Texas Preschool Development Grant Birth Through 5 (PDG B-5)

Through the Preschool Development Grant Birth Through 5 (PDG B-5), the Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services jointly with the Department of Education awarded Texas $16 million per year for a three-year funding cycle, from January 2023 through December 2025. Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) led the grant application in partnership with fellow members of the Early Childhood Interagency Work Group, including Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Texas Education Agency, and Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

The Texas grant builds on the six goals from the Texas Early Learning Strategic Plan and will focus on connecting families to services and engaging them as leaders, supporting local system building, expanding access to high quality programs, strengthening and building the early childhood care and education (ECCE) workforce, and developing an early childhood integrated data system. Additionally, the grant includes updated reports and studies of the birth to 5 landscape in Texas.

PDG B-5 efforts will support the following activities:

Connect Families to Services and Engage Families as Leaders

Expand earlychildhood.texas.gov to add local resources and a tool (eligibility screener) that allows parents to see if they are potentially eligible for different early childhood programs (and then pointing parents to the appropriate program for formal application/eligibility determination).

Leverage and expand Parent Advisory Councils across the state. In years two and three of the grant, continue funding the TEA Early Childhood Education’s two new positions: Family Engagement Director and Family Engagement Specialist. Provide training to state agency staff, local early childhood coalitions, and other organizations to incorporate the National Family Support Network Standards of Quality and to co-design mechanisms to provide ongoing feedback to the state via the Early Childhood Interagency Work Group.

Offer community subgrants to support family engagement activities, which may include the expansion of Family Resource Centers, hiring parent navigators, or Parent Cafes.

Support Local Systems Building

• Offering technical assistance to interested communities to become Help Me Grow Texas affiliate organizations or to work toward Help Me Grow Texas readiness. This includes supporting the launch of local “centralized access points” (e.g., training on effective follow-ups), provider education and outreach (e.g., clinic work flows), data collection and analysis, and family and community outreach.
• Bringing together local early childhood coalition leaders to increase connections across programs and create a plan for ongoing, coordinated local work and transitions.
• Supporting local implementation through the availability of subgrants to local communities.

Expand Access to High Quality Programs

Continue funding Child Care Regulation’s Navigator positions to improve access to child care in rural areas. TWC is currently funding these positions for one year.

Support young children with disabilities through continued funding to train child care staff on developmental screenings, as well as assessments and early interventions to increase school readiness and reduce the need for expensive interventions later.

Provide local communities with the opportunity to expand access to research-based classroom assessment tools, which includes teacher coaching, to support educators in prekindergarten settings, through local subgrants.

Expand infant and early childhood mental health consultation support, conducting a landscape analysis and implementation science overview to inform state efforts to make mental health consultation more widely available to the ECCE workforce.

Strengthen and Build the ECCE Workforce

Develop a pipeline of effective early childhood educators and professionals through multiple pathways that improve the training of early childhood educators, including Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in high school, articulation and transfer agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, support for early childhood apprenticeships including incentives for staff who mentor apprentices, robust work study programs, and pipelines that grow the availability of the early childhood teacher workforce.

Grow and maintain a qualified therapist workforce serving young children needing Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) services by providing incentives to local therapeutic staff who mentor other staff or supervise interns and/or to provide sign-on bonuses for therapists who come to work for ECI for at least 2 years.

Support the early childhood workforce through restorative discipline coaching to offer alternatives to suspensions and expulsions.

Develop Statewide Integrated Data System

Develop an Early Childhood Integrated Data System (ECIDS), taking into consideration how to align early childhood data efforts with the work of the Tri-Agency Work Group.

Reports and Studies

Conduct a new comprehensive statewide needs assessment for children birth to 5 years old.

Develop a new statewide strategic plan with efforts led by the Texas Early Learning Council in partnership with families, providers and other ECCE stakeholders.

This project was made possible by grant number 90TP0088. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.