Strategies for Children is excited to introduce cohort 4 of the Advocacy Network!
Now in its fourth year, the Advocacy Network takes a new approach to strengthening the advocacy community by bringing together early childhood providers and advocates from across the state, connecting them to each other and to policymakers, and helping cohort members launch their own advocacy projects.
To date, we have 29 alumni who participated in the first three years of the Advocacy Network, and we’ve featured them and their work on our Eye on Early Childhood blog as well as in our Advocacy Network YouTube playlist.
Advocacy Network members meet monthly to learn about governance, policy, and advocacy from Strategies for Children staff members, from guest speakers, and from each other. In the past, members have testified at State House events, shared their experiences with Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler and Commissioner Amy Kershaw of the Department of Early Education and Care, and they have made presentations on The 9:30 Call.
Now, the members of cohort 4 will make their own unique contributions to the field and to policy making. They are:
• Amy Bolotin, Executive Director of the Frances Jacobson Early Childhood Center at Temple Israel of Boston
• Edna Cabral, Family Child Care Owner/Director/Teacher, Edna’s Little Garden, Woburn
• Maribel Carvajal, Family Child Care Provider, My Pretty Garden Family Childcare, Belmont
• Ana Teresa Farias, Training Coordinator: Metro Boston Professional Development Center, Early Education Leaders, University of Massachusetts Boston
• Amy Izen, Program Manager at the Early Childhood Initiative of Healthy Chelsea/Revere CARES, and Senior Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist, MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center
• Tyeesha Keele-Kedroe, Education Site Manager, Berkshire County Head Start, Pittsfield
• Stephanie LaPierre, Preschool Lead Teacher, Boston University Children’s Center, Brookline
• Erica Maia, Early Childhood Education Coach, Neighborhood Villages, Boston
• Bopha Malone, CEO, Girls Inc. of Greater Lowell
• Alannah Pagani, PDC Coach and Developer for Strong Start at The Community Group in Lawrence, and the Owner of PlayHouse Child Care & Learning
• Danielle Pazos, Self-Employed Early Childhood Consultant in Chelsea
• Jazmin Rosas, Family Advocate, Horizons for Homeless Children, in Boston’s Roxbury community
• Elizabeth Walsh, Early Education Inclusion Specialist, Horizons for Homeless Children, in Boston’s Roxbury community
We look forward to seeing what everyone will accomplish this year. So please stay tuned: we’ll be catching up with each Advocacy Network member and blogging about their work and ideas.
And finally a special thank you to our project funder, Boston Children’s Collaboration for Community Health.