Last week was the winter convening of The Early Childhood Agenda, which is hosted by Strategies for Children. It was an exciting event: more than 85 people attended and heard updates from Amy O’Leary, Strategies’ executive director, and Marisa Fear, Strategies’ director of policy.
“What we want to make sure that we do as we center our work today… is that we do remember our why,” O’Leary said. “Why do you get up everyday to do this work? Why have you chosen this path? Why are we here today?”
Fear reviewed the work of The Early Childhood Agenda, noting, “Two years ago, we convened over one thousand partners from across the state to identify priorities for the early childhood community,” which led to the creation of The Agenda and the creation of workgroups to address the early childhood opportunities and challenges in Massachusetts, from universal school meals and better health care to raising salaries for early educators to more family friendly tax credits and a safety net that truly supports families.
“This process took us through a consensus building conversation where we [could] identify the challenges that the early childhood community was experiencing, and then we switched to a conversation about solutions,” Fear added.
Fear emphasized the importance of having widespread participation in The Agenda. She asked everyone to share their ideas about how their participation could evolve over time.
One key goal is to simplify ECA’s structure to allow for more effective action on a number of issues, including adding the early childhood perspective to statewide challenges such as housing and transportation.
ECA convening participants gathered in three breakout rooms to discuss current work and the next steps that will move Massachusetts forward. The topics discussed in those rooms were:
• Workforce compensation (workgroup #2) and quality improvement (workgroup #5)
• Local infrastructure (workgroup #6) and public engagement (workgroup #8), and
• Developmental Monitoring, Screening and Referrals (workgroup #4) and Linking Health and Early Childhood (workgroup #9)
Breakout room conversations touched on:
• the ongoing need to explain why early childhood programs matter
• doing more to publicize resources for young children, and
• creating more ways for professionals in the field to talk to each other.
In addition, O’Leary shared Latoya Gayle’s observation that “every policy comes from an idea.” And this, of course, is why it’s so crucial for early childhood professionals to share their ideas.
O’Leary thanked everyone for their time, their participation, and their generous contributions to the ECA conversations.
Fear closed the meeting by explaining that Strategies will be thinking about the next steps for The Early Childhood Agenda. She welcomed feedback, and she thanked everyone for bringing so much inspiration to this work.
To learn more, please check out the winter convening video (posted above). The slides from this convening are posted here. And you can catch up by watching The Early Childhood Agenda YouTube playlist or by reading our blog posts.