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Posts Tagged ‘#TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda’

The Early Childhood Agenda releases its work TODAY at the Massachusetts State House at 11 a.m.

Posted in Child care, Early educators, Family engagement, MA governor, MA Legislature, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #ece, #InvestInChildCare, #MARunsOnChildCare, #TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda on January 24, 2023| 1 Comment »

Join us TODAY for the release of the work done by the Early Childhood Agenda – a unified plan that draws on many voices to improve early childhood programs in Massachusetts.

You can register here and meet us at the Grand Staircase inside the Massachusetts State House at 11 a.m.

Starting at 11 a.m., we will also livestream the event on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

We’ll be sharing “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.”

These priorities cover five broad areas:

• Financially Secure Families

• High-Quality Experiences

• Thriving Early Childhood Workforce

• Robust System Infrastructure and Local Partnerships, and

• Healthy Beginnings

So please join us live — or via our livestream — to ensure that Massachusetts is a place where all young children can thrive.

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Please take the Early Childhood Agenda Survey – and catch up on the Agenda’s work

Posted in Child care, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, tagged #TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda on December 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This fall, Strategies for Children has convened meetings of The Early Childhood Agenda, bringing together nearly 500 early childhood professionals, advocates, and parents. The Agenda’s mission of bringing communities from across the Commonwealth together to drive policy change has yielded new partnerships, robust discussions, and a long list of the challenges faced by caregivers and educators of young children.

As we move closer to prioritizing these challenges, we’d like to hear from more voices, especially yours.

Please participate in and share our Early Childhood Agenda Prioritization Survey with your colleagues, neighbors, and friends. To access this brief survey in other languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese), click here.

The survey will be available until Tuesday, December 20, 2022. For more information or questions about the survey, please email info@earlychildhoodagenda.org

On Tuesday, January 24, 2023, we will meet at the Massachusetts State House to release the Agenda results.

To catch up on what’s already happened with the Early Childhood Agenda:

• Visit the Agenda’s website

• Watch the videos, and

• Sign up to join us on Basecamp (where we’re tracking our progress) and you’ll receive updates and be invited to future events

Here’s what’s coming up next:

• The 9:30 Call on Monday, December 19, 2022, at 9:30 a.m. on Zoom

• Final Meeting on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, at 10 a.m. on Zoom

• The Early Childhood Agenda Release on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, an in-person event

Please join us and encourage your coworkers, colleagues, and the families you serve to do the same. The Agenda should include everyone’s voices.

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An update on the Early Childhood Agenda

Posted in Child care, Cost and affordability, COVID-19, Early educators, Family engagement, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda on November 29, 2022| 1 Comment »

The Early Childhood Agenda is making progress. This convening series hosted by Strategies for Children has brought together more than 400 individual advocates and partners. Participants have been meeting in five working groups to identify systemic challenges and set priorities.

Last week, participants attended a whole group meeting – dubbed “Bringing it all Together” and recorded in the video above – to talk across the Agenda’s working groups and ensure that the groups’ efforts are aligned and that any gaps in the work are addressed.

Among the themes that were discussed:

(more…)

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Mo Barbosa: from zero to 24 and beyond

Posted in Achievement gap, Boston, Child care, College/career readiness, Cost and affordability, Developmentally appropriate practice, Infants and toddlers, K-12, Massachusetts Cities and Towns, Pre-kindergarten, Strategies for Children, tagged #TheEarlyChildhoodAgenda, #ZeroTo24 on November 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

One of the most important lessons you learn in a conversation with Mo Barbosa is that everything in youth development work is – or should be – connected.

“The better we do with zero to five,” Barbosa says of working with young children, “the better we’re going to do with the next 10 to 15 years of development.”

Barbosa is the senior director of Community Engagement at Health Resources in Action, where his goal as a trainer and facilitator is to professionalize the youth work field. He is the facilitator for convenings of The Early Childhood Agenda, which are hosted by Strategies for Children.

Barbosa’s sweeping focus is on the zero-to-24 age range – “or 24-ish” he says, “as we’re starting to understand the brain, we’re going a little bit later.”

But instead of a well-paved road that leads from birth to early adulthood, children and families in Massachusetts — and the rest of the country — face a fractured system.

“There has been this historic difference between where you get child care and how much of it is early education and how much of it is just a place to put your kid,” Barbosa says. “And that difference has dictated quality. It has dictated pay. And it has dictated opportunity.”

Barbosa recalls running an early childhood program in St. Louis where children who lived in local housing projects would not go to kindergarten because they could not pass the screening test. Instead, they would enter first grade as six-year-olds with no early childhood classroom experiences.

The solution?

(more…)

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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.