Best Starts for Kids
Providing King County kids the best start in life
Best Starts for Kids is a voter-approved initiative passed in 2015 and led by Executive Constantine to put every child and youth in King County on a path toward life-long success.
Backed by community knowledge and science, Best Starts has provided critical support to over half a million children, youth, and their families during key windows of development in early childhood and adolescence, catalyzing strong and healthy starts in children’s early years, and sustaining those gains through to adulthood.
To date, Best Starts for Kids has partnered with over 500 organizations in our community and launched over 570 new community-led programs to build toward our shared vision of happy, healthy, safe, and thriving kids, young people, and families.
Best Starts for Kids 2.0
Deepening our commitment to King County children, youth, and families
With over 62% approval, King County voters overwhelmingly chose to renew the Best Starts for Kids levy in August 2021. The plan for Best Starts 2.0 will maintain current Best Starts for Kids investments in promotion, prevention, and early intervention, while deepening our investments to address critical needs in our community.
The plan also expands funding to meet new and newly visible needs within the COVID-19 pandemic and overdue racial justice reckoning. Specifically, the proposal invests in:
- A new child care subsidy program for more than 3,000 low-income children
- A new workforce demonstration project for low-wage child care workers
- Expansion of out of school time programs for school-age children
- Up to four new school-based health centers
- Expansion of transitions to adulthood programs for youth and young adults
View the full Best Starts for Kids Implementation Plan here.
Learn more about Best Starts 2.0:
| King County Executive Dow Constantine |
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Read the Executive's biography |
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