[HM2Viking]

Improving the Odds for Young Children tracks policies to:

• Promote healthy development—access to health care for young children, their parents, and pregnant women; to nutrition programs; and to address mental health and other barriers parents of young children face.
• Promote high-quality early care and education—access to high-quality child care, responsive to the special needs of infants and toddlers; and access to prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds.
• Promote effective parenting—to ensure that parents/mothers have time to build a relationship with their young children, especially infants, while maximizing family resources.

This three-part framework reflects the multiple supports young children need to thrive. Within each area, the policy choices identify key policy steps that states can take to improve the odds for early success. The policy choices are not a complete list of options for policymakers (see Methodology text box). Rather, they are a baseline intended to stimulate a dialogue, both within the states and nationally, about how to make more strategic, coherent investments in young children.

http://nccp.org/publications/pub_725.html

http://nccp.org/publications/pdf/download_165.pdf

http://nccp.org/publications/pdf/download_166.pdf