#Advocacy |

Posts Tagged ‘#Advocacy’

In quotes: Amy O’Leary on Boston Public Radio

Posted in Boston, Business and economy, Child care, COVID-19, Early educators, Funding, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Quotes, Strategies for Children, tagged #Advocacy, #EarlyEducators, #ece, #MARunsOnChildCare, #SolveChildCare on April 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

“Covid provided an opportunity to really highlight this issue in ways that we’ve never seen. To have babies sitting behind Zoom cameras, to have toddlers trying to be busy while people were working from home; suddenly all the things we knew [about families’ early education and care needs] were in the public eye.

Lauren Cook and Amy O’Leary at WGBH

“We have not changed our priorities even though the the brain science tells us how critical these early years are. So that’s what I’m hopeful for. It’s not just the people who work in this field, who have young children who are fighting for this. There’s been this bigger awareness of why we need high-quality programs starting at birth…”

— Amy O’Leary, “Boston Public Radio Full Show 4/18: Tax Day,” WGBH, April 18, 2023

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Please thank Governor Maura Healey for her budget proposal

Posted in MA governor, MA state budget, tagged #Advocacy, #earlyed, #mapoli on April 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll address the Joint Committee on Revenue at the Massachusetts State House. Photo: Joshua Qualls/Governor’s Press Office

On March 29, 2023, Governor Maura Healey signed a supplemental budget for the current FY’23 fiscal year. This budget includes “$68 million to continue Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grants to stabilize the state’s child care providers through the end of the fiscal year.” Your advocacy worked to raise awareness of the importance of C3 grants, and the need for this critical funding in the current state budget.

Now is a great time to join Strategies for Children in thanking Governor Maura Healey for her proposed historic investments in early education and care in the next fiscal year’s budget, FY’24.

To send a thank you note, copy the message below, paste it into the “Email the Governor’s Office” website, personalize the message however you’d like, and submit it.

Subject: Thank you Governor Healey for investing in early education and care in your FY24 state budget

Message: Dear Governor Healey:

Thank you for investing in the continued sustainability and growth of the early education and care field.

Your FY24 state budget proposal includes much needed investments in the early education and care system including:

• $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
• $5 million for comprehensive strategic analysis to build on the work completed through the Special Legislative Early Education and Care Economic Review Commission.

Thank you for your leadership and commitment to high-quality early education and care for young children, families, educators, and communities.

Please join us in thanking the governor. Your voice matters.

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Advocacy opportunity: act now

Posted in MA Legislature, MA state budget, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, tagged #Advocacy, #mapoli on March 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Are you ready to advocate for early education and care funding?

The House Ways & Means Committee will release its FY’24 state budget proposal in a few weeks. Now is the time to contact your own state legislators in support of high-quality early education and care.

Click here to email your state representative and state senator today!

Our collective “ask” was developed with sponsoring organizations of Advocacy Day 2023 for Early Education & Care and School-Age Programs. Click here for the full ask sheet and here for more advocacy materials. Feel free to customize and personalize your message to legislators.

Stay tuned for more budget advocacy in the weeks and months ahead.

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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.”

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Advocacy call for videos about stabilization grants

Posted in Child care, Early educators, National, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #Advocacy, #ChildCare on March 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Please join an advocacy effort being led by the national nonprofit Child Care Aware of America by creating a 90-second video about the importance of stabilization grants.

Stabilization grants have had a powerful, positive impact on helping early childhood providers stay open during the pandemic.

But funding for these grants is going to expire later this year!

That’s why Child Care Aware is seeking “perspectives from more child care providers in every state. Can you submit a short video? Sharing your story can help leaders and policymakers hear about the challenges child care continues to face and the difference that additional funding can make for programs and families nationwide.”

Making a video is easy. You can click here to watch a sample video. Then click on the button marked “Start Your Video,” and you’ll see prompts about what to say. You’ll also have to grant the website permission to access your computer’s microphone and camera.

You can also click on the video above to watch highlights of other providers’ videos.

Please join this national effort by sharing your voice and your story.

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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| 5 Comments »

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:

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“Build Back Better” failed to deliver federal child care funds – but advocacy continues

Posted in Child care, Federal, Funding, National, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #Advocacy, #InvestInChildCare on October 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Thuan Vo from Pexels

Last fall, excitement buzzed around the federal Build Back Better bill. It was a sweeping social spending bill that promised to make a historic investment in early education and care, including universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds and more affordable, high-quality child care.

The bill was passed in the House. Excitement grew. But in the Senate, Build Back Better faced opposition it could not overcome.

What emerged months later was a compromise – the Inflation Reduction Act – which had no funding at all for early education and care.

A Hechinger Report article sums up the field’s reaction: disappointment and determination.

“ ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ Julie Kashen, a senior fellow and director for women’s economic justice at the Century Foundation, said, while also noting the need to build upon some of the positive publicity that came out of the protracted battle. ‘Child care has become a national issue in a very powerful way. We are closer than we had been in 50 years,’ she said. ‘What else can we do but continue to fight?’ ”

“That’s why Kashen is already looking to what’s next: boosting a national movement and building a web of advocates who help keep child care needs front and center for legislators and businesses. ‘Employers must speak up so people understand that this is not a family problem, it’s an economic issue, and it is something Congress has to act upon,’ Kashen said.”

Mark Reilly has a similar response: Seize the momentum and move forward.

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Check out our Advocacy Network highlights video

Posted in Child care, Early educators, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Strategies for Children, tagged #Advocacy, #EarlyEducators on September 27, 2022| 1 Comment »

Last month, Strategies for Children hosted a Reception for Reflection for the first cohort of our Advocacy Network for Early Education and Care – and we’ve created a highlights video to showcase the work of our Advocacy Network participants.

The Advocacy Network is an engaging, year-long experience for emerging leaders. It creates a new structure for connecting and supporting educator-advocates across all regions of the state, while building participants’ advocacy skills and first-hand experience.

For Anna Ricci-Mejia, an early educator at the East Boston Social Centers, the Advocacy Network experience was inspiring.

“I decided to speak up more for children’s sake,” she says. “Every word counts. I know there’s a lot of frustration; this is a low-paying career. But when you’re compassionate with children, you learn something new every day.”

Marcia Gadson-Harris, a family child care provider and Advocacy Network participant, adds:

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Apply to join our Advocacy Network

Do you want to help change the world of early education and care?

Screen Shot 2022-09-07 at 10.01.54 AM

Want to help policymakers understand how they can support young children and early educators?

Not entirely sure how?

Apply to join Strategies for Children’s second cohort of our Advocacy Network!

The Advocacy Network is “an engaging, year-long experience for emerging advocacy leaders.”

It’s a chance to connect with educator-advocates from across the state and to make a difference on key issues from public policy to funding to family engagements.

Participants will attend monthly meetings – the schedule is posted here – and they will have the chance to design and implement advocacy projects in their communities.

Additional opportunities include:

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Guest blog post by Elizabeth Dowgert, a Strategies for Children intern

Posted in Guest Blog, Higher Education, Research, Strategies for Children, tagged #Advocacy, #earlyed on August 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

For the past two months, I have had the great opportunity to be a summer intern with Strategies for Children (SFC) through the Early Childhood Policy and Leadership certificate program at Boston College’s Institute of Early Childhood Policy. From the first staff meetings with Amy, Titus, Marisa, Nery, Marge, and Jenna, I have felt welcomed as a member of the team.

During these staff conversations, the team has often discussed how advocacy work is relationship-based. And being included in various meetings since the start of the internship has helped me to see these relationships in practice. The meetings with partners and collaborators are imbued with the feeling of “we:” the goal is shared, the work is shared, and the information is shared. If one person or organization does not know information or feels that someone else may be a more helpful resource, Strategies staff connect people with one another, with organizations, and with resources. Sharing time, information and resource, during meetings and in follow-up emails highlights Strategies’ culture of connection and respect.

The projects I have participated in also reflect this sense of teamwork and shared goals. One project involved collaborating with a team of community partners in Haverhill, Mass., to design a family survey to help inform early childhood partners about families’ early education program and resource needs and to be a tool that Haverhill could use annually. Each meeting with the community partners gave me more insight into how to create and administer a survey. Additionally, I was able to attend a recent Boston Opportunity Agenda Birth-to-Eight Data Committee meeting where surveys were discussed. The themes at the meeting echoed ideas that the community partners had recommended: keep the survey short, have the intended audience test the survey, and have paper and digital options.