Our Work

High quality early care and education are our children’s best chance for a healthy future, and Oakland’s best chance for ensuring opportunity for all. By making sure the adults in a child’s life have information, resources, and support, we can help create the nurturing and engaging connections children need.

The Pillars: Collective Solutions

Oakland Starting Smart and Strong  leverages the power of our collaborative's stakeholders to advocate for policies that build and improve the systems that support Oakland children and families most impacted by racial and economic inequity.

​Read our 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, which details our vision, mission, values, and newly updated pillars. The plan also outlines five key goals and related strategies to drive our work forward as a critical leader in identifying, seeding, and driving equitable solutions to strengthen the City of Oakland’s early childhood ecosystem.
  • EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
  • FAMILY, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR CARE
  • HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT
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Early Childhood Education
Oakland Starting Smart and Strong is improving the quality of early childhood education provided in formal settings such as preschool, infant care, and licensed family child care. We’re working alongside early childhood educators to provide them with the tools and training they need to foster quality connections and engaging learning activities that address the needs of each child.
Why
  • The foundations for health and learning are built in the first 5 years of a child’s life. Early childhood education supports the holistic development of a child, to cultivate lifelong learning and wellbeing.
Our Goal
  • All early childhood education sites will offer trauma responsive and culturally relevant programming to Oakland’s children and families.
Highlights
  • Supporting Oakland Unified School District’s Early Learning Department, including:
    • strengthening of infrastructure
    • scaling of curriculum
    • Quality ratings (QRIS) participation
    • coaching and professional development
    • kindergarten transition efforts
  • Building knowledge about trauma and its impact on children's health and learning, protective factors and resilience and trauma informed practices, across early learning sites.  
  • Bringing together early childhood professionals from different early learning sites to provide support, learning and community through the  Oakland Early Learning Symposium.
  • Identifying innovative work in Oakland nurturing educational joy for young boys of color, and developing 10 Promising Practices to improve early learning outcomes for boys of color.
Family, Friend and Neighbor Care
Oakland Starting Smart and Strong is expanding programs to serve more families and caregivers. Along with our partners, we’re exploring new ways to collaborate with informal caregivers and provide them with tools and resources they need to nurture educational joy.
Why
  • All adults in a child’s life help to create the healthy, nurturing, and engaging connections that children need to grow.
Our Goal
  • Families and caregivers of young children, especially in areas with limited services, are provided the resources and support they need, in culturally responsive, linguistically appropriate ways.
Highlights
  • Expanding professional development opportunities and resources for informal caregivers, including leadership and training opportunities, and research based playgroups for caregivers
  • Supporting the work of the Oakland 0-5 Family Resource Center (FRC) Network, along with our partners and generous funders, to increase family resilience.
Health and Development
Healthy children are better prepared for school and for life. Oakland Starting Smart and Strong is working to ensure that young children are screened for developmental, social and cognitive needs, and that necessary services are provided to meet those needs.
Why
  • Early childhood is a pivotal time to provide the supports our children need to grow into strong adults who can reach their potential.
  • Developmental screenings are critical to learn about children’s development and identify delays or concerns for early intervention.
Our Goal
  • OUSD and other providers are more equipped to screen, identify, and serve children who have developmental, social, and cognitive needs.
Highlights
  • Scaling developmental screenings at all OUSD Child Development Centers, with increased supports in multiple languages
  • Improving the process of delivering developmental screening results to families and teachers
  • Funding a study to assess current reach of  developmental screening practices and develop recommendations to support connecting children and families to services they need
Many of the photos on this site appear courtesy of Hasain Rasheed Photography