Starting Smart and Strong

In March 2014, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation launched Starting Smart and Strong. Through this ten-year effort, the Foundation is partnering with three California communities to test and scale solutions that support parents, caregivers, and educators as they prepare children to be healthy and ready for school, with self-confidence and a love of learning. Three years into Starting Smart and Strong, grantee communities have accomplished a great deal. All three have built important cross-sector partnerships, established a vision of comprehensive systems of care, and implemented new approaches to serving children and their families.

The Packard Foundation believes that each communities’ work is a journey from which all can learn, and this brief by Engage R+D shares insights and lessons from the first three years of Starting Smart and Strong