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NOTE: Basic or primary services include education, health care, housing, training in life/work skills, income and employment supports, parent education, literacy development, safe parks, church and volunteer affiliations, and recreational and cultural opportunities including museums, libraries and sports leagues.
Reasons for action: Primary services give children, families, and youth the opportunity to congregate, share experiences and interests, master skills, and realize some of their aspirations. In doing so, they can enhance protective factors, buffer risk factors, and reinforce positive development in ways that contribute to children's school readiness.
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Primary service providers, systems, and institutions (e.g., schools, police, health and child care facilities, parks, libraries) make sure their services are easy to access and are sensitive to issues of culture, language, and education. They have capacity to link families to needed services, self-help opportunities, and peer support groups.
Providers of services that promote social, emotional, and cognitive development (and prevent or respond to disruptions in such development) make sure they are available to all children and families, especially those at high risk of developing disorders-not just those with diagnoses that indicate disorders.
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| Housed on the grounds of the California Hospital Medical Center, the Hope Street Family Center (HSFC) provides a continuum of onsite educational, medical, and developmental services for children and families from birth through adulthood. During the critical developmental period from birth to age 3, families at HSFC can obtain prenatal care, health care, Early Head Start, and child care. Preschool-age children participate in HSFC's Child Development Center and can enroll in a family literacy program with their parents. | |
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Providers of primary services ensure that information and outreach on primary services are widely accessible, including information about the kinds of services available and their locations, hours of operation, and costs. They provide information and services in forms that are sensitive to issues of culture, language, and education, and in settings that families trust.
Providers of primary services systematically identify the barriers that prevent families from using services and work to remove them. Barriers include: lack of knowledge about what exists or how to find services and supports that match a family's interests and needs; lack of transportation; the cost of obtaining services; concerns about safety; and some families' sense of exclusion.
Providers of primary services make sure front-line staff are aware of cultural and linguistic differences among the populations they serve. They develop strategies to respond to diversity.
Community entities monitor programs and outcomes for an entire population, neighborhood, or community to ensure that primary services reach all children and families, including those at highest risk or most isolated. Community entities scan what is available and accessible to support healthy child development and strong families, identify what is missing, and take steps to fill in the gaps.
Local collaboratives ensure that information and outreach on primary services are widely accessible, including information about the kinds of services available and their locations, hours of operation, and costs. They provide information and services in forms that are sensitive to issues of culture, language, and education, and in settings that families trust.
Local collaboratives make sure there are multiple entry points for children and families to obtain help from institutions providing primary services. They encourage community institutions to develop family programming and activities and to make their environments welcoming to young children.
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| The United Way in Chicago publishes the United Way Human Care Services Directory, which includes information on the types of programs offered to children, youth, and families; eligibility requirements; and program fees. The Illinois Alliance for Arts Education and the Chicago Board of Education also publish guides to the city’s arts education resources. | |
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Local collaboratives recognize the special role of health services in the lives of young children and their families.
They encourage health professionals to use their contacts with families to:
- Promote family literacy-related activities
- Provide links to supportive services
- Identify family problems that require specialized responses from other systems, and provide links to those systems
Funders and policymakers assure that primary institutions are supported in their efforts to reach out to underserved populations, and to serve them effectively in a universal context, which often means special outreach efforts and enriched services.
Funders and policymakers assist providers of primary services and community coalitions in systematically identifying the barriers that prevent families from using services (including lack of transportation; the cost of obtaining services; concerns about safety; and some families' sense of exclusion), and support them in their efforts to remove such barriers.
Funders provide resources to providers of primary services and community coalitions in their efforts to provide information, including directories of services and supports, that will reach families that are most at risk and most excluded.
Policymakers make sure that their regulations encourage multiple entry points for children and families to obtain help from institutions providing primary services.
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