EARLY CHILDHOOD AND COMMUNITY
Families and Work Institute’s work includes a long commitment to focus on early learning and the implications of what we know about early learning for teacher and classroom quality and early childhood system design. We have also focused on the development of broad scale communications campaigns to share early learning research with a wide range of public and private sector audiences.

Read descriptions of our current projects and most recent research in early childhood and community issues:

To find additional reports on early childhood and community issues, please visit the Research & Publications section and Past Projects page of this Web site.

 

  • Mind in the Making

    • Mind in the Making: The Science of Early Learning, developed by FWI in partnership with New Screen Concepts, is an unprecedented and unparalleled collaborative effort to communicate the science of early learning to the general public, families and professionals who work with children and families. The goal of Mind in the Making (MITM) is to share the best knowledge of how children learn best.

    The far-reaching and penetrating potential of MITM is in its multi-dimensional approach. In partnership with New Screen Concepts, an Emmy Award-winning production company, FWI films researchers “in action”—showing actual experiments, presenting the science of early development with children from birth through eight years old in an accessible, engaging and inspiring way—and creates an array of multimedia materials that are designed to help diverse audiences bridge the gap between knowledge and practice.

    We are planning an official “launch” of the national Mind in the Making initiative in 2009 with intensive outreach activities on the national, state and local levels. We will also work closely with our large network of partner organizations that serve children and families in order to ensure that Mind in the Making has a deep and lasting impact. The campaign will include:
    • a network television show planned for September 2009;
    • an accompanying book by Families and Work president Ellen Galinsky for HarperCollins planned for publication in September 2009;
    • Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers (in English and Spanish);
    • a series of articles in Wondertime magazine and others;
    • family videos;
    • tip sheets for families; and
    • community mobilization efforts.

    Our launch activities will include:

    • a meeting in Washington, DC of national organizations where we will offer up to 10 mini-grants for national organizations that would like to partner with Mind in the Making to promote engagement in learning;
    • monthly Mind in the Making conference calls for national and community partners to share the plans for the campaign;
    • a Congressional launch event (a bipartisan event hosted by members of Congress that will be pod-casted around the country); and
    • a National Press Club media event and satellite media tour to announce Mind in the Making.

    Until 2008, Mind in the Making focused on children ages zero to five. We know that the earliest years of children’s lives set the stage for success later in school and in life. We also know, however, that the first years that a child spends in school are important for building on the successes or addressing the challenges in the early years and that the transition from home to school is a critically important transition in life.

    In 2008, we received grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a family foundation that have enabled us to include children up through age eight in the Mind in the Making initiative. In addition, this funding has enabled us to film more diverse researchers. To date, we have filmed 67 researchers and have 17 or more filmings planned—giving us the most impressive collection of research on children’s learning ever created.

    With the Kellogg Foundation’s support, we will also be able to extend and deepen our outreach activities to ensure that communities across the country are active participants in this initiative. Through our work on the Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers (now available in both English and Spanish), we have already been able to reach thousands of early childhood professionals and the children they teach. The Modules are now being used in eight states: Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. We are now working with several additional states to plan implementations in the next two years.

    In collaboration with these and other national, state and community partners, we will use Mind in the Making as a focal point to develop learning communities across the country that will focus on how to engage children in learning. Communities have very creative ideas about how to hold public conversations about learning in their locales, and we will share the most promising ones.

    We are also developing a range of opportunities for families to become involved in Mind in the Making and to afford families the opportunity to be part of a broader learning community. We will do this both directly and indirectly. For example, we will post segments of the parenting videos online so that they are available to a broad audience (including parents themselves as well as parent educators, home visitors, health care professionals, and early childhood educators). Beginning in the fall of 2009, articles in Wondertime magazine will also directly reach families. This work with families is seen as an opportunity to create more lasting change, as the children will be hearing and experiencing consistent messages from both their teachers and their parents.

    With funding from The Marks Family Foundation, we will also design and pilot-test effective ways to bring the lessons of Mind in the Making to families, especially those in underserved communities. We will use the same process of experimentation that we used to develop the Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers, which have been implemented across the country with tremendous success. This involves creating and field-testing pilots. We know that Mind in the Making presents an exciting opportunity to engage families as active participants in developing skills to help their children succeed. By taking cutting-edge research and presenting it in an accessible, inspiring way, we will help families bridge the gap between knowledge and practice—and help parents take simple, effective steps to promote children’s learning.

    Finally, Ellen Galinsky is now writing a book that will be published by HarperStudio. In the book, which will be launched along with the national Mind in the Making campaign, Ellen synthesizes the lessons of Mind in the Making and identifies a set of essential skills that are the most important for children AND for adults to succeed in the 21st century.

    These skills are:

    Skill 1: Focus and Self-Control—Learning to Pay Attention in an Over-Stimulating World

    Skill 2: Perspective Taking—Learning to Anticipate and Understand the Viewpoints of Others

    Skill 3: Communicating–Learning to Understand and Communicate in the Languages of Spoken and Written Words

    Skill 4: Making Connections—Learning to Find Patterns and See the Unexpected

    Skill 5: Taking On Challenges

    Skill 6: Critical Thinking

    Skill 7: Engaged Learning—Being Motivated

    Through this book and the Mind in the Making campaign, we will translate the latest science to help parents, teachers, families and the general public understand how children really learn, what keeps them engaged in learning and how they can help their children develop the skills that are most essential for success in school, work and life.

    For more information about Mind in the Making initiative, please contact Sharon Huang, Program Manager, at (212) 465-2044 or shuang@familiesandwork.org. To see a list of Mind in the Making funders, click here.

  • Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers
    The Learning Modules are a 12-part facilitated learning process that bridges the gap between research and practice for teachers in center and home-based early childhood settings for children from birth through school-entry. They have been enthusiastically received by the early childhood field, and, to date, they have been field tested in seven states: Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Their design is based on the research-based premise that teaching practice improves when teachers are engaged in understanding their own and children’s learning; when they have a better grasp of the best knowledge in child development; and when they become more intentional about their own practice in promoting children’s learning by translating an understanding of research knowledge into their teaching practice. An evaluation of the Modules in Pennsylvania by the University of Pittsburgh reveals significant improvements in teachers’ interactions with children and in program quality.
  • Sparking Connections
    For the past four years, we have led Sparking Connections, a national consortium effort to study and facilitate learning about partnership strategies to support family, friend and neighbor caregivers who care for the majority of our nation’s young children while their parents work. These efforts build on many years of conducting studies of early education and care, including The Study of Children in Family Child Care and Relative Care and The Florida Quality Improvement Study.
  • Committee for Economic Development (CED) Report
    CED released a ground-breaking paper in February 2006, The Benefits of High-Quality Early Childhood Education Programs: What Makes the Difference? by Ellen Galinsky, President of Families and Work Institute. This paper examines the factors associated with high-quality early education programs. Ms. Galinsky examined three well-known, high-quality early education programs—the High/Scope Perry Preschool project, the Carolina Abecedarian Project and Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers (CPC)—and for one of the first times, has examined what those programs did to have such lasting impact decades later, relying, in part, on interviews with the principal investigators of those programs. For more information, please visit: http://www.ced.org
  • Family Caregivers of the Elderly
    The purpose of this project is to investigate the impact of the work and the medical/caregiving environments on the family caregiver’s experiences at work, in medical settings, in their communities and at home. Current partners include IBM Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, MIT Workplace Center, The Center on Aging & Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College, The Charleston Area Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh Palliative Care Program, Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, The Center for Families at Purdue University, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Family Caregivers Association. This study is conducted in memory of Leora Osgood May.