Ishinoy

The name of this measure infuriates me: “Protects Children’s Services Funding.”  It does nothing of the sort. (Remember when California wanted to “protect marriage”?)

The whole point of First 5 funding is to make sure that local governments have the resources to address their most pressing needs when it comes to families with children aged 0-5.  California’s First 5 Children and Families Commission allows each California county to determine which basic needs are the most pressing in their community and provides the funding and resources to address those needs at the local level.  Scores of well-respected studies and hundreds of thousands of personal stories can attest to the benefits of early childhood education and the importance of quality, affordable health care for pregnant women and their children during those vital development milestones after birth.   Thanks to First 5, we now have invaluable data on the 0-5 population throughout the state of California, improved best practices in health care and other support service delivery, and the state is just beginning to reap the fruits of a breakthrough initiative, as evidenced in longitudinal studies currently underway.

Because First 5 programs are tailored throughout the state to meet local needs, the range of issues addressed by First 5 commissions statewide include the following:

• Early Intervention for at-risk infants and children;
• Early childhood education for at-risk infants and children;
• Family support services for adoptive/foster parents, parents and caregivers of children with special needs, and family members of children with special health care needs;
• School readiness (preparing a child and their family’s transition from home to school/preschool to kindergarten, developing learning new approaches to learning, fostering language development and social skills);
• Training and support services for professionals who work with children age 0-5 and their families, including educators, counselors, therapists, and parent-to-parent mentors;
• Developing best practices in child care and establishing quality child care provider training and services;
• Education and advocacy for good nutrition and dietary habits and exercise awareness;
• Health care and dental care access
• Services and support for children of migrant farm workers

The list goes on.  The ingenuity and creativity involved in First 5 service planning has set a very high bar for other states to follow.  Several counties have demonstrated the ability to address many of these needs in a fiscally responsible way through smart coordination and effective collaboration.  I have had personal experience working with Santa Barbara County’s Early Childhood Mental Health and Special Needs Collaborative, which serves thousands of families in Santa Barbara County alone.  The ECMHSN Collaborative empowers families facing challenges with special health care needs, education, and domestic difficulties and allows them to advocate for themselves, obtain the services and supports they need for their children and families to succeed, and create environments for themselves in which growth and development are encouraged and made possible.

What advocates of the proposition fail to admit is that First 5 is already doing the work they propose to do with the funds they want reallocated, and First 5 is already doing a better job in terms of dollar-for-dollar impact than they could ever hope to achieve.  You’ll notice that, curiously enough, advocates of Prop 1D include mostly administrators of agencies under pressure to cut their operating budgets, who are looking for a way to supplement their own funding.  Those against Prop 1D include family advocates, educational professionals, health care service experts, and a myriad of professionals involved with child development and family support – in general, those of us who are doing real groundwork and interacting every day with the families who benefit from the Children and Families Commission.

The state’s fiscal crisis has nothing to do with kids who weren’t even born when this crisis was well in the making.  Taking funding away from children, their schools, and their health care services is the worst possible divestment of resources.  The short-sightedness of those advocating for Prop 1D is alarming.  If anything, we could expand First 5 programs to encompass some of the inefficient state-supported programs currently threatened.  Projections from external studies of First 5 commission activities suggest that, should First 5 continue in its current direction of preventative care and early education, the need for state-supported programs will decrease over the next 20 years and therefore render the permanent changes proposed in 1D unnecessary.

First 5 California

First 5 Santa Barbara County

California Prop 1D on Ballotpedia