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Build: Strong Foundations for Our Youngest Children

Mission: The Build Initiative is a multi-state partnership that helps states construct a coordinated system of programs, policies and services that responds to the needs of young children and their families.  It does this by supporting those who set policies, provide services, and advocate for children from birth through age five so that our youngest children are safe, healthy, eager to learn, and ready to succeed in school.  Build serves as a catalyst for change and a national resource on early learning.


Work: Build states identify and achieve measurable outcomes in areas such as infrastructure development, quality improvement, evaluation, financing, and public engagement. A lead organization in each state engages a diverse team of stakeholders in planning and implementing strategies to create statewide early learning systems.  Drawn from the public and private sectors, the stakeholder teams are comprised of state agency officials, service providers, business and community leaders, parents, advocates and others who work with children.

Flexibility is a hallmark of Build.  The initiative recognizes that states must meet their goals in diverse ways, based on their unique history, political climate, leadership, resources, capacity and public will.  Although the specific work in each state varies, the Build Initiative does not focus on providing direct services but on connecting programs and infrastructure into a coordi¬nated system of policies and services. 


Reach: The Build Initiative currently funds work in eight states – Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.  States have received funding (in varying amounts) to support efforts that move forward their early childhood system building agendas. The Build Initiative provides this funding and ongoing technical assistance to support the states in:

• Reforming existing state systems
• Testing new models
• Connecting and coordinating programs and services
• Helping to ensure that all young children have access to early learning systems that result in school readiness

The Build Initiative is committed to increasing the understanding of effective strategies for building an early learning system through the creation of a vibrant learning community.  Build facilitates opportunities among the Build states and other “learning community” states to join national experts and others in exchanging information, sharing ideas and discussing the challenges they are facing.  Learning opportunities take many forms, using multiple communications tools, including Internet technology, conference calls, multi-state discussions, national and regional meetings, and written materials. Learning community participants include public and private sector leaders who are working to advance the early learning agenda in their states.  They can engage in activities that best fit their needs and interests. 


Strengthening Families: This year the Build Learning Community began a new strand of work focused on family strengthening and child abuse and neglect prevention.  Supported by a planning grant from the Doris Duke Foundation, Build is taking the initial steps to introduce the family strengthening model to Build states, better understand the current climate around these issues, and develop a plan for helping our states move forward in integrating family strengthening and child abuse and neglect prevention into the early learning system building work.

In 2008, Build will create learning community events to inform Build state teams about the family strengthening model and the progress being made around the country.  In four Build states, an assessment is underway to better understand the progress, best practices and challenges states are facing in integrating family strengthening and child abuse and neglect prevention into their system building agendas. 


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