Publications & Reports

In February 2022, the South Carolina Early Childhood Advisory Council (ECAC) released For Our Future: South Carolina’s Birth through Five Plan – a roadmap for optimizing the state's early childhood system and working towards a shared vision of success for every child. This brief provides updates for ECAC priorities established in 2024. A more comprehensive report is planned for later this year and will share progress in achieving the Birth through Five Plan overarching goals, and ECAC priorities for 2025-2026.

A core value of the SC Early Childhood Advisory Council is listening to those impacted by programs and services and incorporating that feedback into continuous improvement efforts. This report details the history of our listening efforts, the work conducted in 2024, and the themes of the feedback received this year. Furthermore, the report identifies opportunities to expand the reach of First Five SC. 

The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) resource is meant to help states understand the return on investment of improving their early childhood data capacity, provide guidance about how to make the improvements they need, and support them in laying a strong foundation for connection. South Carolina is highlighted for its development and use of a portal to help families find support in a mixed delivery (public-privately funded) system.

Carolina Family Engagement Center teamed up with the Research and Evaluation and Measurement (REM) Center at the University of South Carolina to examine the need for and availability of language access services for parents/caregivers of DLL children enrolled in publicly funded early childhood education and care programs for children ages 3-5.

The report shares the progress on the For Our Future: South Carolina's Birth through Five Plan.

The 2024 Ready for Kindergarten Guide provides families with useful information and simple tips to prepare children for a successful transition to school.

The Joint Citizens and Legislative Committee on Children annually identifies and studies key issues affecting South Carolina children and makes recommendations to the Governor and General Assembly. The issues covered by the Annual Report arose from testimony at the Committee’s fall public hearings across the state as well as input from constituents, state agencies, and law enforcement, among others.

The annual report for South Carolina's ECAC is included in the South Carolina First Steps Annual Report. South Carolina First Steps is the host and administrator of the ECAC.

Co-created with input from our partners, the Flow of Funds chart represents the flow of state and federal dollars in the early childhood system in South Carolina, as well as illustrates the collaborative body that makes up the Early Childhood Advisory Council.