As the Colorado Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (CO-ECCS) project comes to completion, we’re taking a moment to celebrate what’s been accomplished and to look ahead at what’s unfolding next.

This project aimed to fundamentally shift how Colorado thinks about and supports families with young children from the prenatal stage through age three. It was about centering family voice. Building coordinated systems. Identifying policy solutions that actually work. And building upon existing infrastructure that will sustain this work for years to come.

Over the past five years, through partnership with Colorado state departments, countless community organizations, and family voice councils and lived experience experts, the CO-ECCS project brought together implementation teams focused on different aspects of Colorado’s early childhood and maternal health system. The goal was simple but ambitious: identify what’s working, what’s missing, and what needs to change to give Colorado’s youngest children and their families equal access to services, supports, and resources.

The P-3 Policy Recommendation report is the result of the Health Care and Early Childhood Partnerships Implementation Team and its members’ collaboration across sectors. The process of creating this report included sifting through over 100 evidence-informed policies from local, state, and national sources to identify ten game-changing policy recommendations for Colorado, ensuring their alignment with the voices of CDEC’s Family Voice Council along the way. These policies are child, family, caregiver, and community-centered, accountability-focused, and access-driven, focused across four key domains: Economic Mobility, Whole Person Health & Well-being, Learning & Development, and Family Support & Education.

These policies are now ready for families to use in making their voices heard, for advocates to champion, for legislators to introduce, and for state agencies to implement.

The P-3 Bridges to Access Report identifies concrete strategies at the state and local level that work to improve access, quality, and outcomes for families with young children in preexisting systems. The process to highlight these strategies prioritized community voices, fostered collaboration, and ensured strategic alignment with the needs of those most impacted by access challenges.

Each strategy highlighted has sustainable funding for ongoing implementation. They were also cross-referenced to the Elevating Early Childhood: Colorado’s Early Childhood System Strategic Plan to strengthen alignment with efforts across the state.

Key recommendations from this work include aligning policies across agencies to reduce duplication, implementing stable and blended funding streams, developing a trained and supported early childhood workforce, and—importantly—recognizing and supporting family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) caregivers who provide care for a significant share of young children.

The CIRS (Coordinated Intake & Referral Systems) report represents years of work to identify and assess barriers across local and state referral systems, aiming to further the expansion of Colorado’s coordinated intake and referral system. The goal: help families navigate a confusing landscape of services by creating integrated, coordinated pathways to care.

Beyond systems evaluation, this team also developed tools to support embedded family voice in system design and decision-making—ensuring that the people most impacted by these systems have a say in how they’re built.

Two versions of the Family Leadership in State Government training materials are now available—one for family leaders with lived experience (including a Spanish transcreation) and one for early childhood and maternal health professionals. These trainings do something crucial: they build capacity for shared power. They help families lead and they help professionals learn to listen and incorporate family expertise into their work.

Early childhood is a critical window. The first few years shape so much—health, learning, relationships, resilience. When families have support during pregnancy and the early years, outcomes improve across the board. When systems are coordinated instead of fragmented, families don’t get lost. When policies are informed by evidence and family voice, they actually work.

The CO-ECCS project recognized all of this. The deliverables aren’t just reports gathering dust. They’re tools. They’re blueprints. They’re invitations to legislators, state agencies, advocates, and communities to do things differently.

If you’re a family wanting to advocate for policies that support your community, these reports give you evidence and language. If you’re an advocate, there’s a roadmap. If you’re a legislator or state agency official, there are policies ready to advance. If you’re building early childhood systems or supporting families, there are lessons learned and coordinated pathways to follow.

The ECCS project may be wrapping up, but the work is far from over. Keep an eye out for:

Updated Prenatal to Three Fiscal Map
This has been expanded to now include up to age 5, in partnership with the Infant & Early Childhood Mini Grant. This tool helps policymakers and advocates see where money is going across Colorado’s early childhood system—and where gaps exist.

Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Workforce Cost Estimation Tool
A new resource to help Colorado understand and plan for the workforce needed to support infant and early childhood mental health across the state.

Want to Learn More?

Explore the ECCS project page to access all reports, training materials, and resources.

The foundation is laid. The work continues. Colorado’s families deserve nothing less.

The CO-ECCS Project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award of the ECCS Program totaling $255,600 with 0% financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov.

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