Strategies

Support home visits that teach parents about early childhood development and effective parenting strategies, with child development screenings, parental meetings, and links to community resources

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

Create a school culture of high behavioral and academic expectations, with intense tutoring, increased teacher performance feedback, lengthened instruction time, and health care services

Partner with doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals to incorporate literacy support into regular well-child visits, especially in lower income communities

Promote abstinence from sexual activity, generally only with mention of condoms and birth control to highlight failure rates

Provide health care services on school premises to attending elementary, middle, and high school students; physical and mental health services provided by teams of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physicians

Provide reproductive health care services such as counseling, contraception, and testing in middle and high school-based health centers

Provide students from public schools, from low income backgrounds, or who have a high risk of dropping out and their families with information about social services and health care supports; also called community resource or family and community liaisons