HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT
Children are born healthy with access to resources to maintain healthy development.
Long-term goals:
- Increase the number of children with access to a primary health provider.
- Increase access to developmental screening to connect families to community resources.
- The Ready for K Alliance focuses on improving health outcomes for children two years old to kindergarten entry. The Alliance partners with Healthy Babies Louisville to improve health outcomes for birthing parents and babies from birth to two years. Learn more about the work of
Healthy Babies Louisville here.
ACCESS AND QUALITY
Families have access to affordable, high-quality early care and education.
Long-term goals:
- Families have resources to support their child’s participation in high-quality early care and education.
- A variety of public and private high-quality programs are available that meet family and community needs.
FAMILY AND CAREGIVER ENGAGEMENT
Families and caregivers are equipped with knowledge and understanding of their child’s development and involve themselves in helping them thrive.
Long-term goals:
- Increase family and caregiver engagement in their child’s learning.
- Increase family and caregiver knowledge of developmental milestones.
SYSTEMS ALIGNMENT
Institutions, services, and agencies serving children are comprehensive, collaborative, aligned and coordinated.
Long-term goals:
- Health and development programs serving infants, toddlers and their families are coordinated, collaborative and aligned to provide consistent services.
- Private childcare, Head Start, Early Head Start and Public Pre-K providers work collaboratively to help families find the best early learning program for their child.
- School and community supports for families with young children are aligned and coordinated to leverage resources and meet the diverse needs of families.
The Ready for K Alliance Early Childhood Data Tool is a resource created by Metro United Way to assist the Alliance in understanding outcomes and making data informed decisions to improve outcomes for children and families in Jefferson County. The tool is designed to allow for metrics to be viewed individually as well as layered to highlight the complexities and compounding impacts of the barriers families face and their impact on outcomes for children. In addition to informing the work of the Alliance, the tool is a public resource for Ready for K partners to use to make data informed decisions for their own organization and programs.
Ready for K Data Platform Takeaways
- Neighborhood-level resources are essential to early childhood development. Families need access to regulated child care that is close to their home or work.
- There are 21 neighborhoods in Jefferson County that have no regulated child care within their neighborhood boundaries.*
- There are an additional 21 neighborhoods** that have fewer than 1 child care space for every 2 children who want one in their Local Child Care Market.***
- Concentrated economic hardship and lack of opportunity within communities compounds barriers to early childhood development, including making it harder to access child care, health care, and educational opportunities. For a family of four, 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is $60,000. If that family has two young children, child care costs alone could easily exceed 40% of that income.
- There are 17 neighborhoods in Jefferson County where more than 90% of children younger than six live in households with incomes lower than 200% of FPL. There are 34 neighborhoods with 75% of children under six, and 58 neighborhoods with 50% of children under six, living in households below 200% FPL.
- Birthing parents need access to high quality pre-natal care throughout pregnancy. Although it can occur in healthy pregnancies, low-birth weight is one potential indicator of difficult pregnancy. When the rate of low birthweight births climbs above the average rate, it provides strong evidence that a community is underserved by the prenatal healthcare system.
- In Jefferson County, an average of 1,177, or 9% of children, are born with low birthweights each year. In 11 neighborhoods, 15% of infants are born with low birthweights.
- Lack of educational opportunities in a community poses multiple challenges for early childhood development. A community with a percentage of births to mothers without a high school degree signals that educational opportunities are lacking in the community and that families are likely to face increased barriers to accessing resources to support early childhood development.
- Across Jefferson County, 13% of children are born to mothers without high school degrees. There 17 neighborhoods where that rate is doubled, and 26% or more births are to mothers without a high school degree.
- *Neighborhoods with no regulated child care: Audubon Park-Prestonia, Bonnycastle, Chamberlain-Ford, Clifton-Irish Hill, Deer Park, Flat Rock-Long Run, Germantown-Paristown Pointe, Jefferson Forest, McNeely Lake East-Heritage Creek, Meriwether-Saint Joseph, Minor Lane, Old Louisville-Limerick, Original Highlands, Shelby Park, Six Mile-Houston Acres, Southside, Southwest Dixie-Valley Village, St. Matthews North-Beechwood Village, St. Matthews Northwest-Chenoweth, Valley Station South-Orell, Wilder Park-Fairgrounds
- **Fewer than 1 child care space for every 2 children: Auburndale East, Beechmont, Cedar Creek, Fairdale South-Hollyvilla, Fincastle, Kenwood Hill, McNeely Lake East-Heritage Creek, McNeely Lake North-Preston Crossing, McNeely Lake West, Meriwether-Saint Joseph, Oakdale-Wyandotte, PRP Northwest-Rockford, Riverport-Greenwood, Riverside Gardens-Lake Dreamland, Shelby Park, Southland Park, Southside, Southwest Dixie-Valley Village, Valley Station South-Orell, Valley Station Southwest-Bethany, Wilder Park-Fairgrounds
- ***A neighborhood’s Local Child Care Market is defined as the neighborhood and every other neighborhood that touches it. The Local Child Care Market is different for each neighborhood. The child care capacity is defined as the estimated total number of child care spaces at all regulated providers within the Local Child Care Market, and the demand for child care is defined as the estimated total number of children younger than 5 within the Local Child Care Market whose families are likely to want regulated child care
Join Us!
The Ready for K Alliance has outlined our areas of impact; Healthy Development, Access & Quality, Family & Caregiver Engagement, and Systems Alignment. Now we’re asking our partners to commit to improving outcomes in each of these areas below.