and secure funding for programs like Preschool Promise.

Collaboration in Wallowa connects health to early learning

by | Mar 23, 2016 | Health and Development, Successful Students

 

Collaboration in Wallowa connects health to early learning

Maria Weer with children at the library.

 At the time, Liz Powers and Maria Weer were both relative newcomers to Wallowa County.

Liz was a new family practice physician in Enterprise. Maria worked for a non-profit organization called Building Healthy Families. Their children were about the same age. And the two mothers were similar in another way: they had a passion for trying to make things better for the children of Wallowa County. 

Then they got to know each other. 

“As with most things in Wallowa County, collaboration often starts with a friendship,” Maria says. “And so, we met when she needed some books in Spanish for a family and she knew that we ran a reading program and that I had access to books. That was the first meeting. I remember sitting at my kitchen table while our two-year-olds were playing on the floor and we just kind of said – well, what if we could do this and what if we could do that? And how could we build this? And we’ve really just gone from there.”

That was six years ago. Today, the Winding Waters Medical Clinic, where Liz is a family physician, and Building Healthy Families, where Maria is the executive director, have an unusual and unusually effective partnership working to help Wallowa County children and families.

The collaboration, which does extraordinary work to connect early learning and healthy development for Wallowa County’s young children, will be honored with the Children’s Institute’s Alexander Award at this year’s annual Make It Your Business luncheon. The award is given annually to people or groups that are exemplary in making a difference in young children’s lives in Oregon.

“Wallowa County is intentionally connecting health and early learning, starting prenatally, to benefit families,” says Swati Adarkar, Children’s Institute President & CEO. “We’re thrilled to present them with the Alexander Award and hope that other communities across the state are inspired by their example.”

The collaboration that started at that kitchen table now encompasses a range of programs that the Winding Waters Medical Clinic and Building Healthy Families work on together, all intended to create a seamless connection between a child’s early health and development and their early learning.

Those programs include:

 

  • Well Baby Bags: Building Healthy Families assembles the bags, which include developmental information and milestones, an age-appropriate children’s book, and recommendations for early literacy strategies. Health providers at the Winding Waters Medical Clinic give these bags to families at each scheduled well-baby visit.

 

  • Developmental screenings and intervention: The development screenings were integrated into the workflow of the clinic so that medical providers had the time and training to administer the developmental questionnaire. Building Healthy Families staff assemble kits containing materials and instructions for developmentally appropriate and supportive activities for families to do at home; the clinic then hands out these kits to families during medical visits.

 

  • Reach out and Read: The collaboration has implemented this national early literacy model in Wallowa County. Winding Waters Clinic providers are helping to provide new books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud.

 

  • Parenting education: The clinic and Building Healthy Families work together to help provide parents and caregivers with a range of parenting education opportunities, including home visits through Healthy Families Oregon.
    The results of the work and collaboration are often remarkable. For example, before the collaboration began, Liz says, about 30 percent of the clinic’s young patients were getting developmental screenings. Six months after the partnership began, that figure became 85 percent, she says.

 

Collaboration in Wallowa connects health to early learning

Liz Powers with a family in her clinic.

 But the partnership is about much more than the programs. It is a continual mission of connecting healthy development with early learning. That means, for instance, Winding Waters Clinic often introduces a pregnant mother to Building Healthy Families staff before her child is born.

“In primary care, one of the things that we found to be most impactful in improving patient’s health is continuity and trust with the provider,” says Liz. “When we’re able to introduce our patients and families to Building Healthy Families during pregnancy, that gets them engaged in that young child’s life before they’re even born. It means that they’re willing to engage in programs as they grow up and develop.”

Six years later, many of the “what-if” goals Liz and Maria sketched out at that kitchen table have become reality.

“I think one of the most frustrating things about being a doctor is knowing and caring for a family and not being able to make things better for them,” Liz says. “One of the great joys of our partnership with Building Healthy Families is that we’re able to touch people in a way that’s outside of our traditional walls, outside of the standard medicine. And it’s such a reward to watch those families thrive.”

 

Thirty Million Words: A Conversation with Dr. Dana Suskind

by | Mar 23, 2016 | Dual Language Learners, Parents and Families

We recently spoke with Dr. Dana Suskind, founder and director of the Thirty Million Words Initiative, about what inspired her to become an expert on early language development. She also shares some advice on how families can support young children to develop language skills.

Dr. Suskind will give the keynote address at our annual Make It Your Business lunch, on April 12. Register today to attend and hear more about her work with young children.

A Conversation with Dr. Dana Suskind Dr. Suskind is professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medicine and co-author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain. For nearly ten years, she has been committed to closing the opportunity gap by creating language programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

CI: Describe how the famous 1995 study by researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley inspired the Thirty Million Words Initiative. Were its findings born out in your own pediatric work?

Dr. Suskind: I began my surgical career as a pediatric head and neck surgeon specializing in cochlear implantation. I soon discovered that even a successful cochlear implant didn’t always mean future success for the child in learning to speak or understand language. It was the same surgery, the same gift of hearing, but it had dramatically different results. My search to understand why led me to the concept of the 30-million-word gap. In their seminal research, Hart and Risley found that children of lower socioeconomic status heard about 30 million fewer words by their fourth birthday than their more affluent peers. This profound disparity has a negative impact on everything from literacy and spatial relations, school readiness and academic attainment, to self-regulation and grit. When I took the Hippocratic Oath as a pediatric surgeon, I understood that it meant my obligation to my patient didn’t end when I finished operating; it ended when my patient was well. I knew it was time for me to step out of the comfortable world of the operating room into the wider world of social science in order to truly effect a change for our nation’s children. That is what led to the Thirty Million Words Initiative.

CI: We know that parents are a child’s first teacher. Can you explain the role parents/families play in a child’s first few years?

Dr. Suskind: The most important thing any parent can do for their children is have conversations with them, starting the day they are born. Genetics supplies the blueprints for our potentials, but reaching that potential is largely determined by how much parents talk and interact with their children in the first three years of life. Parent responsiveness and the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions are critical for a child’s optimal brain development. Creating a rich early language environment involves using greater variation in vocabulary, more syntactic complexity, asking open-ended questions, and eliciting a child’s response.

CI: Your background and continued role as a physician while leading this initiative brings to light a focus for the Children’s Institute: the connection between health and learning for young children. From your perspective, do healthy development and education go hand in hand? If so, how?

Dr. Suskind: Absolutely. Language is a social determinant of both health and educational outcomes. Brain research reveals that 85 percent of physical brain development occurs in the first three years of life, but much of that brain development is caregiver dependent. Without sufficient social nutrition (i.e., rich language environments, parent-child attachment, caregiver responsiveness and adult-child exchange), the vast potential of the brain is diminished and the rate of learning and intellectual capacity severely curtailed. Brain research further reveals that the impact of early language environments and parent-child relationships are far-reaching, affecting social-emotional development and the development of regulatory and executive function skills that impact long-term well-being. Current research demonstrates long-term health benefits from early childhood interventions, including the significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, such as stroke and diabetes, in participants thirty years post-intervention. The stimulation, or lack thereof, that all children experience in their earliest years affects not only their educational trajectories, but their long-term health and well-being as well.

CI: How would you advise families who aren’t part of the initiative to learn from what you’re finding? What can they do on their own?

Dr. Suskind: The most important — and astoundingly simple — thing you can do for your child’s future success in life is to talk to him or her. We recommend using the following strategies, known as the 3Ts: Tune In, Talk More, and Take Turns. Tune In is about making a conscious effort to notice, focus, and respond to what your child is communicating. A child who receives constant Tuning In is likely to stay engaged longer, initiate communication, and ultimately, learn more easily. Talk More is focused on building your child’s vocabulary with descriptive words. Take Turns is the most valuable for a child’s developing brain. You want to engage your child in a conversational exchange. Using open-ended questions or asking a simple “how” or “why” allows your child to respond with a wide range of words, thoughts, and ideas.

CI: What role can schools and teachers, health care providers, and child care providers play in helping young children succeed?

Dr. Suskind: We all play an important role. Language impacts children’s social-emotional development as much as it shapes their intellectual capacity. When teachers and practitioners take turns talking with children, they model important social skills: listening, waiting for the response, expanding upon what was said, asking clarifying questions, among others. Research reveals that when learning a task happens in person — and not via a digital device — children are able to imitate the action with little or no difficulty. Children’s brains learn best from social interaction.

CI: What should the federal government or state governments be doing? Are there public policies that would help Thirty Million Words or similar interventions be replicable throughout the nation?

Dr. Suskind:National leaders need to understand that learning begins on the first day of life, not the first day of school. Far too often our efforts have focused on remediation rather than prevention, with only isolated pockets of success. We need to proactively intervene in the earliest years, beginning at birth, and ensure children’s optimal brain development as the foundation for future success in life. We need everyone to help spread this important message to more parents, educators, and policy makers.