Publications
Key Learnings from First 5 Contra Costa Listening Tour
From March to July 2025, First 5 Contra Costa partnered with the Continuous Improvement Rapid Cycle Learning and Evaluation (CIRCLE) team of the Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC) to co-develop and implement a strategic planning data collection project. Based on our findings, we outline opportunities for First 5 Contra Costa, and other local organizations, to explore in order to reach and serve more families with children under 6 in the county.
Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative & Stanford FIND Foundations Pilot
The collaboration between Stanford Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) and the Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative (NECC) represents an exciting achievement in professional development for the early childhood workforce in Nebraska.
Solving the Early Childhood Program Evaluation Paradox: Re-envisioning Evidence via the CIRCLE Framework
Despite decades of investment in early childhood programs and an evidence base demonstrating their positive impacts, the field continues to face significant challenges in the selection and implementation of evaluation methodology.
The Continuous Improvement Rapid Cycle Learning and Evaluation (CIRCLE) framework embraces a continuum of evaluation approaches, prioritizes understanding of impact variation, and emphasizes greater precision in theories of change.
Key Learnings about Peopleʼs Community Clinicʼs Early Childhood Programs
A review of data at People’s Community Clinic in Austin, Texas shows promise in integrating early relational health into well child visits. People’s offers programs to support parents and caregivers, and providers are intentionally bringing ERH into conversations during screenings. Pediatric well child care, with its frequent preventive visits over the first 3 years of life, offers a tremendous opportunity to support parents/caregivers in setting their children on a trajectory for lifetime health and well-being.
FIND Professional Development in Colorado
The Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) offers FIND-PD as a training opportunity for early childhood professionals in the state. Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) is an evidence-based video coaching model based at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood that strengthens responsive caregiving and promotes healthy child development. This end-of-year report summarizes implementation efforts, findings, and outcomes from the collaboration with CDEC from May 2024 through June 2025.
The SFUSD Shoestrings Program
The San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) Shoestrings program is an innovative, community-designed early childhood intervention to address racial disparities in discipline and special education. This analysis can inform efforts by district leaders wrestling with high rates of, and disparities in, exclusionary school discipline and special education, practitioners seeking to design and implement similar programs, and researchers conducting similar evaluation studies of interventions to disrupt the preschool-to-prison pipeline.
Evaluation of the National Expansion of PBS SoCal’s Family Math Initiative
PBS SoCal originally designed Family Math to provide families in the Greater Los Angeles Area and Southern California with bilingual, free, play-based tools to engage in math learning in everyday contexts. After expanding the initiative nationwide, PBS SoCal partnered with the Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC) to evaluate the implementation and impact of Family Math programming in Alabama and Arizona.
Strengthening Foundations: Advancing Early Childhood Systems in Alameda County
This case study focuses on First 5 Alameda County and its progress in building a network of interconnected policies, programs, services and supports for young children and their families. The case study was created as a learning tool for practitioners, leaders and students with the aim of contributing to broader systemic change in early childhood policy and practice.
Early Childhood x Oakland, CA
Healing a community involves taking into account the social and historical forces that affect relationships between caregivers and children. Bringing community members together to draft statements of principles may seem like a purely intellectual exercise, but the process of finalizing these documents can say a lot about the community’s values and visions.
Early Childhood x Bridgeport, CT
A trailblazing new program at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Conn., combines prerequisite training for doula certification with instruction toward becoming a community health worker. It's challenging long-standing barriers to maternal health. When people with lived experience acquire professional certification, their perspectives can help shift systems.
The New Ecology of Early Childhood: Revisiting Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in the Context of Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities
A constellation of conditions currently exists that is impacting the ecosystems of young children in unprecedented ways and leading to new challenges for children and the adults in their lives. We refer to these conditions as the New Ecology of Early Childhood. With a sense of urgency, we outline five recommendations for both public and private action.
Early Childhood x Guilford County, NC
Using an integrated data system, community-based organizations in Guilford County, North Carolina are able to serve families better by linking records and providing insight into past needs and service history.
The RAPID Survey: An Innovative Tool for Elevating Parent and Provider Voices in Early Childhood
Born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, RAPID subsequently evolved into a platform that gathers actionable data to advance science and inform data-driven, evidence-based early childhood policy, practice, and systems.
Early Childhood x Memphis, TN
To gain a better understanding of the context for the relationships shaping the young minds of Memphis, First 8 Memphis went to the experts – the adults in their lives.
Early Childhood x Detroit, MI
Swartz’s visit to Detroit’s Cody Rouge neighborhood, photographed by Zak Bratto, reveals a cohesive network of nonprofits partnering with families to come up with and realize plans to build agency and power.
Early Childhood x Gering, NE
In western Nebraska, author Mark Swartz and photographer Jeff van Patten discover community efforts engaging business and political leadership to participate in strategies for meeting the demand for high-quality child care.
Introducing: ECX
By Philip Fisher and Joan Lombardi
Communities everywhere are turning their focus to ways in which they can support young children and the adults in their lives. Early Childhood X (ECX) was created to celebrate and amplify these transformative place-based efforts.
From Program to Place: A Community Systems Approach to Supporting Young Children and Families
A core principle of child development is the strong belief that the developing child is shaped by their family, the surrounding community and the policies that affect them.
by J. Lombardi
Using Wearable Sensors in Practice
A user guide for collecting data on parental inputs and child development using wearable devices.
by N. Tomaselli, L. Dzekedzeke, G. Lichand, and J. Phuka
Climate and Young Children Webinar Series
This takeaway guide highlights the challenges raised by panelists during the September 2023 webinars, and offers ways to engage with the effects of extreme weather and climate change at the policy, community, and family levels.