Implementing Change

Program Elements

Through visiting programs, interviewing staff and parents, observing centers in operation, and reviewing surveys, CSSP staff identified specific programmatic elements that build Protective Factors. They are:

Promoting Social and Emotional Development of Children

Staff Leadership to Create Relationships that Protect Children

Mental Health Services

Including Men

Physical Space

Early care and education programs also use seven program strategies to build Protective Factors.

Parent Partnerships

Parent Roles: Handouts

Parent Engagement Strategies: Baseball

In 2001, the Center for the Study of Social Policy asked individuals across the country to nominate exemplary early care and education programs that support families as well as children. More than 100 program nominations were received from 38 states. After extensive review of the 100 programs, 25 programs received intensive 2-day site visits. More than 250 parents in programs across the country participated in focus groups. As a result of this research, 21 exemplary programs were identified.

Exemplary programs build protective factors around children to reduce child abuse and neglect. These early childhood programs intentionally strengthen families as well as educate children.

For detailed information about these exemplary programs, click the links below and download pdf site summaries. Selected staff members from the exemplary programs are part of a national network of technical assistance providers that are being developed to help states, localities and individual programs in implementing this approach.

Addison County Parent / Child Center (Middlebury, VT)
Child Development Program (Albuquerque, NM)
Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center (Washington, DC)
Carole Robertson Center (Chicago, IL)
Early Childhood Mental Health Program (San Francisco, CA)
Educare Center (Chicago, IL)
Family and Children Educational Services (Brunswick, GA)
Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center (Fairfax, CA)
Fort Belvoir Child Development Programs (Fort Belvoir, VA)
Haitian Center Early Care and Education Program (Dorchester, MA)
Leelanau Children’s Center (Leland, MI)
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House Early Childhood Center (New York, NY)
Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc. (Maui, HI)
Montclair Community Pre-K (Montclair, NJ)
Parents and Children Together (Honolulu, HI)
Palm Beach County Head Start (West Palm Beach, FL)
Region 19 (El Paso, TX)
Children of the Rainbow (San Diego, CA)
Sauk Rapids-Rice Early Childhood Family Program (Sauk Rapids, MN)
Sheltering Arms Early Education and Family Centers (Atlanta, GA)
South of Market Child Care, Inc. (San Francisco, CA)