Community Voices
The collaboration between First Steps Kent and the RAPID EC Survey Project, hosted by the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, serves as a prime example of how community-focused partnerships can enhance understanding and support for families with young children. This partnership began as an effort to collect and utilize valuable data on the experiences of these families to better shape local policies and support systems during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RAPID EC is an initiative designed to continuously gather crucial data concerning the health, wellbeing, and needs of children ages birth to five and their families. Since its beginning in April 2020, the project has successfully collected responses from more than 20,000 households nationally, proving to be a vital tool in understanding and addressing the challenges faced by families with young children.
Kent County was the first partner in the rollout of “Community Voices,” designed to listen directly to local parents and caregivers. The partnership delivered comprehensive insights that could directly inform strategic decisions and local funding investments.
Throughout the survey period from April 2022 to May 2023, First Steps Kent engaged local organizations to help recruit participants, ensuring a diverse and comprehensive representation of the community’s voices. Parents and caregivers were compensated for their time, encouraging broad participation. The survey reached 1,822 parents, who provided vital data on a range of issues including the hardships they face, healthcare access, child care arrangements, and the emotional well-being of both adults and children in the community.
As the surveys concluded, several critical results were found:
Increasing Material Hardship: There was a significant rise in material hardships reported by families, escalating from 48% of households in November 2022 to 85% in May 2023. These hardships spanned various issues such as housing, health care, child care, and utilities. Notably, disparities were evident across different racial and ethnic groups, with 97% of Latinx, 92% of Black, and 67% of White households experiencing hardships.
Healthcare Access Improving: The data showed a positive trend in healthcare access, with decreases in delayed healthcare visits and missed well-baby checkups. This suggests recovery in health care engagement as the pandemic's direct impacts waned.
Changes in Child Care Utilization: There was a marked increase in the use of non-parental child care, which rose by 43 percentage points since May 2022. Despite shifts away from center-based and home-based care towards more informal Family, Friend, or Neighbor (FFN) care, the overall uptick indicated a rebound in employment and activities that require external child care solutions.
Concerns Over Child Emotional Well-being: More than half of the parents in Kent County expressed concerns about their children's emotional distress, a rate higher than the national average. The correlation between material hardship and heightened concern over children’s emotional health underscores the compounded stressors on vulnerable families.
The partnership between RAPID and First Steps Kent has provided critical data that will guide the enhancement of services and the development of interventions aimed at supporting early childhood well-being in Kent County. The findings stress the need for targeted support to address material hardships and emotional well-being, particularly in racially and ethnically diverse communities.
As this initiative wraps up, the insights outline the importance of data-driven efforts and community-informed responses to ensure that young children and their families thrive. First Steps Kent is committed to using these learnings to advocate for and implement policies and programs that meet the ever-changing needs of the community’s youngest members.
"I'm concerned that my child is not learning as quickly as other children his age." - Parent in Grand Rapids
"Quality time means carving out space for individual family members to express themselves and be heard."- Parent in Comstock Park
"Everything is getting more expensive, pay isn’t increasing to keep up with the amount, there isn’t enough hours in the day for a good family work life balance, and the kids are growing up fast so my husband is missing out on milestones because he’s working so much.” - Parent in Byron Center