Special Legislative Edition
December 2020
Welcome to the first edition of First3Years’ Special Legislative eNews!

Our Advocacy Newsletter will feature content that let’s you, the reader, know about the policies that we are supporting, what they mean, and how they advance our mission to educate, advocate, and collaborate for infant, toddlers, and their families.

This month’s edition includes key components of the Texas Prenatal to Three (PN-3) 2021 Legislative Agenda. PN-3 is a statewide, policy collaboration whose vision is to ensure that all Texas children are born healthy and have equitable access to things like health care and early learning at home and in their communities.

Below are the policy priorities we are most excited about at First3Years:
Family Support (led by TexProtects) 
  • Support Families Easy Access To Resources: Support centralized access points to services and resources (such as 211, Help Me Grow, and Frontline) that ensure families not just know about, but were able to access the services through closed loop referrals.
  •  Increase the volume of home-based family support and Early Childhood Intervention.
  • Reinstate funding to ensure all eligible children are identified, screened evaluated and enrolled in Early Childhood Intervention
  • Support the Home Visiting and Healthy Outcomes Through Prevention and Early Support (HOPES) programs to help communities drive strategies that support families and prevent entries into foster care.

You can read more about their policy priorities for the 87th Legislative Session here: https://www.texprotects.org/policy/priorities/
Health (led by Texans Care)
  • Medicaid Coverage:
  • Reduce paperwork and ensure Medicaid is available to infants and toddlers for 12 months of interrupted coverage
  • Ensure mothers continue to have access to Medicaid 12 months postpartum

Read more about their policy priorities here:
Early Care and Education (led by Children at Risk)
  • Increase reimbursement rates for infants and toddlers.
  • Require the Texas Workforce Commission to develop statewide plan and goals to support educators (teachers) in achieving credentials and degrees, meet living wages, and utilize the Texas Early Childhood Professional Development System and Workforce Registry.

Read more about their policy priorities here: https://catriskprod.wpengine.com/public-policy/ 
Equity
  • Request the Sunset Advisory Commission (assigned to assess state agencies and make recommendations to the legislature) to include efforts to reduce racial disparities (imbalance in resources and opportunities) in their agency evaluations.
If you would like to read more about PN-3’s recommended policies and strategies for TX, check out their State Policy Roadmap:

First3Years | www.first3yearstx.org | info@first3yearstx.org