In her inauguration speech, State Senator Robyn Kennedy talked about the importance of investing in early childhood programs. She also appeared earlier this month on Strategies for Children’s 9:30 call as part of our “First Year Tour” meet-and-greet with newly elected legislators. Click on the white arrow below to hear her speech or read her tweet.
Archive for the ‘Strategies for Children’ Category
In quotes: Massachusetts State Senator Robyn Kennedy
Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, Funding, MA Legislature, Strategies for Children, tagged #ChildCare, #mapoli on March 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
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 #Advocacy, #EarlyEducators, #FamilyChildCare on March 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »
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.”
(more…)The 9:30 Call is three years old
Posted in Early educators, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Strategies for Children, tagged #9:30Call, #EarlyEducators, #ece on March 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
We’re proud to announce that the 9:30 Call turns three years old this week.
Launched in the chaotic early days of the pandemic, the 9:30 Call began as a response to a global emergency. The Call helped early childhood providers across the state connect and keep up with evolving Covid policies.
Since then, the 9:30 Call has grown into a powerful advocacy tool for managing the pandemic and making policy progress for children and families. 9:30 callers have heard from their colleagues as well as from elected officials, policymakers, researchers, advocates, and academics.
Whether you’ve joined the call once or many times, we want to thank you and invite you to join us this week.
We are spending a few minutes at the start of each of this week’s calls sharing reflections and memories about past speakers and topics.
Visit our 9:30 Call website for additional information about our past and upcoming guest speakers. And sign up for the 9:30 Call to receive the Zoom link for this and future meetings.
You can also find the follow-up materials folder with the chat, slides and attachments from previous calls.
This week’s schedule includes:
(more…)Our Advocacy Network in action: MyHanh Barrette and her love for families
Posted in Boston, Family engagement, Infants and toddlers, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children, tagged #AdvocacyNetwork on March 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The second cohort of Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network is underway, and we’re excited to share the stories of this year’s participants.
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MyHanh Barrette
MyHanh Barrette moved from Vietnam to the United States when she was 11 years old, and her path to advocacy started with figuring out her own strengths and then helping to elevate the strengths of the families she works with.
One tool she uses in her work is love.
“If I don’t love my community, if I don’t love my country, then I won’t want to change anything,” she says. “If I don’t love an organization, if I don’t love my school, I won’t want to improve them.”
Barrette’s professional story began years ago with a practical question.
“My Mom and Stepfather said, Okay, are you going to be a doctor, a pharmacist, an engineer, or a lawyer?”
Barrette made a practical choice and graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a computer science degree – which she never used in her work. Instead, she became a court-certified interpreter, helping families who spoke Vietnamese access the legal system.
“Language was used as a commodity, as part of the power dynamic: You don’t have access to language and I do, so I’m going to assume that because you don’t speak English, you’re ‘less than’ in every other aspect,” Barrette says.
“As an interpreter, I was there to remove the language barrier. When I did that, I saw other barriers that these families faced. But even with these barriers, families were thriving in their own ways. They were facing so much, but they were resourceful, and they were strength-based. I learned so much from them, and I came to see myself as a facilitator, as someone who empowers families.”
In her spare time, Barrette helped lead a co-ed Scout troop, which built on her love of children. She went on to raise her own children, and as they grew, she thought she might want to be a teacher. A trip to the library changed that. A career coach, who was volunteering at the library, listened to Barrette and said, You don’t want to be a teacher. You want to be a social worker.
(more…)Join us for Advocacy Day
Posted in COVID-19, Early educators, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli, #MARunsOnChildCare 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.
(more…)Governor Healey’s first budget proposal has good news for early education and care
Posted in Child care, Funding, MA governor, MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #earlyed, #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #mapoli on March 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll kicked off the Massachusetts budget season by releasing their $55.5 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2024, which includes good news for early education and care.
“Our FY24 budget is what Massachusetts needs to meet this moment and build a strong economy, livable communities and a sustainable future,” Governor Healey said in a statement. “Combined with our tax relief proposal, we will set Massachusetts up for success by lowering costs, growing our competitiveness, and delivering on the promise of our people.” Earlier this week we highlighted the Child and Family Tax Credit in Healey’s proposal, which would provide $600 per eligible dependent.
For early education and care, the Healey-Driscoll budget proposal includes:
• $475 million to continue the state’s C3 operational grants
• $25 million for financial assistance for low-income families
• $30 million for Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative
• $20 million for child care resource and referral services
• $20 million in rate increases for subsidized child care providers
• $5 million for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Services, and
• $5 million for comprehensive strategic analysis to build on the work completed through the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission
(more…)The second year of the Advocacy Network: introducing a new group of leaders
Posted in Child care, Early educators, Funding, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children, tagged #Advocacy, #EarlyEducators, #ece on February 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Advocacy Network Year 2 Cohort
Last year, Strategies for Children launched the Advocacy Network for Early Education and Care, a program for educators and leaders in the early childhood field who wanted to expand their impact. Seven advocates completed the first cohort, and are having a positive advocacy impact on their programs, communities, and state.
Now we’re excited about the second year of the program and how a new group of leaders will expand advocacy in their communities.
“This program is all about the advocacy journey,” Titus DosRemedios, deputy director of Strategies for Children, says. “Last year’s participants went on a journey with us and with each other. They stepped out of their comfort zone, met knew people, learned about policy and ‘Advocacy 101,’ and took new strides in their professional development. They had the chance to speak on panels, serve on committees, write and share testimonies, appear in the news media and on social media, and develop advocacy projects for their programs, classrooms, and communities. This created a powerful ripple effect for the early childhood community, one that we know will continue with cohort 2 and 3.”
This year’s cohort 2 participants are:
(more…)In tweets: The Early Childhood Agenda
Posted in Child care, Early educators, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, QRIS, Quotes, Strategies for Children, tagged #EarlyChildhoodAgenda, #mapoli on January 27, 2023| 2 Comments »
The Early ChildhoodAgenda’s plan has been released! To learn more, check out the Agenda’s website and read about the Agenda’s 10 priorities for improving the early childhood environment in Massachusetts.
Join us for the release of The Early Childhood Agenda: a plan that draws on many voices
Posted in Child care, Early educators, Family engagement, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #EarlyChildhoodAgenda on January 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Last fall, we kicked off a statewide strategic effort, the Early Childhood Agenda.
Next week, we’ll release the results of this exciting work at the Grand Staircase inside the Massachusetts State House at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 2023.
As we explain on the reservation page for next Tuesday’s release:
“Strategies for Children has convened almost 500 early childhood professionals, advocates, and parents around The Early Childhood Agenda. Our mission, to bring communities from across the Commonwealth together to identify solutions and drive policy change, has yielded new partnerships, robust discussions, and a long list of challenges faced by caregivers and educators of young children.”
To build consensus, agenda participants participated in five working groups:
• Financially Secure Families
• High-Quality Experiences
• Thriving Early Childhood Workforce
• Robust System Infrastructure and Local Partnerships, and
• Healthy Beginnings
What we’ll share on Tuesday are the results of this process, “a targeted list of policy priorities… shaped by community voice and needs, and the different perspectives and lived experiences of partners to highlight the field’s top priorities for the next two years.”
We believe that speaking with one voice will make it easier for policymakers and the public to support our vision of a future where families across the state can enroll young children in thriving, high-quality, and affordable early education and care programs.
Please register and join us next Tuesday at the State House to learn more.
And if you can’t make it in person, stay tuned and we will provide more information about a livestream of the event.
Help us make Massachusetts a place where it’s easy for young children to thrive.
Research on how best to transition from Head Start to kindergarten
Posted in Family engagement, Head Start, National, Pre-K to 3, Research, Strategies for Children, tagged #ece, #HeadStartToKindergarten, #HS2K, #StrongStart on January 12, 2023| 1 Comment »
What helps children make a successful move from Head Start to kindergarten?
Strong systems that rely on sound policies and practices.
Figuring out how to build these systems is the work of the Understanding Children’s Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) Project. And now the project is sharing several briefs and a report on how best to do this work in Head Start programs and other early childhood settings.
It’s research that promises to guide policymaking and program practices.
Launched in 2019, the project “is a systems approach that recognizes that effective transitions require intentional engagement from both the sending programs (Head Start) and the receiving programs (elementary schools),” its website explains.
The HS2K project is “organized around four prominent mechanisms (‘4Ps’) that can influence the transition experience: perspectives, policies, professional supports, and practices.”
These practices “must be implemented at multiple levels — among classroom teachers in Head Start and kindergarten, families and teachers, elementary school principals and Head Start directors, Head Start grantees and school districts, and state and federal agencies.”
The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with NORC (a nonpartisan research center at the University of Chicago), the National P-3 Center, and Child Trends.
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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, Alyssa Haywoode, comes to Eye on Early Education after a career in journalism. -
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