Together, we’re strengthening West Marin’s system of care for children ages 0–3 and their families.
A child’s early years are foundational. By age three, nearly 80% of brain development has already occurred, shaping a child’s lifelong ability to learn, build relationships, and thrive.
In West Marin, families share the same hopes as families everywhere: that their children grow up healthy, safe, and full of opportunity. But rural realities — high housing costs, limited childcare, long travel distances, and gaps in services — make accessing support far more difficult.
For infants and toddlers, these gaps can have lifelong impacts.
Listening to the Community
To better understand these challenges and the opportunities to address them, West Marin Fund launched an in-depth two-year research survey in this area, talking to:
- Families raising infants and toddlers
- Informal caregivers like grandparents and neighbors
- Early childhood providers and service organizations
What we heard was clear: families are deeply committed and resourceful, but navigating the system is difficult, and critical supports are often out of reach.
What We Learned
The research revealed a system with both strong foundations and significant gaps.
What’s working:
- Trusted healthcare and safety-net services
- High-quality, free enrichment programs
- A collaborative provider community
Where families face barriers:
- Complex systems that are difficult to navigate
- Severe shortage of affordable childcare, especially for children under 2
- Long travel distances for services and specialists
- Limited support for the caregivers who provide most daily care
Families described making difficult trade-offs every day between work, care, and opportunity.
Turning Research into Action: The Infant & Toddler Initiative
Building on the recommendations from the research, West Marin Fund and partners launched the Infant & Toddler Initiative — a coordinated effort to strengthen the system of care for children ages 0-3 across West Marin over the next three years.
In partnership with West Marin’s Early Learning Collaborative Action Network (ELCAN), this collaborative effort is working to:
- Making services easier to navigate
- Bringing programs closer to home
- Expanding playgroups and enrichment opportunities
- Supporting parents and caregivers with training and resources
- Exploring childcare options that work in rural communities
- Strengthening early screening and intervention of developmental delays
Our goal:
A coordinated, family-centered system where every young child in West Marin has the support they need to thrive.
Early Progress
The initiative’s partners are already taking action:
- Launching West Marin’s first Early Childhood Family Fair to connect families with services
- Creating a bilingual resource guide to simplify service navigation
- Expanding collaboration and improving data collection across providers through the Early Learning Collaborative Action Network (ELCAN)
- Beginning long-term planning to strengthen the full 0-3 system of care
Join Us!
This is just the beginning of sustained change that will make the system work better for everybody. But it requires community investment to grow.
