Supports for expecting parents and families with young children

Before making investments in this strategy, city and county leaders should ensure it addresses local needs.

The Urban Institute and Mathematica have developed indicator frameworks to help local leaders assess conditions related to upward mobility, identify barriers, and guide investments to address these challenges. These indicator frameworks can serve as a starting point for self-assessment, not as a comprehensive evaluation, and should be complemented by other forms of local knowledge.

The Urban Institute's Upward Mobility Framework identifies a set of key local conditions that shape communities’ ability to advance upward mobility and racial equity. Local leaders can use the Upward Mobility Framework to better understand the factors that improve upward mobility and prioritize areas of focus. Data reports for cities and counties can be created here.

Several indicators in the Upward Mobility Framework may be improved with investments in high-quality programs. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Access to healthcare: Ratio of residents to primary care physicians. These data are available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Area Health Resource File.
• Neonatal health: Share of low-weight births. These data are available from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Mathematica's Education-to-Workforce (E-W) Indicator Framework helps local leaders identify the data that matter most in helping students and young adults succeed. Local leaders can use the E-W framework to better understand education and workforce conditions in their communities and to identify strategies that can improve outcomes in these areas.

Several indicators in the E-W Framework may be improved with investments in high-quality programs. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Access to child care subsidies: Percentage of eligible families receiving assistance to pay for child care through subsidies.
• Access to health, mental health, and social supports: Percentage of programs offering health, mental health, and social services, or staff or consultants providing infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) services.
• Mental and emotional well-being: Percentage of youth with mental or emotional health needs as identified by a universal screening tool.
• Physical development and well-being: Percentage of students meeting benchmarks on self-rated surveys of physical health, such as the California Healthy Kids Survey Physical Health & Nutrition module.
• School-family engagement: Percentage of families and percentage of teachers or caregivers reporting positive relationship quality with one another, using a tool such as the Family and Provider/Teacher Relationship Quality (FPTRQ) parent survey.

• Identify a clear target population: Many supports can be tailored to closely match the needs of new and expecting parents; however, those needs vary significantly. Evidence-based programs are often most effective when implemented to serve a specific subpopulation (i.e. teenagers without parental supports). Selecting a focused target population will allow for a more impactful program design and more effective recruitment of clients.
• Prioritize talent recruitment: Many programs require highly trained professionals to deliver a program, such as registered nurses or licensed social workers. Beyond professional qualifications, service providers should be experienced in serving target populations and be able to interact with members of relevant groups with a high degree of cultural competence.
• Partner with community groups: Local schools, faith-based groups, and community-based organizations can be important sources of client referrals, boost public information campaigns, and help inform program design considerations. Local colleges and universities can also be meaningful sources of high-skill talent, particularly among institutions with social work and nursing programs.
• Create flexibility for locating client meetings: High-intensity programs, such as home visiting programs, often require program staff to build up a trusting relationship with a client before the client is comfortable with a home visit. To address this challenge, ensure early client meetings can occur outside of the home, such as in health clinics, community centers, or high schools. Doing so can help increase client retention; at the same time, a more public setting may allow for increased referrals and initial conversations with potential clients.