Early Matters — a Chattanooga 2.0 action team made up of 35 local organizations invested in positive early childhood outcomes — has unveiled its 2025 Early Childhood Action Plan.

The plan details improvements in early childhood care + education that will take place over the next three years in Chattanooga. The initiative comes from detailed studies, research, and community engagement to determine what local children need to thrive.

There's a lot to unpack in the 87-page plan, but here's a breakdown of the plan's goals, timeline, initiatives, and cost.

Goals

The plan ultimately aims to create a cycle of success to ensure children in our community have equitable access to high-quality health, early education, and family support services.

Three specific outlined goals of the plan's three-year period can be found here.

Implementation

The plan includes a combination of evidence-based strategies piloted by Implementation Partners + local organizations. The strategies are broken down into these categories:

Improving physical health, mental health + development
Supported families with supportive communities
Improving high-quality learning environments from birth to age eight

The plan also details recommended changes to current policies to improve early childhood care + education, ensuring the community works together to permanently solve greater issues.

The cost

Some strategies included in this plan already have funding secured (school-based health clinics + high-dosage, low-ratio tutoring, for example).

Others will require investment from the public or private sectors, or grants that will be applied for by the Implementation Partners.

A detailed account of estimated individual strategy costs can be found in the full2025 Early Childhood Action Plan.

Stay in the loop

Over the course of the next three years, you can receive semi-annual progress reports to see how the plan progresses, or reach out to Early Matters for additional information.