This video features highlights and interviews from the official release of the Early Childhood Agenda at the State House in January.
As we’ve blogged, the agenda is “a unified plan that draws on many voices to improve early childhood programs in Massachusetts.”
There’s more to come: the many advocates and providers who support the Early Childhood Agenda will reconvene on March 29th. To join us, please RSVP for either the 10 a.m. or the 6 p.m. session (which will have Spanish interpretation). Check out our Agenda Events page for links and information.
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.
On Tuesday, early education advocates gathered at the Massachusetts State House for the release event. Watch a video replay here. And check out #EarlyChildhoodAgenda on Twitter.
“The Early Childhood Agenda imagines, prioritizes, and builds collective action around equitable and impact-driven solutions by providing a space for the early childhood community to work across sectors for better policy development,” a newly released brief explains.
It’s an exciting plan for unified action that can improve the experiences of young children and families in Massachusetts.
The Agenda includes the input of more than 1,000 people who contributed to a conversation that identified 10 priorities. They are:
1 Work with state government to “pass and implement comprehensive early education and care legislation that addresses family affordability and establishes a career pathway and funding mechanism to drive investments in workforce compensation.”
2 Ensure “early childhood professionals across multiple sectors have access to competitive wages and an affordable benefits package (health care, paid leave, retirement, child care)” by drawing on “operational grants, state-funded benefits, an opt-in group health plan, unionization, and premium assistance programs”
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.
“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.
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.