CCFP’s Mission

The Center on Child and Family Policy (CCFP) is a nonpartisan, policy research organization, founded to provide an independent platform for high-quality research and policy analysis in the early childhood field. We are dedicated to promoting better science-based understanding of the foundational importance of early childhood, and advancing policy that gives every child the strongest start possible.

These guiding principles drive our work:

  • The period from conception to age five is the most consequential of human development, forming the bedrock of lifelong well-being and achievement.

  • Early development — not early school — is the key to human flourishing, and families are the key to ensuring young children thrive.

  • The primary aims of early childhood policy must be to strengthen families, support good parenting, and improve early health from the prenatal period on.

  • The neuroscience of human development must play a much larger role in policymaking to meaningfully improve the well-being of young children and their families.

  • Increased use of rigorous research and a more open, robust competition of ideas are essential to crafting good policy in the early childhood field.

CCFP seeks to advance policy that supports the critical role of parents in children’s healthy development, viewed through the eyes and needs of children and families, rather than politics or programs. We stress the imperative of improving early health, strengthening families, and empowering parents to choose what is best for their own young children.

CCFP also seeks to diversify intellectual leadership and drive a much-needed competition of ideas in early childhood by:

  • Fostering evidence-based discussion that moves beyond prevailing advocacy claims and political partisanship;

  • Providing a new platform to elevate ideas and viewpoints underrepresented in current policy debates; and

  • Building a national community of leading thinkers who together can develop an evidence-driven, family-centered policy vision to advance the well-being of young children.

We are grateful for generous support from American Compass and the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation, enabling our launch.

Why We Exist

The early childhood field is at a pivotal moment, facing unprecedented political momentum and opportunity for change. Public and political interest in early childhood as a crucial area of social policy is on the rise — and should be, thanks to a growing body of brain science that gives us powerful new understanding of the fundamental importance of early human development. We now know the first years of life lay the groundwork for all dimensions of human flourishing and promise an upstream solution to many of society’s biggest challenges.

Yet, the early childhood field’s potential to improve outcomes for young children is hindered by several factors:

  • Policy debates in early childhood are dominated by one-sided advocacy, largely devoid of family-centered perspectives, and too narrowly focused.

  • Right-of-center thought leaders and policymakers have long been inadequately engaged.

  • Current debates are impaired by misconceptions about what drives human development and ignore early health in favor of early school.

  • Gaps between research and policymaking are too large, and a lack of evidence-driven policy analysis impoverishes thinking and debate.

  • Existing early-development science is poorly understood and insufficiently used as an important basis for making good policy. Instead, the predominant focus in today’s policy debates is on advocacy for — or against — particular programs and policies, with little attention paid to underpinning scientific principles.

Ideas have great power to drive good policymaking and positive social change. But meaningful policy debate cannot take place with only one side talking. While in most policy fields a range of ideologically diverse organizations conduct nonpartisan, policy-relevant analysis, not enough such work is being done in early childhood and almost none grounded in the science of development.

Early childhood policymaking badly needs new organizations dedicated to rigorous, evidence-driven policy work, especially those emphasizing early health and the family-focused perspectives now missing from the field. That is why we founded CCFP.

What We Do

CCFP is the only national think tank focused specifically on early childhood. We operate at the junction of scholarship and public policy, conducting high-quality scholarly work and engaging with a a broad range of key stakeholders to advance science-driven, family-focused, and child-centered policy.

We produce rigorous, nonpartisan research and evidence-based analysis, and promote respectful, inclusive dialogue across sectors and partisan divides. We aim to raise crucial questions, strengthen the thoughtful deliberation necessary to making good policy, and expand the scope of the policy debate in this profoundly important area of American life.

These are the main themes of our work:

  • Public understanding of early development science has largely been driven by advocates and lobbyists, based on oversimplified or inaccurate information. Policymakers are often unable to distinguish real science from non-scientific advocacy messages and therefore underutilize important science in their decision-making.

    CCFP aims to provide policymakers, business and community leaders, and the general public with accurate scientific knowledge about why and how children’s first years are so crucial to lifelong health, well-being, and achievement; and the implications of that science for shaping policies and programs that improve child outcomes.  

  • Strengthening families and improving parenting is the essential driver for advancing young children’s well-being. CCFP’s work highlights:

    • The preeminent role of families in early health and development;

    • The value of policies and programs that help disadvantaged parents provide the nurturing, stimulating care that young children need to thrive; and

    • The imperative of supporting parental choice in young children’s care and education.

  • Over 40 percent of babies in the U.S. are born on Medicaid. CCFP aims to amplify policy focus on the crucial, underutilized role of public healthcare in improving children's outcomes, especially through better prenatal and pediatric care and stronger support for maternal mental health.

  • Increasing access to high-quality preschool programs is an important strategy to improve outcomes specifically for children living in poverty and adversity, and to build human capital in disadvantaged communities. CCFP emphasizes:

    • The role of high-quality childcare in breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, raising school achievement, and ensuring a strong workforce;

    • The most promising strategies for boosting access to high-quality programs for the children and families who need them most;

    • The particular urgency of improving quality, availability, and sustainability of home-based — rather than institutional — childcare; and

    • The negative effects of universal programs on program quality and parental choice.

  • Recent massive hikes in federal funding for early childhood programs present a great challenge to strong state and community leadership in early childhood. CCFP aims to:

    • Underscore the crucial role that states and localities play in driving strong early childhood policy and programs, and the counterproductive impact of federal control;

    • Examine how federal programs can facilitate, rather than constrain, state innovation and leadership in early childhood;

    • Explore how states, in turn, can most effectively support and build on community-level early childhood programs; and

    • Highlight “best practices” in current state and local policies and programs for young children and their families, as a resource to policymakers and others.

  • CCFP aims to expand ideologically diverse engagement in early childhood policy around key issues such as strengthening families, advancing opportunity and mobility, and closing the skills gap. We seek, too, to bring stakeholders together both across sectors — such as education, health, and workforce — and across the growing political divide, aiming to facilitate cross-partisan and cross-issue dialogue and relationship-building.

    While this kind of bridge-building is increasingly rare, it provides great value in broadening perspectives, considering new approaches, and finding — even creating — common ground.

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