Strong Start Santa Clara County

08/24/2023

Bay Area business and political leaders neglect a key element of economic success.

08/21/2023

Ensuring children maintain their health insurance coverage is so important to them having a Strong Start. Lets all make sure that the children and families we serve have what they need in order to keep their healthcare.

07/10/2023

The latest findings from the Perry Preschool research team, led by Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman, show that the benefits of high quality ECE continue into the second generation. "Children of the original participants have higher levels of education and employment, lower levels of criminal activity, and better health than children of the controls." You can find the article abstract at

This paper demonstrates the long-term intra- and intergenerational benefits of the HighScope Perry Preschool Project, which targeted disadvantaged African American children. We use newly collected data on the original participants through late middle age and on their children into their midtwenties....

06/15/2023

Here's a great story about innovation in government, engaging in family partnership, and supporting young children right from the start.

Learn how an interagency team co-designed the newborn supply kit with parents and community leaders to meet families’ immediate needs after having a baby.

06/14/2023

Here's promising data from a pilot in CO. Granting $500 per month to home-based providers keeps them in business by helping to smooth out their cash flow.

Angelica Lerrga started caring for children in the basement of her sister’s Colorado home in 2009, after her husband had been deported two years earlier.

06/07/2023

As California expands TK to all four-year-olds, its worth looking at the impact on infant-toddler care, and lessons learned from other parts of the country. New America Foundation has created a brief that does just that.

Children from infancy to pre-K deserve high-quality education and care in a unified birth-to-five system.

04/25/2023

We should plan for childcare facilities the way we plan for schools, parks and roads. That means talking to cities about how they allocate space. Over the next six weeks, Strong Start will be talking to cities about no cost ways they can support family childcare home providers deliver their essential services to children, families, and communities.

These US cities and states are starting think about early childhood facilities the same way they plan for schools and public transportation.

02/28/2023

Santa Clara County's Board of Supervisors is currently discussing $20 million in funding for childcare facilities and workforce development. There has been a lot of public comment and almost half of it has been from Strong Start members! Its wonderful to see community and elected leaders and working together to address this critical need ... and it passes unanimously!

02/03/2023

Our friends Children Now have released their 2023 California Scorecard of Children's Well-being. You can interact with and learn from it at https://scorecard.childrennow.org/?

01/25/2023

Here's a great new resource from the Department of Labor - the National Database of Childcare Prices. An atlas of the cost infant, toddler, preschool, and school-aged center- and home-based care by county. Unsurprisingly the SF Bay Area has some of the highest prices for infant care in the country. You can read the issue brief and explore the data at the link below.

01/18/2023

Hawaii moves towards universal preschool

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii put forward a plan Tuesday to make preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032, which if successful would put the state in a rarified group of states managing to provide pre-kindergarten education to most of its children.

01/17/2023

Here's an op-ed from the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board on why child care needs to be a public policy priority.

This list of must-dos will be a hard sell to the millions of Americans who believe a massive expansion of government spending will either lead to much higher taxes or further balloon the national debt.