Baby's Space

Early childhood is a critical time in children’s development which influences strongly their chances for self-sufficiency and life success. Children born into families and communities living in poverty are at high-risk of abuse, neglect and other factors. Toxic stress often leads to significant developmental delays, social and emotional difficulties, school failure and dropout.

FOUNDER
As the Associate Director for Training for Infant and Toddler Development at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Terrie Rose’s ongoing research brought her face-to-face with social and parenting challenges that failed to nurture success in the children. In 2000, in the wake of national welfare reform, she developed a new model for a sustainable, high-quality, culturally-relevant, neighborhood-based childcare center for children and their families residing in poverty and violence. In 2005 she realized she couldn’t stand to sit around and wait for someone to use it: she left academia to replicate the Baby’s Space model first developed in the Little Earth Neighborhood Learning Center in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood to other neighborhoods across the country.

The Ashoka Institute granted her a fellowship in 2008, an honor given to “social entrepreneurs who create system-changing solutions to the world’s most urgent social problems.” She uses this new platform to develop and catalyze strategic, policy and funding partners in the ongoing expansion of the Baby’s Space model.

BABY’S SPACE KEY DIFFERENTIATORS

(Baby’s Point-of-View) The Baby’s point-of-view informs all aspects of Baby’s Space’s programming, meaning that responsive, consistent, and warm relationships with adults are the building blocks for all learning and development. Decisions about staffing, space and family services must answer the critical question, “How does the baby see it?”

(Environment by Design) Baby’s Space facilities are intentionally designed to meet the developmental, social and cognitive needs of children. Mirrors that wrap around the entire infant room strengthen attachment between babies and caregivers while increasing the babies’ sense of connection and discovery. Cozy reading spaces invite toddlers and adults to cuddle while their imaginations roam. Hilly ramps and textured crawl-in spaces like loons’ nests promote problem solving and motor development.

(Full-Spectrum Approach) Baby’s Space facilities offer families “one-stop” services by offering full-day, full-year child development programming and family services of equal quality. A young a mother can bring her child to the childcare and stop to convey to a staff member her worries about her violent boyfriend. This full-service approach to helping whole families living in poverty not only makes it easier for the woman to conserve her scarce free time: it makes it more likely that the conversation will happen at all.

(Social and Emotional Health) Baby’s Space builds children’s social and emotional health by providing daily opportunities to improve their ability to engage in relationships, manage their emotions, and learn.

Children and parents who have experienced trauma or who are physically ill or emotionally vulnerable receive individualized attention from a mental health professional. Baby’s Space offers mental health diagnoses and treatment for children and their families in the most non-threatening and accessible of settings: neighborhood-based childcare and education.

(Parent Education) Baby’s Space builds children’s physical and emotional well-being by helping their parents develop five positive, protective factors: secure parent-child relationships, a better understanding of child development, social connections for the whole family, stress management, and access to resources that support basic needs. Parent education services include: home-visits, monthly family events, and parent education activities in one-on-one and group settings conducted by community facilitators and mental health providers.

(Neighborhood-Based) Baby’s Space is at the epicenter of a clearly defined neighborhood, helping nearby families support their children’s development and achievements. It is also part of an ongoing conversation: culturally relevant childcare practices, celebrations and interactions—as defined by the neighborhood served—inform every aspect of Baby’s Space programming.

Whether caring for babies growing up on urban or rural Indian reservations, Latino toddlers without permanent homes, or African American preschoolers living in housing developments, the Baby’s Space model equalizes the traditional child development system by providing local families with the full, local spectrum of services they need for success. Baby’s Space also acts as an agent for neighborhood revitalization by delivering enrichments to families living in poverty to which more affluent neighborhoods typically have access.