Building Bright Futures (BBF) led Vermont’s work on the federally required needs assessment activity under the Preschool Development Grant. Instead of conducting new primary data collection, BBF developed and implemented a meta-analysis protocol using 12 needs assessments conducted across the broad early childhood system within the last five years (2019–2023).
Ten key needs were identified through the qualitative coding process: equity, basic needs and transportation, system navigation, workforce, data integration and infrastructure, integration and collaboration, early childhood education, physical and mental health care, funding, and governance. BBF developed the Early Childhood Needs Assessment Directory to make this information publicly available and to reduce the need for additional needs assessments when possible.
This project would not have been possible without the needs assessments conducted by: Child Care Aware of America, Foresight Law and Policy and Watershed Advisors, Hunger Free Vermont, the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, Let’s Grow Kids, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Nemours Children’s Health, the Vermont Agency of Education, the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP) at the University of Vermont, the Vermont Department for Children and Families: Child Development Division and Vermont Head Start Collaboration Office, the Vermont Department of Health, the Vermont Department of Mental Health, the Vermont Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance, Voices for Vermont’s Children, and Building Bright Futures.
