全球智库信息集成服务系统

Key Findings

1. There is tremendous variability across New Hampshire communities in the extent to which the state's youngest children and their families face risks and stressors that can compromise healthy child development.
2. Home visiting programs serve up to 1,100 families and children in New Hampshire each year, far below the estimated 9,200 who could benefit.
3. There is little information about the nature and quality of school district preschool programs, which reach about 4,000 children annually, including both children with special needs and their typically developing peers.
4. Access to district preschool programs is not aligned with the districts where children are most at risk of poor academic performance because of high rates of poverty and other disadvantages.
5. To maximize the expected return from investments in evidence-based early childhood programs, focus first on those communities with the greatest need but with current low rates of enrollment, while also building infrastructure at the state level to support an efficient and effective system of early childhood services.

New Hampshire is often hailed as a state where children's well-being is high relative to other states. However, a 2017 RAND study pointed to the substantial share of children in the state who are at risk of adverse developmental outcomes because of low family resources and other factors that can compromise healthy development in the first few years of life. Further, available funding streams — primarily federal funds — for early childhood interventions such as Early Head Start, Head Start, and home visiting through the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program are not sufficient to reach all New Hampshire children and families who could benefit.