Research shows that the first years of a child’s life are crucial for their development. For a parent, those first years can be exhausting and overwhelming. The questions never end: Why won’t my baby stop crying at night? How much screentime should a toddler have? What age should kids eat peanut butter?
In the past 50 years, more than 4 million parents have leaned on a Minnesota-made program for advice on questions like these.
Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) operates in almost every Minnesota school district, and staff members say it’s the country’s oldest and largest program of its kind. Children from birth to kindergarten learn and play, while caregivers find support from fellow parents and licensed educators. It’s not uncommon to see ECFE friendships continue to high school graduation and beyond.
The 1974 pilot was championed by the late State Sen. Jerome Hughes, who believed that education policy should focus on the entire family in a child’s formative first years of life. Funded through local levies, state aid and sliding-scale registration fees, the program requires annual assessments so that ECFE is always tailored to changing community needs. ECFE has evolved to serve parents learning English, LGBTQIA+ families, parents of children with disabilities and more. Programs vary by district, but all are designed with the same goal — to support the child’s first and most enduring teachers.
KFAI’s Michelle Bruch tells this story. Photo courtesy of Hopkins Public Schools.
