Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children
Last week, Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey announced a new, $355,000 initiative, the “Trauma-Informed Care for Young Children Grant Program.”
The program will “fund training and capacity building of early education and care providers to address the needs of children experiencing trauma,” according to a press release. Forms of trauma include “violence, separation from a loved one, stress due to poverty or related to the opioid crisis.”
As we’ve blogged before, violence, opioid addiction, and toxic stress are all challenges that early educators find among the children in their classrooms.
“Children who have experienced violence, substance use, and other trauma are especially in need of high quality care,” Healey said in the press release. “This grant will provide funding to strengthen these programs to help our most vulnerable children succeed.”
Healey’s office is particularly interested in programs that will use the grant funding to:
• provide sustained support and training
• build capacity within early education and care programs, and
• unite the efforts of providers and support organizations
Non-profit organizations located in Massachusetts are eligible to apply for the funding, which could last for up to two years, according to the Request for Proposal.
“This grant offers the opportunity for providers to give additional support to our youngest learners. We encourage potential applicants to consider a range of supports,” Angela Brooks says. She’s the Assistant Attorney General of the Child and Youth Protection Unit. “We look forward to a diverse range of applications.”
Brooks says that programs could propose efforts that include:
• education, classroom management, and caregiving practices that are critical to a trauma-informed classrooms
• referrals to early intervention, special education, and other services to support development, and
• connecting parents and caregivers to services that help provide a stable and supportive home environment
Questions regarding this RFP may be submitted to AGOgrants@state.ma.us, “until 5:00 p.m. on January 25, 2019. Be sure to include “Trauma-Informed Care for Young Children” in the email’s subject line.
The application is available here.
And the deadline for submitting proposals “electronically through the AGO’s online grant application” is 5:00 p.m. on February 8, 2019.
Please help spread the word about this program. This funding will help communities better serve the needs of children and families.
Eye on Early Education is a blog of Strategies for Children, an organization that works to ensure that Massachusetts invests the resources needed for all children, from birth to age five, to access high-quality early education programs that prepare them for success in school and life. The blogger, 
eyeonearlyeducation.org 
I applaud the Attorney General for stepping up to provide this needed grant program. I am disappointed however that the funds focus on birth to 5. As an out-of-school time provider, I see the critical need for this to reach beyond a child’s 5th birthday.
Deborah Kneeland Keegan
Executive Director
For Kids Only After School
Salem, Mass.
Former UPK for-profit grantees who serve children with ACES in low SES communitis are ineligible to apply for this grant? This makes NO sense, similar to the FY19 UPK grant awards to non-profits. This may be construed as bias.