A Guide to Improved Policies for Infants and Toddlers 

The greatest opportunity for influencing a child’s life begins on day one, and public policy plays an important role in ensuring that our youngest children get off to the best possible start in life. Policy is how practice and research can reach millions across every state, in every community, and in Washington, DC, and there are multiple ways for you to get involved in the public policy process at all levels of decision making.

The Early Experiences Matter Policy Guide is your set of tools for taking action and improving public policies that impact the lives of infants, toddlers, and their families. All of the materials in the toolkit are accessible online, and we encourage you to use them in your work and disseminate them widely.

The Early Experiences Matter Policy Guide offers you a wealth of policy options and strategies to use in your efforts to affect policy change for infants, toddlers, and their families. It is organized into five sections and includes mini policy briefs, practical tools, in-depth policy papers, and more. The five sections are:

Agenda
Good Health
Strong Families
Positive Early Learning Experiences
Systems

To download the entire Policy Guide, click here.
Each individual piece in the Policy Guide can be downloaded and printed by clicking on the links below.   

Together, we must ensure that America’s infants and toddlers get the chance to reach their full potential. Be a Big Voice for Little Kids™ now!

Agenda
The documents in this section orient you to ZERO TO THREE’s overall policy agenda and other comprehensive policy resources, including compelling evidence for promoting infant-toddler policies, data on infants and toddlers, and strategies for how to get started.

About Us
Infant-Toddler Policy & Systems Framework
Making the Case
Infant-Toddler Data
A Place to Get Started

Good Health
Children learn best when they are healthy physically, socially, and emotionally. We can ensure the good health of infants, toddlers, and their families by enacting policies which address the following issues:

Physical Health
Social and Emotional Health
Developmental Screening
Nutrition

Strong Families
Parents play the most active and significant role in their baby’s healthy development. Young children learn and grow in strong families where parents are able to successfully face the challenge of caring for their children, while, at the same time, meeting their work and other responsibilities. We can nurture strong families that allow babies and toddlers to thrive by enacting policies which address the following issues:

Basic Needs
Family Leave
Child Welfare
Home Visiting

Positive Early Learning Experiences
Babies are born learning. Learning in very young children takes place through play, the active exploration of their environment, and, most importantly, through interactions with the significant adults in their lives. We can provide positive early learning experiences that lay the foundation for future success by enacting policies which address the following issues:

Child Care
Early Head Start
Early Intervention

Systems
All infants and toddlers need access to high-quality, affordable early care and education, health and mental health, and family support services. Programs and services that address these areas are critical; however, they are only as strong as the infrastructure that supports them. We can build comprehensive, coordinated systems of high-quality, prenatal-to-five services by utilizing the following resources and tools:

Systems
State Advisory Councils
State Self-Assessment Checklist