Strategies

Establish programs that connect students at risk of dropping out with trained adult mentors who provide ongoing guidance for academic and personal challenges

Use an intensive, family- and community-based intervention that addresses individual, family and environmental risk factors that affect antisocial behaviors among serious juvenile offenders

Support quality improvement efforts in early child care and preschool via financial incentives, standards, processes to monitor standards and ensure compliance, etc.

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social development among young children from families with low incomes, with supports such as home visiting or parental education

Provide publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) education to 3- and 4-year-olds, through large-scale or universal efforts

Increase the minimum and/or maximum age boundaries for youth to be processed in the juvenile justice system

Provide comprehensive early childhood services, including high quality educational child care, health, and family support to address local needs

Support a trauma-informed juvenile justice system to recognize and respond to trauma’s impact on youth through staff training and broad adoption of trauma-informed practices and policies

Place youth with mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges in foster families that provide a structured, nurturing, therapeutic environment; also called Therapeutic Foster Care (TFC)