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Early Childhood

Partnering to Support Future Generations

Organizations that support early childhood learning, health, and development help communities create safe and nourishing environments for children five years old and under. Early childhood initiatives lay a strong foundation for young children’s future success. Therefore, it is vital that these agencies have access to relevant data to enhance their impact on the children and families they serve.

Numerous early childhood organizations have partnered with EVALCORP to unlock critical demographic and community data via our needs assessment, program evaluation, strategic planning, and evaluation capacity building services. The data that EVALCORP provides lead to insights that guide resource allocation and program planning to maximize impact on children during some of their most formative years.

Early Childhood Expertise and Clients

EVALCORP maintains expertise in a wide range of early childhood topics, emphasizing the intersection of health, development, education/early learning, and community support systems.

We have extensive experience working alongside First 5 Commissions across California. In this capacity we have gained a comprehensive understanding of First 5 priority areas, including efforts to enhance early childhood development and reduce childhood poverty. Through this collaboration we have provided program evaluations, needs assessment, and strategic planning services in the interest of helping First 5 Commissions optimize their resources, ensure that their strategic goals are met, and better serve their communities.

Our team is well-versed in childhood health and development, particularly in understanding the role of social determinants of health, the importance of perinatal support, and the long-term impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on early childhood well-being.

We have conducted evaluation consulting services for client organizations that specialize in promoting safe, nurturing home environments including home visiting programs and parent engagement initiatives that empower caregivers to support their children’s development.

We have also provided evaluation and assessment services to agencies that engage community-level interventions such as early care and education programs, children’s museums and alternative educational programming, as well as place-based systems building that enhances access to resources in underserved neighborhoods.

Early Childhood Clients

A select list of our early childhood clients include:

Children’s Health Council
El Nido Family Centers
First 5 Butte County
First 5 California
First 5 Los Angeles
First 5 Marin
First 5 Sacramento
First 5 San Bernardino
First 5 San Mateo County
First 5 Ventura County
Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles
Pretend City Children’s Museum
See our full client list

Case Study: Needs Assessment, Strategic Planning, and Capacity Building for First 5 Commissions

Client: Multiple First 5 Commissions across California

Service Type: Needs Assessment, Strategic Planning, Capacity Building & Training

Context: EVALCORP was engaged by California First 5 agencies to strengthen their strategic planning and capacity to measure impact and make data-informed decisions. First 5 Commissions serve young children (prenatal to age five) and the adults who care for them during the critical early childhood years, as well as administer funding and oversee networks of community-based service providers to deliver health, development, and family support programs.

Approach

EVALCORP employed a comprehensive mixed-methods approach to support community-level needs assessments, strategic planning, and ongoing evaluation technical assistance.

To inform the development of long-term strategic planning, our team conducted community-level data collection, including multilingual focus groups, document reviews, and analyses of administrative data to compile child- and family-level indicators (e.g., health and well-being) and to identify any gaps in services (e.g., regionally). Findings from this assessment informed the development of public-facing strategic plans and evaluation frameworks with clear measurement strategies to support decision-making and effective service delivery.

EVALCORP provided evaluation technical assistance by developing and refining data collection protocols for multiple stakeholder groups, delivering annual virtual training to funded agencies to support consistent and high-quality data collection, conducting quantitative and qualitative data analyses, and producing data briefs and summary reports with community-friendly data visualizations. To support data-informed decision-making, our team presented findings to each agency’s Evaluation Advisory Committees.

Impacts Achieved

Through EVALCORP’s assessment and strategic planning support, First 5 agencies were equipped with clearly defined priorities, measurable goals, and strategic frameworks aligned to community needs. Funded partner agencies demonstrated stronger data-collection practices through ongoing training and technical assistance, supporting more meaningful measurement of outcomes across the service networks. Community and family voices were directly reflected in strategic priorities and evaluation processes, ensuring that the needs and experiences of those served remained central to decision-making.

Early Childhood Report Samples

Whether a project is for program evaluation, strategic planning, or needs assessment, we pride ourselves on creating reports that provide user-friendly and actionable data that early childhood agencies can use to make meaningful impact on the lives of children in their communities.