Support Early Healthy Development

What Can PolicyMakers Do?

Provide health coverage and access. Health coverage is essential to ensuring that children have access to the medical, dental, and behavioral supports and services required to meet their needs. 

Support early social, emotional and behavioral health. Children progress through many stages of social, emotional and behavioral development; while all children need the loving support of caring adults to be developmentally healthy, sometimes children’s needs include specialized supports. 

Ensure school readiness by age five. Both foundational academic skills and non-academic skills including physical, social and emotional development influence children’s readiness to master  reading, writing, math and other skills to grade-level proficiency. 

Support parents to ensure children thrive. In order to ensure that young children thrive, it is critical to support their families. Parents are key elements in a young child’s healthy development and educational success.