Designing for Children

Three Principles to Improve Outcomes for Children and Families by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, October 1, 2017

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This most recent in a series of incisive and compelling reports from The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University is timely and immediately useful to anyone working with children. With its mission to drive science-based innovation to achieve breakthrough outcomes for children facing adversity, the Center takes up issues with a rare clarity, creating universal application for children everywhere. Here, the authors identify a set of "design principles" that policymakers and practitioners in many different sectors can use to improve outcomes for children and families. That is, to be maximally effective, policies and services should: 1) support responsive relationships for children and adults, 2) strengthen core life skills, and 3) reduce sources of stress in the lives of children and families. The report strengthens its reach by elaborating for each principle specific ways, means, approaches, and priorities that work, that are evidence-based, and that make measurable differences in the lives of children and the adults they will become. The report’s strength for schools is that it creates and draws on a common understanding of how positive development can be either promoted or derailed, allowing practitioners to think in new ways about how parents, community services, and classrooms can do a better job supporting children and families.