Early Learning Communities is an approach to build a national movement of local early childhood leaders and organizations working to ensure young children get a strong start, and families have the support they need to thrive.
Across the country, CSSP partners with a diverse range of communities where parents and caregivers, service providers, community organizations, and public partners work together to ensure that all young children and families have equitable access to affordable childcare, education, and supports.
CSSP supports participating communities in building more coordinated, equitable early childhood systems that are grounded in the knowledge, priorities, and leadership of families and local stakeholders.
Our Approach
Early Learning Communities support local leaders to design and drive solutions that improve the health, school readiness, and well-being of families with young children (prenatal through age 8).
Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model, CSSP works alongside communities to strengthen existing efforts by building shared goals, improving cross-sector coordination, and supporting more inclusive decision-making structures. This approach is grounded in the belief that sustainable and equitable systems change happens when local leaders and families co-design priorities, align resources, and lead implementation based on community-defined needs and lived experience.
Local leaders guide this work, while CSSP provides tools, technical assistance, coaching, facilitation, and resources to support implementation and learning.
CSSP supports a growing network of communities working toward equitable outcomes for children and families, shaped by local priorities and lived experience. Our shared focus is on:
- Equity in outcomes and access
- Strong partnerships with families
- More coordinated, responsive early childhood systems
CSSP partners with communities and organizations to provide the following supports through customized technical assistance and consulting partnerships:
- Support to assess their local early childhood ecosystem to identify opportunities for improvement
- Guidance to develop a shared community action plan to improve child and family outcomes
- Tailored technical assistance that integrates coaching, facilitation, and tools and frameworks to support learning and implementation
- Opportunities to strengthen parent leadership and cross-sector collaboration
- Peer learning and shared problem-solving through a national network of communities
- Support to use CSSP’s Early Learning Community Action Guide and Digital Assessment Tool to guide assessment and planning
Interested in partnering with CSSP? View “Get Involved” below to learn more.
Transform Early Childhood Systems with Parents at the Center
Join a 15-month cohort that equips communities and parent leaders with funding, tools, and support to strengthen local early childhood systems and drive meaningful change.
Funding available for participating communities and parent leaders.
Additional Resources
The vision of an Early Learning Community is a community where all young children get a great start, setting the foundation for lifelong success and well-being.
Early Learning Communities are not a fixed designation, but an ongoing process where communities continuously work toward strengthening systems, deepening collaboration, and improving outcomes for children and families. Any community working toward these shared goals is part of this effort, regardless of their stage of development or the approaches they use
Early Learning Communities align efforts around three key outcomes:
- All new and expectant parents and young children are healthy.
- All children are ready to thrive in school.
- All children live in strong, positive, and nurturing families and communities.
The Early Learning Community Action Guide and Assessment Tool supports communities in assessing their current early childhood system and identifying opportunities for improvement across four key Building Blocks:
- Community leadership, commitment, and public will to make early childhood a priority;
- Quality services that work for all young children and their families;
- Neighborhoods where families can thrive; and
- Policies that support and are responsive to families.
These building blocks help communities identify strengths, gaps, and priorities for coordinated action.
Early Learning Communities are led by local communities, with parents, caregivers, providers, and cross-sector partners working together to guide priorities and decision-making. Communities identify local goals, shape strategies, and lead implementation based on their own context and lived experience, with CSSP providing support through tools, facilitation, and coaching.
Decision-making is shared across community partners, with parents, caregivers, providers, and cross-sector leaders meaningfully engaged in shaping priorities, strategies, and implementation. Communities determine how decisions are made locally, and these structures may evolve over time based on trust, capacity, and context. Communities also move from planning to action by implementing and adapting strategies grounded in local priorities and lived experience, with CSSP providing tools, facilitation, coaching, and opportunities for shared learning.
A set of three core values guides how CSSP engages communities in this work:
- Equity: Achieving well-being outcomes for all young children requires intentional effort focused on equity. That means understanding the current and historical conditions in the community that contribute to disparities among different populations, and how those conditions affect families.
- Parent Voice: Parents and caregivers—particularly those from marginalized and underserved communities—are respected and supported as partners, leaders, and advocates. Through inclusion and collaboration with parents, communities can be transformed by the families who have a nuanced understanding of the opportunities for change in their own neighborhoods and the systems they’ve experienced firsthand.
- Accountability: Clearly defining the community’s goals from the beginning and identifying and gathering different types of data that will show where you started and whether progress is being made toward those goals. With continuous attention to whether efforts are achieving the desired results and moving the community closer to its vision for families and young children.
The Early Learning Community Action Guide and Assessment Tool is designed to support local leaders—from mayors and executive directors to parents and service providers—through a process of assessing how well their community is currently supporting early learning, and developing an action plan to make improvements in one or more of the building block areas.
Interested in helping your community become an Early Learning Community?
- Download the Early Learning Community Action Guide and Assessment Tool
- Create an account and see if your community is already registered in the digital Early Learning Community Assessment Tool
The Team
Our Experts
Esther Hernández
Senior Program Analyst
Danielle M. Sherman, MPH, RCHES
Senior Program Analyst
Arthur Fidel Argomaniz
Senior Program Analyst
Juanita Gallion
Director of Capacity Building and Leadership Development
