Early Childhood Partnerships

Program Description

Early Childhood Partnerships (ECP) is a University-Community service and research collaborative dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable children and families especially those at developmental risk and/or with disabilities (birth to 8 years) and to enhancing the practices of the professionals who support them. ECP is affiliated with both the Schools of Education (Psychology-in-Education, Applied Developmental Psychology) and Medicine (Pediatrics; Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC) at the University of Pittsburgh. ECP is a core division of the Office of Child Development (OCD), a nationally/internationally renowned research, service, and policy institute at the University of Pittsburgh. ECP promotes innovative and effective prevention, intervention, resources, advocacy, policy, and applied research delivered on-site in natural community settings for early childhood professionals and young children. ECP uses mentoring and “participatory action research” methods to promote the use of “best practices” by interdisciplinary professionals. Simply, ECP forges collaborative relationships with community partners to enable them to practice and prove “how good they are at what they do.”