In 1994, the Open Society Foundations launched its flagship early childhood initiative, the Step by Step Program, in Eastern Europe as a response to declining social supports for young children and their families. Drawing initially on expertise from the U.S. Head Start Program and Georgetown University’s Child Development Center, the program has invested more than $125 million to introduce child-centeredness and community engagement to more than 220,000 preschool and primary educators in 29 countries in Eastern Europe, creating in the process a robust regional network of national nongovernmental organizations, the International Step by Step Association (ISSA).
In 2009, the Open Society Foundations and ISSA collaborated with the National Head Start Family Literacy Center (NHSFLC) at Sonoma State University to make Getting Ready for School, a new parenting initiative, which was developed for the Eastern European region, available to every Head Start program in the United States.
Within the first three months the initiative trained 30 national trainers, who in turn trained over 1,000 Head Start staff from over 45 states and several territories and protectorates. In the first of 6 months, 851 sets of materials were distributed.