University of Illinois Urbana‑Champaign

Prevention Initiative (PI)

Prevention Initiative (PI) provides early, continuous, intensive, and comprehensive child development and family support services to families with children age 2 and under.

woman with clipboard talking with mother and child

Prevention Initiative, along with Preschool for All, is administered by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and funded under the Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG).

PI funds are distributed to eligible applicants, including school districts, social service agencies, and other entities, on a competitive basis. PI grantees are required to implement research-based, comprehensive, and intensive prevention services to expecting parents and families with children age 2 and under who are at risk of academic failure. All the program models share common components such as home/personal visits, links to community resources, group connections, screening, and individual family service planning/goal-setting processes. PI programs may be center-based (daycare settings, family literacy programs) or provide home visitation services only.

Source of definition: Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)

Data available on IECAM

Latest data: FY2023 (July 1, 2022–June 30, 2023; school year 2022–2023)

IECAM reports data on the number of sites at which children are served in PI for all geographic regions on the IECAM database and Regional Reports.

IECAM also reports data on the total number of children proposed to be served by PI for all geographic areas. These numbers include children receiving both center- and home-based services. Generally, about 80% of children enrolled in PI receive home-based services.

Note: Prevention Initiative proposed capacity data are reported by the administrative site of programs providing services, not the addresses of children served. Therefore, some programs could be serving children in other geographic areas (counties, school districts) than their administrative site. For example, a program that serves three counties with a proposed capacity of 60 will report all 60 in the county of the administrative site.

Grantees

Agencies or organizations that have received grants from ISBE to provide or subcontract PI services in their area.

Grantees may serve single county or multicounty area. Grantee data is available upon request.