Summary
Clients: Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS), Children Services Division
Partner: University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Project: Help the Children Services Division of Chicago's Department of Family and Support Services define its priorities for the future amid a shifting early childhood funding and policy landscape.
Outcome: Six emerging priorities and 21 potential opportunities to guide how the Children Services Division serves Chicago's youngest children and their families as its funding and role evolve. The work is grounded in a landscape analysis of 20 local reports and 9 stakeholder interviews, plus research into 73 programs outside Chicago and 19 national and international case studies.
Opportunity
Since the 1960s, the Children Services Division (CSD) of DFSS has supported Chicago's youngest children, managing Head Start, Early Head Start, child care, and youth programs and providing funding, training, and technical assistance to the agencies that deliver them.
But the ground is shifting: an uncertain federal landscape and changing structures at the state level, including the introduction of the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC), may lead to shifts in funding streams, leaving CSD’s role in the early childhood ecosystem less clear.
DFSS leadership asked CCA to help think strategically about what CSD's priorities should be going forward so that vulnerable families keep their access to high-quality services.
Action
CCA, with pro bono support from a team of students from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, researched the early childhood landscape and built a prioritized set of opportunities.
Discover: CCA led research within Chicago, reviewing 20 reports and conducting 9 stakeholder interviews, while the Booth team researched 73 programs from outside Chicago and conducted 3 interviews, surfacing promising practices from across the country and around the world.
Design: Together the team organized findings into six emerging priorities within three categories: the services available to children and families, the supports given to providers, and the sustainability of the ecosystem.
Deliver: The team packaged 21 potential opportunities backed by 19 case studies (including Washington, D.C.'s Pay Equity Fund, Texas's Early Reach contracted-slots model, and New York City's community-based subsidy navigation), flagging quick wins and the tradeoffs of each for CSD leadership to weigh.
Impact
DFSS leadership came away with a clear, evidence-based menu of priorities and opportunities for CSD's next chapter, grounded in how peer programs elsewhere have tackled the same challenges. They also gained a sharper understanding of where partnerships with other City and social-service agencies could help more families find and use existing services without significant new spending.
CSD was left with a durable set of assets: a landscape analysis of Chicago's early childhood ecosystem; six emerging priorities across services, supports, and sustainability; and 21 opportunities backed by a library of 19 national and international case studies. As funding streams shift, CSD can return to the prioritized opportunities to decide where to focus, draw on the case studies to design specific interventions, and pursue the cross-agency partnerships the work identified. These resources should enable CSD to continue to support the early childhood ecosystem, ensuring families throughout the City can access high-quality programs.
“For sixty years, the Children Services Division has been how Chicago shows up for its youngest children and their families. This work gives us a clear, evidence-based set of priorities to protect that mission as the funding landscape around us shifts.”
“This was a chance for our students to put their skills to work on a challenge that genuinely matters for Chicago’s families and to see rigorous research shape real public strategy. Thank you to Civic Consulting Alliance for connecting our students to this opportunity and helping them grow.”
