5 Essential & Coordinated Elements for School Readiness

1. Early care and education services with kindergarten transition programs

• ECE services,
• improved access to high quality ECE through referrals,
  
• information and outreach to parents and providers using strategies that are culturally and linguistically appropriate and address the needs of children with disabilities,
  
• improved implementation of effective practices through training for all types of ECE providers,
  
• ALL early care and education providers (parents, licenses, licensed exempt, family child care) are linked to the neighborhood school sites,
  
• Services provided at or near schools or through outreach or mobile delivery strategies.

2. Parenting/Family Support Services:

• access to high quality and developmentally appropriate early care and education experiences,
• access by parents to training and support that allows parents to be their child’s first teacher and promotes healthy functioning families,
• access to services such as family literacy and language acquisition especially for non-native speakers.
  
  

3. Health and Social Services:

• Outreach services for high quality prenatal care and health care enrollment, nutrition services, oral health services,
• provision of and/or referral to basic health care including prenatal care and services for children with disabilities and other special needs,
• comprehensive screening and assessment, mental health counseling, drug and alcohol counseling, child abuse prevention and intervention and case management.
  
  

4. Schools’ capacity to prepare children and families for school success:

• communication of Kindergarten standards,
• schools’ outreach to parents of children 0-5,
• early childhood education and Kindergarten transition programs,
• cross training and shared curriculum and planning for ECE and elementary teachers,
• seamless provision of health, social services, after school programs, and other supports for children and families.
  
  

5. School Readiness Program Infrastructure and Administration

• long term family involvement & leadership development,
• coordination of programs, administrative support, training and professional development, and transportation,
• program evaluation, fiscal accountability, and collaborative governance that includes families and community members.

--from Guidelines and Tools, California Children & Families Commission School Readiness Programs RFF, March 2002