Mission

The City and County of Honolulu is committed to creating a strong infrastructure to support a coordinated system of early childhood care and learning that addresses equitable access to, and transitions between, high-quality programs and services for all young children and their families, to support their health, safety, and readiness for lifelong learning.

Activities:

• Facilitate partnerships with multi-sector collaborative structures: Public and private sectors will work together to ensure the community has the policies, resources and infrastructure for creating an aligned and equitable early care and education system.
• Develop data-driven practices, policies and strategies that inform policy and support equitable outcomes: A shared system for data collection, analysis and reporting will inform the decisions of all stakeholders.
• Ensure family engagement and support: Families will be fully engaged partners and cities foster relationships that fully engage families and children in successful, equitable early learning experiences.
• Provide access to affordable, high-quality early care and education: All families will have access to affordable, diverse, high-quality early care and education environments.
• Develop a coordinated continuum of developmentally appropriate care and education: The continuum of care in each community will be aligned and offer developmentally appropriate care and education to its children.
• Provide professional development and support for the early childhood workforce: The early learning workforce will be elevated and valued for its contribution and is appropriately compensated, trained and supported to give high-quality learning experiences to all children.
• Ensure sustainability and coordination of sufficient resources, funding, policies and practices: Strong, sustained and coordinated community support on behalf of children and families will ensure sufficient resources and funding.
• Facilitate community awareness and engagement: An equitable early care and education continuum will be priority for all elected officials and community stakeholders.

Importance of early childhood care

• Early childhood opportunities are an important part of a city’s infrastructure- just like roads and bridges, Honolulu’s residents can’t get to work without them.
• The early childhood workforce makes it possible for the current workforce to go to work and it builds the skills for the future workforce. Neuroscience research reveals a critical window of opportunity in a child’s first five years in which early learning experiences shape children’s physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. One of the main reasons is how fast the brain grows starting before birth and continuing into early childhood. Although the brain continues to develop and change into adulthood, the first 8 years can build a foundation for future learning, health and life success.
• If we want our children to possess skills needed to meet the changing demands of the workforce, the military and help our city, state and country compete globally, healthy development in the early years is crucial. In this way, the early childhood workforce is key to the City and County of Honolulu’s workforce development.