Early Matters

Georgia Mjartan joined Early Matters to highlight First Five SC, a pioneering, tech-driven solution transforming how parents in South Carolina access essential services for children under five. Developed by South Carolina First Steps under Georgia's leadership, First Five SC streamlines access to publicly funded services like healthcare, childcare, and nutritional support through an innovative, user-friendly website. 

Before First Five SC, parents had to navigate a confusing and frustrating maze of government bureaucracy to get the help they needed. Now, the initiative provides a simple, centralized digital entry point, cutting through the red tape and putting families at the center of government services.  

The impact has been remarkable. In its first year, over 137,000 families visited the platform, leading to more than 2,400 completed applications. First Five SC was also recognized for its success at the 27th Annual Webby Awards, an internationally respected honor for excellence on the internet. 

Other states are taking note. With support from the newly launched First Five for All initiative, states like Nevada are adopting the model to better serve their communities. By making access to early childhood services more efficient, First Five SC is setting a new standard for how government can better support families. 

About the Guest

Georgia Mjartan is the president and CEO of the Central Carolina Community Foundation. Previously, she served for seven years as executive director of South Carolina First Steps, ensuring that the state’s young children are prepared for school, healthy, and supported by their parents and community. Before joining First Steps, Georgia served for 12 years as executive director of Our House in Little Rock, Arkansas, an anti-poverty program empowering low-income and homeless families and individuals to succeed in the workforce, school, and life. 

Georgia has been recognized for her work by Southern Living Magazine, which named her one of the 2016 “Southerners of the Year.” She has also been named “Nonprofit Executive of the Year,” “Arkansan of the Year,” and a “Woman of Influence” by business journals in Arkansas and South Carolina.  

Relevant Links
South Carolina First Steps:  https://www.scfirststeps.org
First 5 SC:   https://first5sc.org
First Five for All:   https://www.first5forall.org

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Ivana Greco joined the podcast to discuss her proposal for a "GI Bill for Homemakers," targeting mothers and fathers who dedicate themselves to the crucial work of home and community. She compares the career trajectories of Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and William Rehnquist to illuminate obstacles faced by homemakers who are re-entering the paid workforce, arguing that we should treat those who spend time on the “home front” with the kind of support and respect we treat those who serve in the military.  

Greco suggests two main policy areas: providing educational opportunities for parents re-entering the workforce and incentivizing employers to hire those who have been out of the workforce caring for children. Finally, she emphasizes that, in addition to the important work of raising children and caring for the home, homemakers also play a vital role in nurturing community bonds and fostering social interaction. She notes that the mass entry of women into the workforce led to less vibrant communities, underscoring the limitations of a GDP-centric view of societal success.

More info HERE

About the Guest

After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2011, Ivana Greco spent a decade working as a successful attorney, specializing in qualified retirement-plan advising and healthcare litigation. A couple of years ago, she left her paid employment to work as a full-time mother of her three children, caring for a toddler and homeschooling her two young sons. She is also a writer, publishing regularly on family policy and other issues that impact stay-at-home parents, and serves on the Center on Child and Family Policy’s advisory council. 

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Leading family researcher Jenet Erickson joined Early Matters to discuss the complex role of childcare in child, maternal, and family well-being. Erickson describes the evolving landscape of work and family life, with important shifts in both women’s and men’s roles within the home and the workforce. 

She expresses concern about growing policy momentum towards universal childcare, emphasizing the importance of aligning childcare policies with the preferences and needs of families.  Finally, she highlights the paramount importance of strong parent-child relationships for the healthy development of young children. She argues that policy should be driven by recognizing and prioritizing those core relationships. A “work-ist” rather than “family-ist” orientation fails to fulfill the essential human need for deep, bonded connection with other people.

READ MORE HERE: Child Care: What Parents Want — What Children Need (https://www.ccfp.org/ccfp/child-care-what-parents-want-what-children-need-with-jenet-erickson)

About the Guest
Jenet Erickson is a leading family policy researcher focusing on maternal and child well-being in the context of work and family life, and on the distinct contributions of mothers and fathers in children's development. She is a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and at the Wheatley Institution, an associate professor in at Brigham Young University, and has been a columnist on family issues for the Deseret News since 2013. Her work has been featured in in the New York Times, Slate Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, Wall Street Journal, and the Today Show, among others. 

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Dr. Dana Suskind, a pediatric surgeon and early childhood expert, discusses the transformative power of nurturing language environments in children's development and the vital role parents play as architects of their children’s brains. Highlights of the conversation include: 

• Starting at birth, the back-and-forth exchanges between parents and young children, both verbal and nonverbal, form the building blocks of brain development. Through nurturing talk and interaction, parents shape children's capacity in a broad range of areas, including literacy, math, spatial reasoning, behavior regulation, ability to cope with stress, perseverance, and even moral development. 
• Pediatricians should play a much larger role in helping parents understand their powerful influence on their child's development, starting at birth. A public health approach to early childhood that integrates perinatal care and pediatric practice could greatly improve early development outcomes. 
• Artificial-intelligence "assistants" will soon have the capacity to provide responsive, back-and-forth interaction in both home and childcare settings. Yet, we must proceed with caution in using AI with young children. Scientists do not fully understand the underlying processes of foundational brain development, and this kind of new technology could potentially change the architecture of children's rapidly-forming human brains. 

Relevant Work

• Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child's Potential, Fulfilling Society's Promise 
• Thirty Million Words: Building a Child's Brain 

About the Guest
 
Dr. Dana Suskind is a pediatric surgeon at the University of Chicago Medical Center who specializes in hearing loss and cochlear implantation. She is also a social scientist and nationally-recognized thought leader in children's early language development.

Dr. Suskind directs the University of Chicago Medical Center's Pediatric Hearing Loss and Cochlear Implant program. She is the founder and co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, which aims to create a population-level shift in the knowledge and behavior of parents to better support their children's foundational brain development from birth to age three, especially those born into poverty. 

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Summary
Katharine talks with Ivana Greco about her unusual path from successful, Harvard-educated attorney to full-time "stay-at-home mom," caring for her toddler and homeschooling her two young sons. Their conversation illuminates the often-overlooked societal importance and personal fulfillment of full-time parenting. 

Key points include:

• Why Ivana dislikes the term "stay-at-home mom" and thinks "homemaker" better characterizes that essential role.
• The limitations of GDP in capturing the value of individual production and the false dichotomy between pro-GDP and pro-family positions.
• Historical significance of the "housewife," and the critical role homemakers have long played in the economic and social fabric of a thriving society.
• The technological and cultural forces that led to devaluation of work at home.
• Policy solutions to better support homemakers, including reforms to Social Security and providing on-ramps back into the workforce.

Relevant Work

• The Job for Which All Others Exist: Let’s Bring Back the Term “Homemaker"
• When Moms Lean Out, Government Should Lean In
• Valuing Homemaking: Against GDP Growth Fundamentalism
• Jobs for Homemaker Parents: Exploring "Serial Careers
• Dual-Income Families' Time Crunch: Why Support Families that Want a Stay-at-Home Parent?

About the Guest

After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2011, Ivana Greco spent a decade working as a successful attorney, specializing in qualified retirement-plan advising and healthcare litigation. A couple of years ago, she left her paid employment to work as a full-time mother of her three children, caring for a toddler and homeschooling her two young sons. She is also a writer, publishing regularly on family policy and other issues that impact stay-at-home parents.

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Dr. Phil Fisher discusses his pioneering work on the effects of early stressful experiences on young children’s development. He explains the importance of responsive and sensitive care in early childhood, and how an absence of nurturing care can have long-lasting negative effects on children’s neurobiological and psychological development. He also discusses why the well-being of parents is essential to the well-being of their young children and highlights the negative impact of unpredictability along with inadequate material conditions on parental well-being and, thus, on child development.

Finally, Dr. Fisher describes findings from two projects he runs: the RAPID survey, which has gathered information on parent and child well-being since 2020, and the Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) program, which uses video coaching to help parents increase positive, responsive interactions with their young children.

Relevant Work

• RAPID Survey Project
• Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND)

About the Guest

Dr. Phil Fisher is an early childhood researcher, widely recognized for his work on the effects of early stressful experiences on children's neurobiological and psychological development. His pioneering work focuses on developing and evaluating scalable early childhood interventions for socially and economically marginalized communities, and on translating scientific knowledge on mitigating the effects of prenatal and early life stress on children’s development for use in social policy and programs.

He recently founded the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, based at Stanford University, which is a new interdisciplinary hub bringing together experts from a broad range of fields to advance research and strategies to support young children’s learning and development.

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Ross Thompson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Davis joins Early Matters to discuss his decades of research in early development, and his new book, The Brain Development Revolution: Science, the Media, and Public Policy. 

Professor Thompson explains current scientific understanding of developmental neuroscience and the insights it provides into early childhood brain development. He also describes findings from decades of behavioral research on children’s thinking, learning, reasoning, language, memory, and emotional development, and explains why integrating the science of brain and of mind is important to advancing understanding of early development.

He recounts his new book's fascinating exploration of how ongoing, highly-coordinated public messaging campaigns led to the dominance of brain science in  early childhood policy debates over the past few decades, and highlights the distinction between science and values in shaping public policy. Finally, he emphasizes our moral obligation to support children’s well-being, calling for a focus on children as individuals rather than as future contributors to the economy.

Key Takeaways

• Neuroscience and behavioral psychology provide complementary but distinct bodies of knowledge about early development. Integrating these two fields — the science of brain and of mind — is crucial to advancing understanding of early development.
• Ongoing, sophisticated public messaging campaigns led to the current dominance of brain science in early childhood policy debates. 
• Although less well-known, decades of research from behavioral psychology have also yielded a wealth of crucial knowledge about children’s thinking, learning, reasoning, language, memory, and emotional development, actually predating the "brain development revolution." 
• We often fail to make a critical distinction between science and values in debating early childhood policy.
• Adults have a moral obligation to children to promote their well-being, not because of children’s future contribution to economic productivity, but as an end in itself.

Relevant Work

The Brain Development Revolution: Science, the Media, and Public Policy

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Katharine Stevens is joined by Joe Waters, co-founder and CEO of Capita, to discuss Capita's origins and work to improve the lives of children and families. Waters emphasized the need for a holistic approach to early childhood policy that takes into account the cultural and social transformations impacting young children and their families. He argued that we should pursue a whole-of-government policy approach to child development and human flourishing, rather than a narrow focus on specific programs. Drawing on his background in Catholic social teaching, he also highlighted the importance of creating a more humane economy that prioritizes the well-being of children and families — one “that exists for the person, not the other way around.”


KEY TAKEAWAYS

*Capita is a think tank focused on exploring how cultural and social transformations impact young children and their families and to fostering new ideas and policies to build a future in which all children and families flourish.
 
*Joe Waters, Capita's CEO, emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic approach to early childhood policy and considering the broader context in which children and families live.
 
*He advocates for a whole-of-government policy that prioritizes the flourishing and well-being of young children and their families.
 
*Finally, he argues that rebuilding a more humane economy is crucial to enabling children, families, and communities to flourish.


ABOUT THE GUEST

Joe Waters is the co-founder and CEO of Capita, a think tank dedicated to exploring how the cultural and social transformations of our day affect young children and their families, and to fostering new ideas and policies to build a future in which all children and families flourish. 

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Katharine Stevens is joined by Brad Wilcox, a leading family policy expert, to discuss the role of marriage in family strength and wellbeing.  Professor Wilcox argues that children growing up with married parents are more likely to flourish because marriage provides stability, financial resources, and emotional support for parents, leading to better parenting outcomes. He describes the steep decline in marriage rates over the past century, and the growing marriage divide between higher and lower socioeconomic groups. Finally, he explains how current government policies disincentivize marriage for lower-income couples, and discusses how both government and civil society could better promote marriage.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

* Marriage provides stability, financial resources, and a sense of commitment that positively impacts both adults and their children. 

* Marriage rates have fallen by about 65 percent since 1970; experts project that less than half of adults today will ever be married.  

* The “marriage divide” is growing as more affluent and educated people are now much more likely to be stably married than those from lower-income communities.

*Government policies should eliminate existing marriage penalties and instead promote marriage by strengthening the financial foundations of family life for lower income working families. 

RELATED WORK

Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization (https://www.amazon.com/Get-Married-Americans-Families-Civilization/dp/B0B3S6G7XH)


ABOUT THE GUEST

Brad Wilcox is Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and  Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His research focuses on marriage, fatherhood, and cohabitation, especially on the ways that family structure, civil society, and culture influence the quality and stability of family life.  He also focuses on exploring the contribution that families make to the economic welfare of both individuals and societies. 

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Dr. Cynthia Osborne discusses the work of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, which focuses on building the evidence base for effective state policies to improve outcomes for infants, toddlers, and their families.  

Dr. Osborne explains the importance of the prenatal-to-three period in shaping children's development, and describes the rigorous process the Center uses to identify effective policies and strategies. She also discusses the just-released 2023 Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap, which lays out the most recent research on the best public investments states can make to impact child outcomes, and shows where each state is on the most effective policies and strategies.      

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center focuses on identifying effective state policies to improve the wellbeing of young children and their families. 
• The Center's eight policy goals address essential conditions for young children to flourish, including the emotional and physical wellbeing of both children and their parents, and families' financial stability.  
• The Center uses a rigorous process to evaluate the evidence for policies and strategies: considering the theory of change, the strength of the research, and the causal link between the policy and outcomes. 
• The Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap guides state leaders on the most effective investments to ensure all children can thrive from the start. 

LINKS TO THE PRENATAL-TO-3 CENTER'S WORK

• Why Do We Focus on the Prenatal-to-3 Age Period?: Understanding the Importance of the Earliest Years 
• 2023 State Policy Roadmap 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Dr. Cynthia Osborne is a professor at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development, and a nationally renowned researcher and expert on child and family policy.  She is also the founder and executive director of the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, based at Vanderbilt: an academic research center that focuses on building the evidence base on the most effective state policies to improve the wellbeing of young children and their families. 

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