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A recap of The Early Childhood Agenda open house – and an invitation to the kickoff

Posted in Child care, Early educators, Family engagement, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda on October 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Last week, Strategies for Children hosted an open house event for the Early Childhood Agenda, our exciting new, initiative to build a consensus on early childhood needs in Massachusetts by connecting organizations, parents, advocates, businesses, educators, providers, and government representatives.

Did you miss it? No problem. Just watch the video above. The slides are available here.

And you can click here to sign up and join this effort along with the hundreds of early childhood advocates, providers, educators, and parents.

Please also join us for a kickoff meeting that will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, October 19, 2022, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Everyone who completes the sign-up form will automatically receive the Zoom link and instructions for this meeting.

Now is the time to take action.

As we’ve reported, this year’s state budget includes historic funding for early education and care. Advocates are eager to build on this momentum to achieve a sustainable system and lasting change. To encourage this change the Agenda will address the often interrelated issues of early childhood by taking a holistic view, going beyond child care to include any early childhood systems, programs, and policies that impact young children and families.

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In quotes: Cindy Horgan, executive director of the Cape Cod Children’s Place

Posted in Child care, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #FamilyEngagement on October 14, 2022| Leave a Comment »

“I was at a turning point in my life… that fork in the road, and there was a job opportunity in 2004. [It was] my perfect job Family Support Coordinator… And so that’s how I came to the Cape Cod Children’s Place.”

“Our mission really says who we are, a nonprofit resource referral and education center committed to providing high-quality, early education and care, support, and advocacy for families with young children.”

“I think being a parent today is the hardest job you’ll ever do and the most important job that you’ll ever do. In other parts of the world, the way that they regard families is really [as a] top priority, and we often disregard that important job. And so I believe truly if we do it really well with young families, the outcomes for the whole community is that much higher.”

— The Person of the Week for October 13th, 2022 – Cindy Horgan – executive director of Cape Cod Children’s Place, MVY Radio

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Introducing: The Early Childhood Agenda

Posted in Cost and affordability, Early educators, Family engagement, Health, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children, tagged #earlyed, #EarlyEducators, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #SolveChildCare on October 12, 2022| 3 Comments »

Photo: Pixabay from Pexels

We’re excited to announce the launch of The Early Childhood Agenda!

This is a new partnership that invites stakeholders like you to build a consolidated agenda for early education and care.

The Early Childhood Agenda will connect organizations, parents, advocates, businesses, educators, providers, and government representatives that all support the growth, development, and education of our youngest children and the wellbeing of families in Massachusetts through public awareness, policy development, and advocacy efforts.

Strategies for Children will host a series of meetings and facilitate a consensus building process composed of five working groups:

These meetings will produce a list of policy priorities shaped by community needs and the lived experiences and perspectives of our partners.

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Child care tradeoffs – an issue brief from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Research, tagged #InvestInChildCare, #SolveChildCare on August 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Screenshot: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

In the search for child care, many mothers end up making disappointing tradeoffs.

To better understand what parents face, the Federal Reserve Bank took a closer look at the challenges and released the findings in a new issue brief, “Child care tradeoffs among Massachusetts mothers.”

“Between October 2019 and January 2020, we interviewed 67 mothers in Massachusetts whose children had not yet started kindergarten,” the brief explains. It was written by Sarah Savage, a senior policy analyst and advisor at the Boston Fed, and Wendy Robeson, senior research scientist with the Work, Families, and Children Research Group at the Wellesley Centers for Women.

What Savage and Robeson heard from the mothers they interviewed were the many ways that child care tradeoffs have an economic impact. (Dads were invited to participate in these interviews, but all the responses came from moms.) This is pre-Covid research that shows how tough it was to find child care in normal times. Now in the midst of the pandemic, these challenges continue, and some have grown worse.

“This study reveals that an inadvertent effect of a mostly private market of child care is that it requires parents of young children to compromise and in some cases sacrifice what they need to achieve and maintain economic security, let alone advance it, with consequences for their children’s development,” the brief explains.

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Our Advocacy Network in Action: Felicia Billy

Posted in Boston, Child care, Early educators, Family engagement, Play, Pre-kindergarten, Social-emotional development, Strategies for Children, tagged #EarlyEducators, #FamilyEngagement on July 14, 2022| 1 Comment »

We’re continuing to highlight our Advocacy Network participants, and we’re excited about all the work they’re doing in the field and across the state. For past blogs click here, here, here, and here.

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Felicia Billy was working at a privately owned child care center — and applying for early education jobs at the YMCA of Greater Boston.

What made the Y attractive?

“The benefits,” Billy says.

This sounds like a personal issue, but Billy is also putting her finger on the fact that so many early educators don’t have the kind of benefits – such as retirement savings plans — that K-12 educators and many other professionals can take for granted.

The Y also offered another perk that other early childhood programs don’t: a career ladder. Billy started as a teacher, became a curriculum coordinator, next she was the assistant early education director, and then she moved into her current position as the early education director.

The Y also allows for Billy’s creativity.

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Our Advocacy Network in Action: Gloria Valentin and Yolanda Ramos

Posted in Child care, COVID-19, Developmentally appropriate practice, Early educators, Family child care, Family engagement, Strategies for Children, tagged #EarlyEducators, #ece, #SpeakingUp on June 14, 2022| 5 Comments »

Here’s an update on two of our Advocacy Network participants.

Stay tuned for more Advocacy Network updates in the coming weeks.

Gloria Valentin

Send Gloria Valentin an email that mentions a family challenge you have to deal with, as I did, and the email you receive back will be a small, electronic packet of sunshine and reassurance.

“I have an optimistic personality,” Valentin says. “I want to bring joy in times when everything is so daunting. I have days, trust me, when I’m like, I’m not feeling it today. But I have that energy and that outlook of just being positive and not allowing things I can’t control to take over my life.”

Valentin has been a family child care provider for 22 years, but she talks about her work as if she just started last month, and she’s got a dozen new things she wants to do.

She began her career as an early educator at a center-based program, then opened up her own business. Today, she’s also involved in advocacy, and she has participated in Strategies for Children’s Speakers Bureau and our Advocacy Network .

“The time that we spent together each week, was a time for us to find our voices, to practice public speaking, and to move forward as advocates,” Valentin says of her experience in the Advocacy Network, where she drew inspiration from other advocates who spoke about forming relationships with elected officials and following up with them.

“That really stood out for me, making those connections and being proud of the work I do and sharing it. Family child care is a hidden gem.

“But the work can be isolating, so I want to make connections and let people in government know that we’re here and that our work is so important. We should be included in conversations about quality child care programs and financial accessibility.”

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Amy O’Leary talks child care on “Boston Public Radio”

Posted in Business and economy, Child care, COVID-19, Family engagement, Funding, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #SolveChildCare on June 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Amy O’Leary, the executive director of Strategies for Children, was on Boston Public Radio yesterday talking about the high cost of child care.

Here are some excerpts of what she said:

“One of the things we have learned in the pandemic is we really saw what parent choice looks like. What has typically been a very personal decision, feeling that you’re on your own trying to navigate the bureaucracies really came to light [because] parents were more willing to talk to their employers about what was happening in reality in their homes.”

“We also saw flexibility from the government. So many of our policies are very rigid and have a lot of hoops to jump through for families,” O’Lear says, explaining how the pandemic has changed things. “Suddenly, we’re relaxed because the connection between early education and care programs, and our economy was so clear, even though we’ve had research and data and reports for decades… that tell us how critical early childhood is to brain development and supporting children in the earliest years.”

“We saw policy change pretty dramatically. And I think that has set the stage for what we think about for the future.”

However, O’Leary says, funding will be essential.

“I don’t know many young families who can afford $21,000 for their baby to go to child care.”

“We can’t one-time fund our way out of this decades-long crisis. We really have to think about sustainable, strategic funding and policies.”

To hear more, tune in!

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Time for state budget advocacy in Massachusetts

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Developmentally appropriate practice, Early educators, Family engagement, Funding, Higher Education, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, tagged #earlyed, #EarlyEducators, #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli on June 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

The state budget process for fiscal year 2023 is entering its final stages. A six-member conference committee of legislators is meeting now to negotiate differences between the House and Senate budget proposals. For early education and care, there is $344 million at stake.

That is the difference between House and Senate proposals, including $250 million for Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) Stabilization Grants in the Senate proposal as well as $70 million in rates in the House proposal, which includes $10 million for grants to early education and care providers for costs associated with personal childcare.

Click this link to email the conference committee today, and ask them to advocate for early education and care in the conference committee budget. Specifically, this email says:

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Some families still have to pay for full-day kindergarten

Posted in Cost and affordability, Diversity equity and inclusion, Family engagement, Full-day kindergarten, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-K to 3, Strategies for Children, tagged #FullDayK on May 19, 2022| 1 Comment »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

In most of Massachusetts, full-day kindergarten classes are a free part of what local public schools provide.

But as our past intern Cheyanne Nichter found when she researched the issue, there are 38 school districts in Massachusetts that have charged tuition for full-day kindergarten during the last few years. Nichter’s work helped us develop a fact sheet on full-day kindergarten tuition costs.

Kindergarten enrollment, as the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education explains, “is encouraged but not required in Massachusetts. All school districts are required to provide free half day kindergarten to families but many provide a full day option (either free or tuition based).”

Charging tuition for kindergarten creates a financial burden for parents and an inequitable situation since the amounts parents pay vary by district.

In Acton-Boxborough, for example, kindergarten tuition was $4,500 in the 2019-2020 school year. There was no kindergarten program in 2020-2021. And the tuition for the current 2021-2022 year is $3,750.

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On May 9th, please join “A Day Without Child Care: A National Day of Action”

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Diversity equity and inclusion, Early educators, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, NAEYC, National, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #adaywithoutchildcareMA, #earlyed, #ece, #ImaChildCareVoter, #SolveChildCare on May 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Screenshot: Community Change Action website

On Monday, May 9, 2022, “child care providers, parents, and families across the country are hosting A Day Without Child Care: A National Day of Action.”

It’s a one-day initiative to support:

• living wages for child care providers

• an equitable child care system built on racial justice, and

• affordable child care for all families

As the initiative’s website explains, “For generations, we have been fighting for equitable access to affordable child care and better pay and working conditions for providers but our needs are still not being met.”

The pandemic has also boosted public awareness about the importance of child care, but the country has not yet invested in building a better early education and care system.

To highlight these unmet needs, some providers are choosing to participate in this day of action by closing for the day or by opening late. Other providers will stay open and raise awareness. Massachusetts providers can share their plans by filling out this form.

As the National Day of Action website says: