As families across the country navigate the pressures of finding and affording child care, new research examines what that landscape looks like in greater Nashville, Tennessee
Explore a series of in-depth history reports alongside a chronological timeline, highlighting major points of inequitable social policy development and the ongoing effects on communities today.
Explore where states stand, track progress on proven policies, and identify opportunities to strengthen early childhood systems.
The interactive Policy Impact Calculator shows how state policy choices affect resources for families with young children. Compare states, track trends, and simulate outcomes.
No two states govern early childhood the same way. Explore a state-by-state look at early childhood governance, showing how programs are administered and which agencies oversee them.
The interactive Policy Impact Calculator shows how state policy choices affect resources for families with young children. Compare states, track trends, and simulate outcomes.
How do you know if a state policy truly improves outcomes for infants, toddlers, and their families? We reviewed thousands of research studies for you.
We conduct original research—including program evaluation, policy analyses, benefit-cost analyses, and mixed methods studies—to build the evidence.
To support lawmakers and advocates, we offer research and evaluation, data and analyses, presentations, testimony, agenda development, and more.
We aim to accelerate states’ implementation of evidence-based policies that help all children thrive from the start.
Who We Are
We are a nonpartisan research center at Vanderbilt University. We focus on the rigorous evidence connecting brain science with state policies and programs.
What We Do
We inform lawmakers, agencies, advocates, and academics about policies to help families thrive–while growing states’ health, safety, and prosperity.
Why prenatal to 3?
The first three years of life have a powerful impact on the future wellbeing of every person. Families can benefit from a strong early childhood system of care.
The Latest
Governance change does not happen overnight, and states rarely accomplish it alone. Drawing on case studies of five states that consolidated their early childhood systems, a new brief from the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center identifies seven lessons learned, from sustained advocacy to strong, collaborative leadership, that can help state leaders pursue governance change reflecting their own early childhood goals.
State choices in early childhood governance shape whether families can easily find, access, and use the services their children need. A new brief from the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center maps how all 50 states and the District of Columbia organize these systems, identifying three governance typologies (whole child, school readiness, and parents' workforce participation) to help leaders align governance structure with their early childhood goals.
As families across the country navigate the pressures of finding and affording child care, new research from Vanderbilt University’s Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center examines what that landscape looks like in greater Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, Tennessee
The Davidson County Child Care Landscape Study examines local child care supply, population metrics that inform demand, the local ECE workforce, operating conditions of local child care programs, and the estimated cost of providing high-quality child care in greater Nashville, Tennessee.
Child care access shapes whether families with young children can work and whether children receive the nurturing, structured environments that support healthy development. This brief examines center-based child care supply across greater Davidson County, Tennessee, drawing on survey data from 116 child care programs to build a more complete picture of what families can realistically access.
The early childhood education workforce is central to the quality and functioning of center-based child care programs, yet directors across the country face persistent challenges recruiting and retaining educators. This brief draws on survey data from 116 child care programs to describe the size and composition of the early childhood education workforce across greater Davidson County, Tennessee.
