
Amy O’Leary
Last month, early education was the star of Public Hearing, a podcast that streams online and airs on WICN, the public radio station in Worcester, Mass. The podcast’s theme is talking “about imagining and materializing equitable and just systems for cities and communities.”
The podcast put early education in the spotlight in the first of its mini-seasons – in this case five podcast episodes — featuring early childhood advocates.
During the first episode, podcast host Joshua Croke interviewed Kim Davenport, the Managing Director for Birth to 3rd Grade Alignment at Edward Street, a Worcester nonprofit that promotes early childhood success.
“I really do believe that the future lies in each child, and reaching their full potential is my mission,” Davenport said, opening a conversation that covered a range of topics, including young children’s brain development, the importance of nurturing relationships, the challenges that existed before the pandemic, and the impact of the pandemic, which has made it tough to identify and meet young children’s needs, such as behavioral concerns and delays in speech skills.
“We have a chronically underpaid workforce… the pay is poverty-level wages in many cases,” Davenport says, calling this situation “unconscionable.”
The second episode features Amy O’Leary, executive director of Strategies for Children.
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