Giving Compass' Take:

• Dwyer Gunn reports that two studies indicate Medicaid and CHIP could be leveraged to improve early childhood for Americans relying on the programs. 

• How can funders help to improve the quality of early childhood support for Americans quickly? 

• Learn about a documentary highlighting the struggles of early childhood development


It would be difficult to overstate how formative a child's early years really are on the rest of their life. Brain development, health, even economic prospects are all directly linked to conditions during the postnatal years. In two recent independent reports, researchers Elisabeth Wright Burak at the Georgetown Center on Children and Families and Debbie Chang at Nemours Children's Health System argue that two well-known federal programs—Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program—could be effectively leveraged to improve early childhood for the 45 percent of American children they serve.

Despite a well-established body of research on the importance of early childhood, young children (those under the age of five) and their families receive relatively limited support in the United States. There is no guaranteed paid parental leave program, and subsidized childcare programs serve only a small percentage of eligible families. Meanwhile, high-quality private infant childcare costs more than college in much of the country, and access to cash assistance (see: the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program) is virtually non-existent in many states.

Around the country, policymakers are taking steps to address this mismatch. Cities and states are implementing paid leave and universal preschool programs and exploring innovative means of financing evidence-based home visiting programs. Increasingly, as these new reports illustrate, state Medicaid programs are getting creative about how to provide young children with the services they need to thrive. To the experts who study early childhood, such a shift can't come soon enough.

Read the full article about Medicaid, CHIP and early childhood by Dwyer Gunn at Pacific Standard.