The Trenton Times published the following opinion piece on July 6, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Opinion: Trenton’s early childhood development programs need funding

By Times of Trenton guest opinion column 
on July 06, 2013 at 6:22 AM, updated July 06, 2013 at 6:23 AM

By Floyd K. Morris Jr.

For 15 straight years, New Jersey has ranked among the nation’s 10 best states in which to raise a child, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count reports. Currently, we’re number five. This should be good news for Trenton, the state’s capital city, right?

Hardly. When it comes to a good environment for kids, Trenton stands out as a capital city that’s been left behind. Here, astonishingly, seven in 10 of our infants and toddlers are not in regular child care settings, including even routine family care. Here, nearly one in five births — up to 300 per year — is to a teenage mother, almost certainly ill-equipped to raise a child. And, here, two in five of our children ages 0-5 live in poverty. Much of Trenton’s environment for young children today creates a pressure cooker for disaster.

Why is this important and, practically speaking, what can be done about it now?
Studies show that at-risk children who do not receive early childhood services are 70 percent more likely than other at-risk kids to be arrested for a violent crime, 50 percent more likely to need expensive special-education programs and 40 percent more likely to become teen parents.

Why? By the time children reach 5 years of age, they have undergone key development in language and adaptive abilities, as well as in social-emotional functioning. Without enough support in these areas, they face a far greater prospect of dropping out of school, subsisting on welfare benefits and committing crime. The first three years can be the most critical.

A large series of studies has found that early childhood interventions improve brain development and health and economic status later in life. “Striking disparities in what children know and can do are evident well before they enter kindergarten, … redressing these disparities is critical,” says the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

Solutions exist. In Atlanta, the East Lake Foundation helped one neighborhood reduce violent crime by 90 percent and achieve more than a fivefold increase in employment, combined with striking education gains. It accomplished these results through a coalition of diverse organizations, including the Atlanta Housing Authority, Drew Charter School, a local YMCA, a new kindergarten and an early childhood learning center.

A report by the Wilder Foundation, issued in June by the Princeton-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America, noted the gains that such “cross-sector” collaborations among health organizations and other groups can achieve. The most important factors in cross-sector collaboration are leadership in building relationships, mutual respect among organizations and a shared vision.

Along similar lines, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in a speech in April, suggested that community leaders must collaborate on health and other areas in order to grow their local economies. “Progress will require multi-pronged approaches that address housing, education, jobs and quality-of-life issues in a coherent, mutually consistent way,” Bernanke said.

Specifically, economists Arthur J. Rolnick and Rob Grunewald say that investment in early childhood education is a great way to spur urban economic growth. They find returns on investment in this area ranging from 7 percent to 18 percent — per year!

Trenton’s needs in early childhood development are clear. The city has approximately 15,000 children ages 0-5, but only 2,000 early education and child development slots exist.

Early childhood development is not simply a matter of building centers. Home visiting programs in which trained nurses help young women during pregnancy and the first two years of their child’s life are especially important, as is teen counseling to prevent pregnancy.

Though relatively modest, some resources are available. The innovative Trenton Health Team is one possible framework for action. Under the initial leadership of city government, hospitals and community organizations created what has become a team to transform health care in the capital city. Its efforts, already substantial, should be expanded and built up to embrace early childhood needs.

In addition, philanthropies and state, county and city agencies should support greater collaborative efforts on behalf of early childhood development. Since 2001, Children’s Futures has been working with partner agencies across Mercer County to ensure that early prenatal care, quality child care, parenting skills and literacy programs are reaching families and children in need. Funding, however, remains a significant challenge to ensuring that agency competition doesn’t trump cooperation.

Floyd K. Morris Jr. is president of Children’s Futures, a nonprofit organization in Trenton whose mission is to improve health and development outcomes for children and their families.