NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!

Event Overview

Across the country, state approaches to organizing the administration of programs and services for young children and their families vary widely. Although states have pursued consolidated early childhood governance in recent years, no clear consensus exists on the optimal governance structure. Nonetheless, states’ organizational choices can have significant impacts. Early childhood governance can affect parents’ awareness of, access to, and experience with vital services for their families. Governance choices may also impact the overall effectiveness and efficiency of early childhood programs and services.

To help states consider the benefits and challenges of various state early childhood governance models, the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt University is inviting your state to apply to the State Policy Academy: Early Childhood Governance in Nashville, TN, from July 15-17, 2026.

The Policy Impact Center will cover expenses for travel, accommodation, and meals.

What to Expect

This State Policy Academy will offer opportunities to engage with and learn from state and national experts, and to collaborate as a state team to determine opportunities to improve governance, either through increased coordination or consolidation.

Each team will leave with a deeper understanding of best practices in state governance relevant to their state.

Programming will include presentations and workshops addressing:

• Variation and trends in state governance choices,
• Lessons learned in governance change,
• Coordinating governance across departments,
• The relationship between funding and governance,
• Leveraging governance to facilitate robust data systems, and
• Engaging various stakeholders on governance issues.
• Extensive state team planning time.
• Opportunities to network with other state team members, state experts, and national experts.

Schedule Overview

 The State Policy Academy will begin at 5 pm on Wednesday, July 15, and conclude by 2 pm on Friday, July 17. 

• Day 1: Travel to Nashville, reception, and dinner
• Day 2: Full day of programming, dinner on your own
• Day 3: Half day of programming, travel home

Post-Academy Support

 Following the event, attendees will be first in line to receive ongoing assistance from the Policy Impact Center in the form of:

• In-state presentations to your stakeholders.
• Analysis of your state’s current or proposed governance structure.
• Answers to your individual questions about early childhood governance.
• Connections to state leaders with experience in early childhood governance structure changes and decision-making.

Eligibility and Team Composition

Teams from all states are welcome to apply. State teams will be selected based on their demonstrated interest in early childhood governance and readiness to apply their learnings from the policy academy. Team members should have a shared understanding of the challenges under their state’s current governance structure and an agreed upon goal for change (e.g., improve access to early childhood programs, reduce duplication, maximize funding, etc.)

Each state team can consist of up to six members. Priority will be given to teams with diverse representation in roles, each needed to successfully foster coordination and collaboration across early childhood governance systems. A strong preference will also be given to teams with state policymakers/staff and agency staff.

Examples of team members include:

• Governor’s office staff
• Staff from a state child-serving department or agency (e.g., Dept. of Health or Dept. of Education)
• State lawmakers or legislative staff (bipartisan representation encouraged)
• Local elected officials
• Community, child-serving organizations
• Statewide early childhood advocates

State teams should designate one team member as their team captain to serve as the team’s point of contact and complete one application on behalf of the team.

If multiple applications are submitted from the same state, team captains will be asked to collaborate to combine teams into a single state application.