December 2011
14 posts
Babies and the Budget, FY 2012
Babies in Early Head Start (EHS) can sleep more soundly at naptime as the Congress has reached agreement on Fiscal Year 2012 spending that will sustain the expansion of EHS and Head Start that began with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Final passage came on Saturday, averting a government shutdown. Overall, early care and learning was clearly a priority in the portion of the...
Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Grants...
A tone of excitement and encouragement filled the room at the White House event this morning, as early learning experts gathered to hear Arne Duncan and Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretaries of Education and Health and Human Services, respectively, announce the recipients of the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge grants. The nine winning states - California, Delaware, Maryland,...
Blogging NTI: The Last Round-Up, Part II
So many sessions, so little space and time! Here are a few more summaries from our enthusiastic reporters at ZERO TO THREE’s National Training Institute, which concluded last Sunday.
Two of our correspondents sent back reports on sessions about quality in home visiting programs:
The Essence of High-Quality Home Visiting Practices
Is it possible there could be three women with more...
Blogging NTI: The Last Round-Up, Part I
ZERO TO THREE’s 26th National Training Institute (NTI) came to a close Sunday as conference attendees regretfully headed out from the Gaylord Conference Center to return home. Once again, NTI proved to be a special gathering of a multi-disciplinary group of infant-toddler professionals whose appetite for research to support their practices and information about “how to’s” from others conducting...
Blogging NTI: Saturday’s Question of the Day
Our NTI Policy Question of the Day for Saturday invited our attendees to play off a favorite Sunday morning ritual in Washington, watching the Chris Matthews Show. At the end of the show, Matthews always asks his panel of reporters and pundits to “Tell me something I don’t know” and provide an insight to the future. We asked folks who stopped by the Policy Booth to play the pundit and tell us...
Research Plenary: Dr. Charles Zeanah Presents...
The NTI recommenced Saturday morning with a research plenary by Dr. Charles Zeanah of Tulane University in New Orleans. The plenary would focus on the effects of early experiences – in this case, deprivation – on brain development. Despite the early hour, the ballroom was packed with coffee-toting participants: sitting on the floor and standing in the back.
Dr Zeanah discussed his Bucharest...
Blogging NTI: Friday Sessions on Evidence-Based...
Two sessions on the first full day of the National Training Institute (NTI) focused on evidence-based practice. Increasingly, policy making focuses on approaches that are evidence-based. But where is that taking us and what do policymakers and the rest of us need to understand? Both sessions argued for avoiding a one-dimensional approach to using research evidence to mold programs and losing the...
Blogging NTI: Notes from Sessions
Laughter, tears, sharing, listening, and song, in addition to a wealth of information, all were experienced in the rich array of sessions open to NTI attendees on Friday. The Baby Policy Blog could not be everywhere at once, so enlisted the aid of many correspondents to report back on what they learned—and what moved them—in these gatherings. We promised you the NTI experience, so here are...
Blogging NTI: Friday’s Question of the Day
To get some feedback from the infant-toddler professionals attending NTI about what is important for policymakers to know, we’re asking the “Question of the Day”. On Friday, the question was “If you could take your Congressional representative to one session at NTI, which one would it be and why?”
We anticipated a wide range of responses. After all, when we started marking sessions we wanted to...
Blogging NTI: Vincent Felitti Shows that Early...
The seeds of many of our most common and intractable public health problems are sown early in life through adverse experiences that surface years later as chronic disease, addiction, and destructive behavior, Dr. Vincent Felitti told a packed house at the NTI luncheon plenary. Dr. Felitti described the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, which looked at the early experiences of over 17,000...
Blogging NTI: The Virtual Policy Booth
The ZERO TO THREE Policy Center booth is always the center of activity at the National Training Institute (NTI)—well, maybe we’re a little biased. Conference attendees stop by to pick up materials, take part in our annual advocacy activity, and grab a piece of candy for a pick-me-up between sessions. Now you can visit the policy booth, too, and help yourself to its offering (except for the candy)....
Bryan Samuels Gives a Call to Action at the Policy...
At 8 o’clock this morning the Maryland Ballroom filled with 1,600 people to hear Bryan Samuels, Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services speak about young children involved in America’s child welfare system. Mr. Samuels discussed his own experience leading the child welfare system in Illinois as well...
Blogging NTI: A Return to the Neighborhood (and...
The 26th National Training Institute (NTI) has begun! The opening plenary fittingly featured Dr. Deborah Phillips guiding us back to the neighborhood and the brain development that occurs there, last visited in the seminal work, From Neurons to Neighborhoods, which she co-edited in the year 2000 This work was the springboard for many of the policy achievements for infants and toddlers in the last...
Countdown to NTI
This Thursday, December 8, ZERO TO THREE will kick off its 26th National Training Institute (NTI) here in Washington, DC. This year’s theme is “Connecting Science, Policy, and Practice,” so its content will be particularly relevant to infant-toddler advocates. If you can’t be with us at NTI, the Policy Baby Blog will bring NTI to you. Throughout the conference, which lasts through December 11,...