Partner, Plan, Act

Our Approach: Community Systems Development

Community systems development enables communities to develop partners, plan together, and act on your vision and ideas to achieve positive outcomes for young children and families.

Resources for Early Childhood Collaborations

This website offers resources for early childhood care and education and community stakeholders to learn more about how to expand, deepen, or build new local early childhood collaborations in your community.

Community Building is Collaborative

Improving outcomes for young children and families requires bringing together organizations, schools, and community leaders to develop a shared agenda, design strategies, and develop an action plan. This allows communities to address the systems barriers and conditions that prevent families from accessing early childhood services.

In Illinois, we refer to this collaborative process of developing coordinated and integrated local early childhood service delivery systems as community systems development.

Community Systems Development Starts with a Conversation

It relies on building strong, trusting relationships with community stakeholders to meaningfully understand issues in the community. It also engages impacted groups in conversation to understand, identify, and solve issues.

Take a Closer Look

Learn more about our approach’s framework, its key characteristics, and how to apply it to your unique community and collaboration.

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