The District of Columbia (DC) provides many supports for young children with developmental disabilities and delays, mental and behavioral health challenges, and special medical and other health needs, and their families. However, opportunities for improvement remain in DC’s early childhood infrastructure to better serve these children and families. This brief provides an overview of DC’s current early childhood system for children with different identified needs, as well as its strengths and areas for growth.

Why This Matters

Understanding the strengths, needs, and gaps in the way states serve children with identified needs and their families is important to ensure states are fulfilling their requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to offer these children and families early intervention services and a free and appropriate public education. State early childhood policy administrators can use this information to understand what policies are working well and what policy changes could improve access to high quality, comprehensive services for children with identified needs and their families.

Key Takeaways

Using a mix of evaluation methods, we found the following:

• DC’s early childhood system for children with identified needs has many strengths, including strong public investments in early childhood services, support for parental choice in early education settings, policy changes that have broadened eligibility and accessibility for key early intervention and special education services, widespread access to developmental screenings, effective provider engagement and communication, and positive perceived outcomes for children receiving services.
• The system, however, has several areas for growth. For example, the array of different service options and transitions between different parts of the system can be difficult to understand and navigate. Other potential areas for improvement include more comprehensive involvement, communication, practical support, and education for families and educators; timely identification for children; and support for whole-child development.
• Recommendations that may expand on the system’s strengths and help address its areas for growth include building a pipeline of providers with the training and expertise needed to support children with identified needs in a variety of settings; supporting family navigation, coordination, and communication across the early childhood system; and enhancing data collection efforts.

How We Did It

As part of a Preschool Development Grant Birth through 5 evaluation, the research team conducted document analysis, interviews, focus groups, and analysis of administrative data from April to September 2025.