RAPID and Groundwork Ohio partnership

Community served

Groundwork Ohio works to ensure that every pregnant mom, baby, toddler, and young child in Ohio has the resources and opportunities for a strong start, with a particular focus on the time when children’s experiences and environments most influence their health, development, and life trajectory: from birth to age 5.

Priorities and goals

Groundwork Ohio advances quality early childhood systems in Ohio by engaging, educating, and mobilizing stakeholders and strategic partners to promote data-driven and evidence based early childhood policies. They elevate the voices of families and professionals who are impacted by our child-serving systems and seek to advance system-level changes that improve outcomes for Ohio’s youngest children and their families. The Groundwork Ohio vision is to make Ohio the best place to be a young child so that every child can reach their full potential.

Engaging families

The RAPID Survey Project began collaborating with Groundwork Ohio in 2022 to amplify the voices of families with children under age 6 across Ohio, and provide actionable, relevant, and timely data about families’ experiences to inform policymakers, advocates, the public, and participants themselves. Surveys are fielded to hear directly from parents on topics like economic security, early learning, maternal and child health, and child well-being, aiming to better understand and address families’ needs. 

Data and insights

In 2024, 755 Ohio families of 932 children shared their experiences through the Family Voices Project’s first survey, highlighting significant challenges, such as difficulty finding affordable child care and barriers to accessing supports. These families reported limited access to quality health care and high-quality early learning along with financial hardships that created additional challenges. The goal of this project was to provide actionable insights to inform policies and programs that support Ohio’s youngest children and their families.