National Collaborative for Infants and Toddlers

Early ChildhoodOct 10 2019

The National Collaborative for Infants and Toddlers (NCIT), a project of the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, is a collaborative of communities, states, and several national partnering organizations, including Child Trends. NCIT partners have committed to advancing policies and programs to ensure that all families have the support they need to give their infants and toddlers a strong foundation for success in school and life. The Collaborative’s ultimate goal is to ensure that 1 million children are on track for school readiness at age three.

Child Trends developed the NCIT Prenatal to Three Outcomes Framework in collaboration with other NCIT partners. Drawing from research-based evidence, the Framework identifies systems-level, policy-/program-level, and child-/family-level outcomes in three goal areas: Healthy Beginnings, Supported Families, and Quality Care and Learning. With a focus on equity at each level, the Framework identifies a set of indicators for child and family outcomes that can be tracked over time by communities and states, as well as policies and programs that are proven to have a strong influence on these outcomes. The foundation for successful policy and program implementation and child- and family-level impact starts with strong, multi-sector, and innovative prenatal to three systems. These include data systems, financing, political will, continuous improvement, coordinated intake and referral, and workforce development. Recommendations for measuring the indicators in the Framework are available in the accompanying Prenatal to Three Data Guidebook.

Child Trends’ NCIT work is focused on bringing the Framework to life through responsive community and state technical assistance, engagement with collaborators, and analysis of school readiness measures. We develop resources, webinars, and presentations for in-person meetings to support participating communities, states, and national partner organizations, while also extending the reach of the Outcomes Framework beyond the NCIT.