11-ECI Division Background and Portfolio Overview.pdf

Harris County - Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity Early Childhood Initiatives (ECI)

Harris County - Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity

Early Childhood Initiatives (ECI)

Background of Early Childhood Initiatives

Early Childhood Impact Funds - ECIF

High Quality Affordable Child Care and Out of School Learning

Early REACH

Early Learning Quality Network

CASE for Kids / County Connections

SHINE

Early Childhood Impact Funds – The Alliance Home-Based Child Care Program

Early Childhood Educator Workforce

ACCTS

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Centers of Excellence (COE)

Vulnerable Populations

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Kids’ Meals Inc

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Safe Babies

RISE

Inspire

Resiliency Fund

Helping Hands

Parent Education

Early Childhood Impact Funds – upWORDS

Early Childhood Impact Funds –Rupani Foundation

Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development (RAPID)

Harris County – ECI Program Summary Table

Background of Early Childhood Initiatives Early Childhood Initiatives (ECI) was established in 2022 by the Commissioners Court as a priority for allocating American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for COVID-19 relief. In December 2023, ECI was moved from the Office of County Administration to the Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity. With a total investment of $150M of ARPA funds, ECI is dedicated to supporting early childhood programs that address critical community needs. The team consists of a Director, Associate Director, two Senior Managers, three Managers, and two Analysts. ECI collaborates with community partners to implement and support programming focused on five key areas:

1. High Quality Affordable Child Care via access to programming.

2. A Thriving Early Childhood Educator Workforce through work and professional development opportunities.

3. Vulnerable Populations afforded equitable opportunities.

4. Parent Education through utilization of programs and practices that promote healthy early childhood development.

5. Data and Analysis via utilization of resources and opportunities to inform Early Childhood stakeholders of critical information.

For information about each program being implemented to support these five focus areas visit the ECI Portfolio page.

Early Childhood Impact Funds - ECIF The Early Childhood Impact Fund (ECIF) provides funding to organizations and programs with the goal of dramatically improving early childhood outcomes in Harris County. ECIF funds support diverse programming that could lead to sustainable and scalable early childhood solutions for county residents.

The priorities for ECIF include but are not limited to:

- Quality improvement for child care

- Supporting the health and wellbeing of families and providers

- Improving access to child care in under resourced areas

Six Harris County organizations were awarded ECIF grants, for a total investment of $15.6M: The Alliance Home-Based Child Care Entrepreneurship Program, First3Years, Kids’ Meals, Inc., Rupani Foundation, Collaborative for Children and Texas Children’s Hospital.

RAND is finalizing their impact evaluation on the ECIF programs.

High Quality Affordable Child Care and Out of School Learning

Early REACH Early REACH (Raising Educational Access for Children in Harris County) is a pilot program that uses a contracted slots model to increase providers’ capacity to provide quality child care. The program works with high-quality child care centers to add 800-1,000 new infant and toddler slots that are in, or near, child care deserts and have a high social vulnerability index. The program focuses on low-income families with infants, toddlers, and 3-year-olds who live in high-poverty areas.

Additionally, Early REACH supports high-quality child care environments by requiring a living wage for classroom staff and facilitating good working conditions to reduce teacher turnover. The program also supports strong, durable small businesses by building entrepreneurial practices to support the sustainability of child care.

Harris County has allocated $57.4M to the Early REACH pilot program using ARPA funds. Harris County has sub-contracted BakerRipley, in partnership with United Way of Greater Houston, as the vendor for this project.

Brazelton Touchpoints Center is conducting an evaluation of the program’s quality components, and the University of Houston is conducting an evaluation of the program’s economic components.

For more information visit https://earlyreach.org/.

Early Learning Quality Network The Early Learning Quality Network (ELQN) is a $16.4M initiative funded by ARPA dollars to improve early learning and care in Harris County. Launched in 2023, with funding through 2026, this pilot program aims to build on the unique experiences and strengths of five focal communities through community-led planning and funding, as well as strengthen the early childhood ecosystem to connect caregivers with essential resources. ELQN collaborates with families, childcare providers, and community stakeholders to ensure more children benefit from high-quality early learning tailored to their unique needs.

Harris County implements this work in partnership with:

The Network Support Hub (NSH): As the NSH, CHILDREN AT RISK is responsible for facilitating ongoing Communities of Practice and providing individualized support for the Local Network Organizations. CHILDREN AT RISK administers the Early Learning Quality Network fund, supporting initiatives identified in each local plan. By strategically allocating these funds, the program aims to foster an environment where every child has access to high-quality early childhood.

Local Network Organizations (LNOs): Four LNOs drive community engagement in each focal area, convening local stakeholders to assess the state of child care quality in their neighborhoods and develop a child care quality action plan tailored to the needs of each community. Each LNO focuses on neighborhoods classified as a high quality child care desert.

Each LNO developed a Child Care Quality Action Plan (CCQAP) in partnership with their Advisory Committees and community members to define their area’s early learning and care needs. Based on these plans, a series of quality initiatives will be launched across five focal communities.

School Readiness Consulting is conducting an evaluation of ELQN to understand the initiative’s planning and design, implementation, and community impact over three years. The evaluation has a budget of $1.1M.

For more information visit https://childrenatrisk.org/elqn-data-impact/.

CASE for Kids / County Connections County Connections Youth Summer Initiative supports nonprofit organizations that address the need for youth services during the summer. Initiatives funded by the CASE for Kids / County Connections program provide comprehensive summer programs, short term projects and summer camps at a variety of locations including schools, community centers, apartment complexes and churches. Initiatives are customized to meet community needs of individual Harris County Precincts.

County Connections provides funding to programs selected through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process. Selected programs conduct their own programming, including outreach/recruitment and enrollment.

County Connections has a $7.1M budget.

For more information visit https://www.hcde-texas.org/county-connections.

SHINE

The Harris County Supportive, Healthy, Inspiring, and Nurturing Environments (SHINE) Child Care Facilities Fund seeks to create Harris County’s first facilities-specific funding for child care providers in the region to find support for construction and remodeling of their facilities. With a focus on equitable access, the fund aims to improve the quality of child care in the County. The Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), in partnership with Volunteers of America Texas (VOATX), will administer $13.3M in grant funding to child care facilities to achieve three primary goals:

1. Enhance child care in Harris County

2. Strengthen capacity of partners & child care providers

3. Provide feedback to Harris County on child care facilities needs

SHINE has a total budget of $17.3M.

For more information visit https://www.shineccff.org/.

Early Childhood Impact Funds – The Alliance Home-Based Child Care Program The Alliance Home Based Child Care (HBCC) program aims to close the child care gap in Harris County by providing professional child care training, business development, and instruction services for entrepreneurs, specifically targeting refugee women as child care providers.

The key priorities for The Alliance are to connect refugee communities, close the child care gap for low to moderate income populations, provide opportunities to increase household incomes, and allow parents and/or other caregivers to enter the workforce with safe and consistent child care.

Early Childhood Educator Workforce

ACCTS

The Harris County Accessible Child Care Training & Supports (ACCTS) program is dedicated to enhancing early care and education by investing in the local child care workforce. In partnership with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Children’s Learning Institute (CLI), the program aims to improve job satisfaction and retention by supporting fair compensation and removing barriers to professional development, paving the way for skilled growth and excellence in Harris County’s child care workforce.

The ACCTS program will:

Support up to 500 child care workers in obtaining the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential with free training and a $3,000 stipend.

Provide 5,000 high-quality trainings to meet annual state training requirements.

Offer up to 200 scholarships for specialized certifications in areas like infant and toddler mental health, working with children with disabilities, and assessing quality instruction.

The ACCTS program focuses on three key strategies:

1. CDA Credentialing: Facilitating the attainment of various CDA credentials to improve job satisfaction, reduce burnout, and enhance workforce retention.

2. High-Quality Trainings: Offering evidence-based training options with compensation of up to $50 per session to meet state requirements and improve relevance.

3. Specialized Certifications: Providing scholarships for advanced certifications that enrich expertise, enable career advancement, and increase earning potential.

ACCTS has a $6.9M budget.

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Centers of Excellence (COE) Collaborative for Children is facilitating their Centers of Excellence (COE) Program across Harris County to provide a 3-tier model of support and training for children, families and child care staff.

Child care centers in the Level 1 Model have the highest need, with 50% or more children receiving subsidies. These centers will receive intense on-site and remote intervention along with a professional learning community and access to the Collab-Lab. The COE Level 2 Model provides services to centers that have less than 50% of children receiving subsidies. Their focus is on teacher development, on-demand training, professional learning communities and Collab-Lab visits. The COE Level 3 Model provides pop-up centers to shelters, apartment complexes, community parks and large-scale events to connect families to resources that support social emotional learning and STEAM activities. For more information visit https://collabforchildren.org/.

Vulnerable Populations

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Kids’ Meals Inc Kids’ Meals Inc. provides children relief from severe food insecurity and food deserts in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. The organization aims to end generational poverty by providing children with meals until they reach kindergarten thus negating low school engagement, substandard academic development, and poor emotional and physical health. Kids’ Meals also delivers meals for every child in the home up to age 18 during the summer when most children do not have access to food in a school-based setting. A secondary component of Kids’ Meals is to distribute educational materials, essential information about vital wrap around services and distribute monthly newsletters which detail services and programs offered by collaborative social service partners.

For more information visit https://kidsmealsinc.org/.

Early Childhood Impact Funds – Safe Babies Safe Babies, implemented by First3Years, promotes secure attachments for infants and toddlers in foster care with positive collaboration between birth and foster parents and supporting reunification staff and stakeholders at every level of the foster care system. For more information visit https://first3yearstx.org/

RISE

RISE, in partnership with the Harris Center for Mental Health, supports the continuum of care for young children with disabilities in Harris County through dedicated specialists, early intervention services, and transitional applied behavior analysis transitional services. RISE has a budget of $3.9M.

For more information visit https://www.theharriscenter.org/services/idd-services.

Inspire Inspire, in partnership with the Harris Center for Mental Health, addresses inequities associated with the social determinates of health by providing grants to qualifying families to promote community inclusion and prevent institutionalization. Inspire participants can receive up to $5,000 in financial assistance for assistive technology, learning materials, and/or services directly related to the disability, plus $1,000 for respite care (apx. 100 hours). Inspire has a budget of $4.3M.

For more information visit https://www.theharriscenter.org/services/idd-services.

Resiliency Fund The Early Childhood Resiliency Fund, in partnership with Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council (HCDVCC), aims to reduce the harmful developmental impacts of early exposure to violence by investing in trauma-informed programs and strategies for young children exposed to DV and IPV. The fund seeks to target children aged 0-8 in Harris County, providing therapeutic and developmental interventions to counteract the negative impacts of DV and IPV exposure. Resiliency Fund has a budget of $6.2M.

Helping Hands Harris County Helping Hands, in partnership with the Alliance of Community Assistance Ministries (ACAM), aims to promote the health, wellness, and stability of families with young children in Harris County by increasing participation in safety net programs. The program will aim to enroll 1,000 Harris County residents in eligible public safety net programs.

Safety net programs for Harris County Helping Hands include:

Children's Medicaid Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) CHIP for pregnant women Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) Harris Health Financial Assistance Program (formerly known as the gold card)

Additionally, the program will enhance local organizational expertise and capacity to sustain ongoing enrollment efforts for Harris County residents, addressing participation gaps and fostering continued prosperity with vital support.

Helping Hands has a budget of $2.5M.

Parent Education Early Childhood Impact Funds – upWORDS UpWORDS implemented by Texas Childrens Hospital is a 15-week early language development program which is offered universally to families with children 0-3 years of age. It is a part of the upWORDS Community Model, a tiered framework in which universal and targeted interventions work in tandem to achieve goals of supporting early brain development and reducing developmental disparities in Harris County. In addition, the Community Model also provides training to early care professionals that work with young children on topics including early brain and language development and positive parenting.

For more information visit https://www.texaschildrens.org/departments/upwords-program.

Early Childhood Impact Funds –Rupani Foundation The Rupani Foundation uses community-driven approaches to provide holistic, culturally relevant support programs for resource-limited families parenting or expecting infants and toddlers. By partnering with the Hackett Center for Mental Health and Children’s Museum Houston for their “Thriving Together” program, they hope to amplify their efforts hope to improve relational health between caregivers and young children, build caregiver knowledge and skills for nurturing interactions, and address common feelings of isolation and stress within families facing systemic barriers. For more information visit https://www.rupanifoundationusa.org.

Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development (RAPID) The Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development Survey (RAPID Survey) is an ECI initiative that surveys communities around Harris County on the impacts of covid on families of young children 0- 5 years old. Harris County is partnering with Stanford University, the administrator, and University of Houston’s Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, the facilitator, to implement this survey in Harris County over 2 years. For more information visit https://rapidsurveyproject.com/.

Harris County – ECI Program Summary Table

General Programs (10 Total)

Program Name Funding Amount

Award Dates

Website / Link Evaluation Data Vendor Details

Early REACH (Raising Educational Access for Children in Harris County)

$57.4M Jan 2023- Dec 2026 earlyreach.org Brazelton Touchpoints (child care quality);

University of Houston (economic impact)

Early Learning Quality Network (ELQN)

$17.5M Oct 2023- Nov 2026 childrenatrisk.org/ elqn

School Readiness Consulting; ELQN Year 1 Report

County Connections / CASE for Kids (Center for afterschool, summer and enrichment)

$7.1M March 2023- Dec 2026 hcde-texas.org/county-connections

None

SHINE Child Care Facilities Fund (Supportive, Healthy, Inspiring, and Nurturing Environments)

$17.3M Dec 2023- Dec 2026 shineccff.org Grant Recipient Impact Surveys by LIIF

ACCTS

(Accessible Child Care Training Supports)

$6.9M Aug 2024- Dec 2026

CLI ACCTS None

RISE (Responsive Intervention Services & Engagement)

$3.9M March 2024- Oct 2026 theharriscenter.or g

Family Satisfaction Surveys by Harris Center

Inspire $4.3M April 2024- Aug 2026 theharriscenter.or g

Family Satisfaction Surveys by Harris Center

Resiliency Fund $6.2M May 2024- Sep 2026 hcdvcc.org Internal Evaluation by UT Health & Children’s Learning Institute (CLI)

Helping Hands $2.5M April 2024- Dec 2026

N/A (Partner:

acamweb.org)

Internal Evaluation by

ACAM

RAPID Survey N/A March 2023- March 2026 rapidsurveyproject .org

Stanford University & University of Houston

ECIF (Early Childhood Impact Fund)

$15.6M See details in ECIF Table below

See details in ECIF Table below

RAND Corporation

ECIF-Specific Funded Programs (6 Total) Program Name Award Dates Website / Link

Collaborative for Children (Centers of Excellence Sites Only)

May 2023-Sep 2025 collabforchildren.org

Kids’ Meals Inc. June 2023-Dec 2025 kidsmealsinc.org

Safe Babies – First3Years Feb 2022-May 2025 first3yearstx.org

The Alliance – Home-Based Child Care Program Feb 2022-June 2024 N/A

UpWORDS – Texas Children’s Hospital

Nov 2022-July 2026 texaschildrens.org

Rupani Foundation May 2023-July 2025 rupanifoundationusa.org