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Archive for the ‘COVID-19’ Category

Our Advocacy Network in Action: Leea Cooley

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Developmentally appropriate practice, Early educators, English language learners, Family child care, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Professional development & preparation, Social-emotional development, Standards and curriculum, Strategies for Children, tagged , , on March 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Leea Cooley has been interested in working with children for a long time. As a child growing up in Indiana, she liked to play school. As a teenager living in Agawam, Mass., – where her family moved for her father’s career – she loved to babysit. 

But it wasn’t until she was a newly divorced mother of two children talking to her divorce attorney that she thought about weaving her interest in children into a profession.

“My lawyer told me that she thought a good career for me would be family child care. She saw the way that I cared so much about children. So I pursued my license, and I got it. And my lawyer put her two children in my program. Along with my children, they were my first customers. And since then, I’ve been running my family child care business for 25 years right here in my house.”

It’s a career that has been full of joy, generosity, and hard work. And one that has led Cooley to join Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network, so she can formalize the work that she has been doing for parents for decades.

“One of the main lessons I’ve learned,” Cooley says, “is that parents need help. They need advice. They need guidance. They’re working full time jobs and then they’re going home and caring for their families, and they don’t always have time to access the information that they’d like to have.

“Over the years, my biggest aha moment is I need to be that resource for families.”

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Join us for Advocacy Day

Posted in COVID-19, Early educators, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged , , , , on March 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Please join us for Advocacy Day for Early Ed & Care and School Age programs – next Tuesday morning, March 14, 2023, in the Great Hall at the Massachusetts State House!

Registration starts at 9:30 a.m.

The program of speakers starts at 10 a.m.

Meetings with state legislators start at 11:15 a.m.

And, of course, there’s the excitement of getting to meet with hundreds of other early childhood professionals.

Check out the RSVP page for more info.

And click here for related materials, including social media hashtags.

In previous years, Advocacy Day has had a celebratory mood, created by early educators who understand the power of speaking as a group and asking policymakers to create more affordable, high-quality early childhood programs for families. You can read more about that in our past Advocacy Day blogs.

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The power of advocacy

Posted in Child care, COVID-19, Early educators, Funding, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, tagged , , on March 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Here’s a great example of the power of collective advocacy.

Last month, more than 180 organizations and 718 individuals all signed a letter that was sent to the Massachusetts Legislature. The letter’s request: please provide an additional $70 million to fund this fiscal year’s Commonwealth Cares for Children or C3 stabilization grants.

These grants were essential for helping child care providers stay open during the pandemic, and they have become critical for supporting program quality and workforce retention.

“Now is the time,” the letter adds, “to move from a temporary stabilization program to permanent direct-to-provider operational funding and take an essential next step in our efforts to establish a sustainable business model for early education and care.” The C3 grant program can pave “a pathway from stabilization to systems growth.

“The $70 million will bridge the gap between the end of the childcare stabilization grant program and position a permanently funded operational grant program for sustained support and success into the future.”

The advocacy letter featured the logo of the Early Childhood Agenda, a new effort in Massachusetts to build collective power for transformational change. Check out highlights from the release of the Agenda at the State House earlier this year.

Now, we are happy to say that the advocacy letter was received, and its message was heard!

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Lessons from Somerville: How to build a strong and sustainable early childhood system

Posted in Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Family engagement, Funding, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Philanthropy, Pre-kindergarten, tagged , , , on February 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Somerville, Mass., has spent years building a strong foundation for its early education and care programs.

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Photo: Huong Vu for Strategies for Children

Now, a case study – One Somerville, Every Child — explores how Somerville has used a three-year (2019-2022), $1 million grant from the Commonwealth Children’s Fund to make vital progress that will support young children and families – and set an example other cities can learn from.

This work began in 2018 when representatives of the City of Somerville and the Somerville Public Schools were introduced to team members from the Commonwealth Children’s Fund – thanks to the Harvard Education Redesign Lab’s By All Means Initiative.”

Somerville officials “shared plans and dreams they had for expanding their early childhood services, and the CCF team shared their plans to start investing in communities piloting innovations in early childhood systems,” the case study says.

Somerville had three goals it sought to achieve:

• expand and institutionalize its early childhood programs

• expand its existing preschool initiatives, and

• bridge the gaps between children’s birth and when they start school

Another program that was central in the grant-funded work was “Somerville’s light-touch, universal home visiting program, SomerBaby,” a first point of connection “to early childhood services and supports for many families.”

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The National Early Care and Education Workforce Center – a federal effort deployed by local and national leaders

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Federal, Funding, National, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, tagged , on February 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Photo: Huong Vu for Strategies for Children

Earlier this month, federal officials announced that they are creating the new and promising National Early Care and Education Workforce Center (the ECE Workforce Center). It’s a national effort to rebuild the workforce that includes local leaders here in Boston.

Launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with $30 million in funding, the new center will address an old problem: even before the pandemic, the early childhood workforce was plagued with low pay and high turnover rates. This situation has grown worse during the pandemic.

 “We know it is hard for families to find quality early childhood programs. One of the reasons is that programs are having trouble recruiting and retaining early educators,” January Contreras says. Contreras is the assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families, part of HHS. “We cannot continue to expect early educators to remain in these critical roles only to earn poverty wages.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra adds, “HHS is honored to launch this first-of-its-kind research and technical assistance center to support the essential early childhood workforce who partner with families every day to ensure young children have what they need to thrive.”

The new ECE Workforce Center will help by addressing recruitment and retention. The center’s work will include the input of early educators and be carried out over the next five years by six partner organizations. They are:

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Boston is using federal funds to invest in the early childhood workforce

Posted in Boston, Child care, COVID-19, Early educators, Federal, Funding, Higher Education, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, tagged , , , on January 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The pandemic wiped out part of Massachusetts’ child care workforce.

Now Boston is trying to rebuild.

And the scale of this challenge is substantial.

“The childcare industry in Massachusetts lost about 10% of its workforce since the start of the pandemic,” WBUR radio reports. “In Boston, that’s translating into long wait lists and shorter hours of care. According to city officials, about 50 early education classrooms are sitting empty because child care centers can’t find enough people to operate at capacity.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu “was quick to point out that the estimate doesn’t include centers that have had to cut hours because they’re short staffed.”

To address this daunting gap, the city is using $7 million from the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan Act to launch the Growing the Workforce Fund.

The fund will provide scholarships and financial aid to 800 students who want to earn a Child Development Associate (CDA) or an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.

“Today’s investment is a welcome one for early educators like me,” Lisa Brooks, an early educator at Horizons for Homeless Children, says in a city press release. “Relieving the burden of debt associated with higher education will help educators continue to focus on the important work of building the foundation for our students’ future success.”

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Krongkan “Cherry” Bovornkeeratiroj: a Strategies for Children intern

Posted in Child care, COVID-19, Pre-kindergarten, Research, Strategies for Children, tagged , , on January 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Krongkan “Cherry” Bovornkeeratiroj

Krongkan “Cherry” Bovornkeeratiroj

“In Amherst, I had the chance to volunteer with young children, and that changed my life,” Krongkan “Cherry” Bovornkeeratiroj, an intern at Strategies for Children (SFC), told us in a recent interview. 

This story started six years ago when Cherry moved from Thailand, where she worked as a financial auditor, to Amherst, Mass., where her husband is a graduate student — and where she volunteered to work in a preschool program. 

Cherry was used to the more formal educational approach that she had experienced in Thailand. Amherst was different.

“Our school system focuses heavily on academics and rarely teaches us to speak for ourselves. Most of the time we listen and listen.”

“The first day I walked into the classroom in Amherst, I saw kids enjoying activities. There were no chairs in rows.”

It was a high-quality program where children’s feedback was valued. For example, in the case of one child bumping into another, teachers would ask what the harmed child needed: a hug, an apology, an ice pack? 

 “Instead of lecturing, teachers asked students questions and encouraged them to think critically,” Cherry says.

This volunteer experience prompted her to apply to graduate school.

“But when I was admitted, I found out I was pregnant.” And the pandemic hit. So Cherry waited for a couple of years, then she enrolled in the Master of Arts (MA) in Leadership, Policy & Advocacy for Early Childhood Well-Being program at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

“Once I shared my passions with my academic advisor, she told me to talk to Amy,” Cherry says of Amy O’Leary, Strategies for Children’s executive director.

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Goodbye and thank you to two EEC board members

Posted in COVID-19, Dept. of Early Education and Care, MA governor, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged , on December 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

It was time to say goodbye at this week’s meeting of the Board of the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). 

Board chair Nonie Lesaux and Massachusetts’ Secretary of Education Jim Peyser are both stepping down.

To acknowledge their contribution Amy O’Leary, Strategies for Childrens’ executive director, spoke at the meeting and later reflected further on the service of Lesaux and Peyser, especially as EEC and its board have navigated the historic challenges of the pandemic. 

Amy appears at the 13:09 timemark in the video posted above. Her full statement is posted here. And here are some excerpts of her comments and additional thoughts: 

“To say that the decisions made by leaders in the Baker-Polito administration and the Massachusetts legislature over the last three years saved lives may sound dramatic. But I believe it is true.

“From setting up emergency childcare in a matter of days, to supporting COVID testing for children, families and staff, to listening to the field when drafting responsive new policies to ensure safety and health, to funding programs to stay open and support parents’ choices about when to send their child back to a program to the creation and continued funding for the C3 grants. Just keeping the day-to-day operations of the Department running was an incredible achievement.”

Amy also praised “the incredible stories of the educators, program directors, family child care providers, school age staff, CEOs and community leaders who have shown up for children and families every single day.”

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A princess advocates for early childhood

Posted in Child care, COVID-19, International, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Social-emotional development, tagged , , on December 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »

The Prince and Princess of Wales came to Boston last week, and one issue on the royal agenda was early childhood.

The princess, also known as Kate Middleton, visited Harvard to meet with researchers at the university’s Center on the Developing Child.

For Middleton, it was part of a long-standing commitment to young children. As the Royal Foundation for the Prince and Princess of Wales explains on its website:

“Over the last decade, The Princess of Wales has spent time looking into how experiences in early childhood are often the root cause of today’s hardest social challenges, such as addiction, family breakdown, poor mental health, suicide and homelessness.”

In 2020, The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (the prince and princess’ royal titles at the time) released a report on the public’s opinion of early childhood in the United Kingdom based on the responses of half a million people — and factoring in the impact of the pandemic. Among the report’s observations:

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Massachusetts has elected new leaders: time to reach out to the Healey-Driscoll administration — and their transition committees

Posted in COVID-19, Diversity equity and inclusion, Family engagement, MA governor, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Social-emotional development, tagged , , , on December 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Next month, Massachusetts will have new leadership, so it’s time for advocates to learn about and reach out to key players in state public policy.

One good place to start is learning about the transition teams that have been created by Governor-elect Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor-elect Kim Driscoll.

The key committee for early childhood advocates to focus on is called “Thriving Youth and Young Adults.”

Chaired by Amanda Fernandez, the CEO of Latinos for Education, and Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Rachel H. Monárrez, the committee is looking at, “How we address learning loss from the pandemic and give all children and families equitable access to the educational, social, emotional and behavioral supports they need.”

Serving on the committee are well known members of the early education and care community, including:

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