Preventing Early Expulsion to Promote Child Health

At a Glance

Through its grant, Supporting Families Together Association (SFTA),and its grant partners, will focus on improving health outcomes by implementing intervention strategies in early childhood education to address disparities in rates of expulsion among young children in Wisconsin.

The Challenge

Early expulsion negatively affects social emotional health because it interrupts children’s learning of key skills, like self-regulation and forming relationships, and prevents the early identification or diagnosis of underlying behavioral or mental health issues.

Project Goals

SFTA and its collaborators will adapt for Wisconsin an existing and effective model that addresses challenging behaviors, traumatic experiences and implicit bias to reduce expulsion in the early education system and the disparities associated with it. By preventing expulsions in early childhood through a systemic model of supports, the project will create better health and social emotional development outcomes due to increased positive social emotional behaviors, increased early identification of behavioral or mental health needs and decreased disparities among children of color and children of lower socioeconomic status.