The Calvary Bilingual Multicultural Learning Center (Washington, DC) provides early care and education to more than 400 families from three urban neighborhoods. It emphasizes the arts, technology, and bilingualism and multiculturalism in order to nurture children’s learning and development and engage parents. The center provides prenatal home visiting, health and developmental screenings, social service referrals, school-age care and youth development activities, and family support services (e.g., workshops on parenting, abuse and neglect, domestic violence, life skills, and job skills; help with school-family relationships; and continuing education opportunities). All staff who work with families meet weekly to review families’ needs and solutions. www.centronia.org

• Are at high risk or have social, emotional, or developmental difficulties
• Have special needs and problems such as maternal depression, substance abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence
• Need support to reduce extreme social isolation

Child care staff have access to sources of specialized help to mobilize appropriate help for individual children and families, including consultation regarding clients facing special challenges, crises, or chronic difficulties.

	In Cleveland, the Parent Intervention Centers of the Positive Education Program, a specialized early intervention program for children with special emotional and behavioral challenges has joined forces with the local child care resource and referral agency to develop a consultation and outreach program for local child care centers. www.pepcleve.org

	KIDS Now (Kentucky Invests in Developing Success) has arranged for Early Childhood Mental Health Specialists, located in regional mental health centers, to provide prevention and intervention services to early care and education programs and the young children and families they serve. The Addison County Parent/Child Center in Middlebury, Vermont provides childcare and preschool to children to age three, using a curriculum that promotes social and emotional development. The Center houses mental health services that enable professionals to look in on the children they serve and to coach and interact with childcare providers and parents. Onsite job training, workshops, and meetings with social service staff, plus transportation provided by the center, make it easy for isolated families to access services. www.sover.net/~thepcc/

• Identifying, dealing with, and following up on services to children and families at high risk or those who have social, emotional, or developmental difficulties
• Identifying and referring for diagnosis and treatment (at appropriate levels of intensity and in appropriate settings) children with special needs and families with problems such as maternal depression, substance abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence
• Gaining access to services and supports that reduce extreme social isolation

Child care programs become partners of neighborhood-based child welfare services and intensive family support services in their efforts to prevent and respond to abuse and neglect.

	Hope Street Family Center blends its early childhood programs with an array of health, education, parenting, and social services into a coherent strategy for improving child and family outcomes. Families affected by child abuse and neglect receive intensive child welfare services, including home visits by professional social workers and public health nurses, as part of the Family Center’s Community-based services.