The National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, formerly known as the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation, is a direct outgrowth of another Center initiative, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. The Forum was established to complement the Council’s work, which aims to explain why public investments should be made in the early childhood years. The Forum attempts to answer what those investments should be and how they should be made, and, to that end, it assesses and interprets program evaluation research. Currently, the Forum is building a comprehensive meta-analytic database on intervention services from the prenatal period to age five, including assessments of early care and education, family support and health-based programs.
Understanding Intervention
Neuroscience and child development research address the “why?” and “what?” questions about investing in young children. The applied sciences of intervention and program evaluation attempt to answer questions about “when?” and “how?” Four decades of data from a small number of intensive programs have demonstrated that it is possible to improve a wide range of outcomes for vulnerable children well into the adult years, as well as generate benefits to society that far exceed program costs. But evaluations also have shown that many programs, particularly if they are designed or implemented poorly, have generated few to no beneficial effects. Together, these findings provide an instructive and continuously growing body of knowledge about both successful and ineffective investments. More >>
Video & Brief
InBrief: Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning
Being able to focus, hold, and work with information in mind, filter distractions, and switch gears is like having an air traffic control system at a busy airport to manage the arrivals and departures of dozens of planes on multiple runways. In the brain, this air traffic control mechanism is called executive functioning, a group of skills that helps us to focus on multiple streams of information at the same time, and revise plans as necessary. This edition of the InBrief series explains how these lifelong skills develop, what can disrupt their development, and how supporting them pays off in school and life.
Interactive Feature
Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision-Maker’s Guide
This Web-only interactive feature from the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs helps prepare decision-makers to be better consumers of evaluation information by posing five key questions that address both the substance and the practical utility of rigorous evaluation research.
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Download PDF version of Early Childhood Program Evaluations: A Decision Maker's Guide >>
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About the Forum
The Forum was established in 2006. In the same way the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child seeks to explain why public investments should be made in the early childhood years, the Forum tries to describe what investments should be made—and how.
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Meta-Analytic Database
Currently, a team of Forum members is building a comprehensive meta-analytic database on intervention services from the prenatal period to age five, including assessments of early care and education, family support and health-based programs.
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Forum Members
The Forum comprises an interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars from universities across the United States who have expertise in research and program evaluation.
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Forum Publications
The Forum’s publications discuss what program evaluation research can say about critical issues in child development and what the implications are for policy and practice. More >>
Major support for the Forum has been provided by: the Birth to Five Policy Alliance, the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, Casey Family Programs, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the McCormick Tribune Foundation, the Norlien Foundation, and an Anonymous Donor.
