Official State of Rhode Island website

Governor Dan McKee RI 2030 Plan Charting a Course for the Future of the Ocean State

Investing in Children and Families

Early Childhood Care and Education

  • Bolstered Rhode Island’s Early Intervention (EI) Program, which promotes the growth and development of infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities or delays. Children referred to the EI Program receive a comprehensive developmental evaluation to determine if they are eligible. Services are provided in places where children usually play or take part in daily activities.
    • Significantly reduced the average days from referral to enrollment from 167 days in 2022 to 104 days in 2024.
    • Significantly reduced the number of children who did not receive a timely eligibility evaluation from approximately 1,100 children in 2022 to 429 children in 2024.
    • Increased EI system staffing capacity by 38 net positions from the beginning of federal State Fiscal Recovery Funds (SFRF) funding in March 2022 to July 2024.
  • Fully funded the EI rate implementation in the FY 2025 enacted budget, allotting $3.8 million to facilitate 100 percent of OHIC recommended EI increases from a 2023 study. Implementation began on October 1, 2024.
  • Expanded access to quality early childhood care and education programs, including sustainably expanding Rhode Island Pre-K by allocating an additional $7.1 million in the FY 2025 enacted budget to support 35 new pre-K classrooms – 700 seats for a total of 3,000 seats in FY 2025.
  • Expanded the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) to help more families starting in January 2025 by raising the household income limit to 261 percent of the federal poverty level ($67,390 for a family of three in 2024), the highest level in state history. This policy will enable a two-parent family with one child, where both parents are working full-time and earning $16 per hour, to qualify for child-care assistance.
  • Prioritized the retention and attraction of early educators using several innovative compensation strategies. These include the Pandemic Retention Bonus Program, which supported more than 6,800 unique educators with annual bonuses of up to $3,000 and the Step Up to WAGE$ pilot with tiered bonuses based on educational attainment for over 130 employees as of September 2024.
  • Increased the capacity of early childhood education settings, including helping more than 80 new Family Child Care providers open through the Family Child Care Start-up Grant program.
  • Boosted the RI Works program benefits by 20 percent, offering crucial financial relief to approximately 8,700 low-income families with children under 18 years old.
  • Boosted the RI Works program benefits by 20 percent, offering crucial financial relief to approximately 8,700 low-income families with children under 18 years old.
Gov McKee Shaking hands with a kid

Behavioral Health System of Care for Children and Youth

  • Broke ground on a new female adolescent residential treatment campus on state- owned land in Exeter. The 16-bed facility will provide a new Rhode Island-based option to address the behavioral health needs of female youth ages 13 to 18. Construction is scheduled for completion by late Spring 2026.
  • Received a competitive Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) System of Care Expansion and Sustainability Grant for more than $10.5 million, providing funding to support mobile response and stabilization services for children, community-based intensive care programming, family engagement, data collection and performance evaluation, and key staff positions. Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) has chosen the Parent Support Network (PSN) as our Family Engagement Organization. PSN employs two Lead Family Coordinators, who play a crucial role in developing and implementing the Children’s Behavioral Health System of Care.
  • Stabilized 1,064 children and youth served by the Mobile Response and Stabilization Services (MRSS) within the first 22 months of the program, as of August 2024. Of the 1,021 children and youth who utilized the services, 89 percent were served in the community, without hospital care or law enforcement engagement, providing strong evidence of the efficacy and need of this service. MRSS has been integrated into the services offered by Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) throughout the state and is available to serve to all Rhode Island children and youth as of October 1, 2024.
  • Continued to implement components of the 2023 wide-ranging report on Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health in Rhode Island that was delivered to the General Assembly.
    • Provided comprehensive trainings on Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health for healthcare and social services providers.
    • Supported the Pediatric Psychiatry Resource Network (PRN) and Moms-PRN telephonic consultation program (connecting primary care providers and OB-GYNs with behavioral health specialists to support their provision of behavioral healthcare).
    • Supported Bradley Hospital Kids’ Link behavioral health triage services and referral service.
  • Procured a vendor for the Community-Based Intensive Care program (CBIC). CBIC is an intensive home and community-based service carried out by Community Care Alliance (CCA) and Tides Family Services. The program supports children and youth with the most complex behavioral health difficulties to ensure they can remain safely at home or to transition home from psychiatric hospitalizations or intensive residential programs. Since its official launch in February 2024 through September 2024, CCA has opened 24 cases.
  • Successfully submitted the state’s Families First Prevention Services Plan to invest in evidence- based prevention practices, focusing on increasing family stability and well-being to prevent entry into the foster care system. The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) is gathering data from Family First Prevention Services Act evidence-based providers for an outcome analysis that will be completed in 2025. DCYF is assessing whether additional cohorts and access pathways should be added to the Prevention Plan. DCYF has continued to train staff on Motivational Interviewing, a critical evidence-based practice that is supported through Family First.

The Road to RI 2030: Children and Families Goals

  • Improve and expand in-state behavioral healthcare services for children, including the creation of a nationally accredited adolescent psychiatric residential treatment facility (PRTF), to reduce out-of-state placements.
  • Invest in preventive health and behavioral health initiatives to ensure children are on track for child and adolescent well visits, vaccinations, lead screenings, and behavioral health screenings.
  • Reduce screentime for children and adolescents given that excessive cellphone and social media use negatively affects behavioral health and contributes to increased anxiety, depression, and reduced interpersonal communication skills.
  • Ensure that providers of key children’s services, such as Early Intervention and pediatricians, can hire and retain staff and address the need for services by enhancing wages and providing professional development opportunities.
  • Expand Rhode Island’s nationally top-ranked Pre-K program through a mixed delivery system that strengthens the entire “birth through age five” system, inclusive of Head Start, Family Child Care, and center-based care.
  • Encourage family-friendly workplace policies that allow families to participate in the workforce while raising their children.
  • Increase coordination and alignment between the early learning system and the K-12 school system in each community to ensure all children are on a path to academic success.
  • Ensure a continuum of care to meet the needs of children and adolescents.