The Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood is an incubator of promising research and development projects that appear likely to improve the welfare of young children, from infancy through seven years, in the United States. The Foundation’s goal is to provide seed money to implement imaginative proposals that exhibit the greatest chance of improving the lives of young children, on a national scale.
Funding is provided in the following areas:
Early childhood welfare, including projects that seek to perfect child rearing practices and to identify models that can provide creative, caring environments in which all young children thrive
Early childhood education and play, including efforts to improve the quality of both early childhood teaching and learning through the development of innovative curricula and research based pedagogical standards, as well as the design of imaginative play materials and learning environments
Parenting education, including programs that teach parents about developmental psychology, cultural child rearing differences, pedagogy, issues of health, and prenatal care and diet, as well as programs which provide both cognitive and emotional support to parents.