When a young student began drawing pictures using only black crayons, it caught the attention of veteran early childhood educator Alyia Dixon.

“Kids always gravitate to the brighter colors,” Alyia says. “But when she was scribbling, she scribbled her pictures all in black… Sometimes all black, all the way to the edge of the pages.”

Alyia, who has been teaching at Educare Chicago, a program of Start Early, for 23 years, shared her observations and concerns with the school’s family support specialists, and together, they arranged a visit to the student’s home. These sorts of discussions are critical for providing families with a multi-perspective and multi-expertise support system. This holistic approach is a core component of high-quality early childhood programs. It provides valuable support for students and can help connect their families to important resources.

The supports available through our high-quality early childhood programs don’t just provide for the needs of students while they’re in the classroom; they also address challenges at home that could keep a student from thriving in pre-kindergarten and beyond.

“A lot of the circumstances we witness go way above and beyond the norms for what a teacher is supposed to encounter,” Alyia says.

That’s why high-quality early childhood programs often rely on experts that can help families connect with mental health resources, find safe housing and obtain food assistance. At Educare Chicago, family support specialists and mental health consultants work diligently with parents to ensure the needs of their entire family are being met.

Additionally, our programs connect parents of young children with their peers, creating supportive communities that benefit both adults and their kids.

“Our parents build relationships with other adults that they maintain outside of Educare Chicago. We’ve had a few parents that built relationships where they would take their kids on outings with each other,” Alyia says. “They’re building relationships and making connections that will outlast their child’s time in our program.”

Last week, we hosted our 20th Annual Luncheon—our first-ever hybrid event—where we welcomed hundreds of individuals in-person here in Chicago and hundreds of others virtually across the country. Presented by LaSalle Network, the powerful program demonstrated how quality early learning and care programs can promote resilience and hope for families with young children—now more than ever.

If you were unable to join us or want to tune in again, you can watch a recording of the full program below.

Through this powerful program of diverse voices and experiences, we hope you can see the role we each have as parents, family members, friends or colleagues to support our children, families and those who care for them. From spreading the word about early learning’s impact in our communities, to contacting your legislator in support of proposed policies or sharing the gift of financial support, your investment of time or resources will make a difference.

As Luncheon Co-Chair Curt Bailey shared, “adversity brings opportunity, and we have an incredible opportunity to create a new normal that ensures equitable access to quality early learning and programs that promote resilience for every child and family.”

I am overwhelmed with appreciation for the parents, educators and early learning champions, including out Luncheon Co-Chairs Curt Bailey and Mary Hasten, who highlighted the critical need for quality early learning and care programs and services in our communities.

We are grateful for the incredible support and generosity of our donors and event sponsors who helped us exceed our fundraising goal of $1.3 million. Every dollar will help change the course for our youngest learners. You can still show your support by making a gift today. When we come together and invest in early childhood education, we can transform the lives of our future generation.

Luncheon Co-Chair Mary Hasten said it perfectly. “There is certainly more work to be done, but we know that our collective work IS making a difference today, and TOGETHER, we know that we can impact every tomorrow for young children and their families.”

Thank you for being part of our 2022 Annual Luncheon, and we hope to see you again soon.

“Tomorrow’s Hope,” recently featured at SXSW EDU, is the story of passionate educators and tenacious students – from the first-ever class at Educare Chicago – determined to succeed.

The Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation is deeply committed to creating standards of fairness and a level playing field for those living in poverty and adversity by supporting equal treatment through high quality early childhood learning and improving K-12 and college graduation rates. Founded in 1997, the Foundation is focused on opportunities that support educational advancement.

For the past six years, the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation has partnered with Start Early to increase access to equitable, high-quality early education and care for all children and families. Foundation investments in the Early Childhood Connector, First Five Years Fund and the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisors Network have enhanced our ability to bring coherence to a fragmented field and drive public awareness and systems change. We’ve also worked closely to amplify the films Tomorrow’s Hope and Starting at Zero, both provide a compelling rationale for why transformational change is required to ensure future generations of children and families can reach their full potential. Each film has been hailed for its inspiring stories and powerful calls to action.

Tomorrow’s Hope brings us into the lives of passionate educators and tenacious kids and their families on the South Side of Chicago, determined to carve out the future – despite a sea of incredible challenges. The film reunites three graduates from the first class of Start Early’s birth-to-5 school, Educare Chicago, and explores the continued impacts of their early childhood education as they prepare for high school graduation. Starting at Zero explores the power of investing in high-quality early childhood education. The film centers the voices of policymakers, educators, academics, business leaders, pediatricians, parents, and children to demonstrate how essential the earliest years of learning are to maximize human potential.

Earlier this year, Tomorrow’s Hope was accepted into the acclaimed SXSW EDU Film Festival, an unparalleled experience at the forefront of discovery, creativity, and innovation. In March, the film was screened to a live audience, followed by a Q&A panel with co-producers, Tamra Raven and Aaron Steinberg, as well as Portia Kennel, Senior Advisor, Buffett Early Childhood Fund, who was featured in the film.

Producers Tamra Raven and Aaron Steinberg listening to Portia Kennel giving some wisdom. (Photo by Wildman)

Learn more about how you can join the group of donors, policymakers, educators, and community leaders who have hosted virtual screenings of these films to ignite conversations about the importance of early education. During the month of April, both documentaries are available for individuals to view at no charge. Please click below for sign-up information.

• Interested in a free screening of Tomorrow’s Hope.
• Interested in a free screening of Starting at Zero.

Start Early remains grateful to the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation for their ongoing support as we champion together early learning and care for all children and families.

Founded in 1997 and in carrying out its mission, the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation makes charitable contributions that are primarily focused on opportunities for educational advancement.

The Foundation supports programs that assist the homeless, advance early childhood education, improve K-12 graduation rates, provide college scholarships, medical care, shelter and nutrition to the needy, as well as supporting programs to provide assistance for entry into employment opportunities.

The Foundation is deeply committed to creating standards of fairness and a level playing field for those living in poverty and adversity by supporting equal treatment through high quality early childhood learning and improving K-12 and college graduation rates. In this regard, the Foundation supports innovations in scientific teaching methods and best practices.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re commemorating women’s vital impact and accomplishments on society.

Our Start Early staff members: Keneischia Jones, health coordinator, Early Head Start Network; Rio Romero-Jurado, policy manager, National Policy and Kayla Goldfarb, policy specialist, Illinois Policy shared how their womanhood has influenced their career journey, the crucial importance of pay equity in early childhood and the need for inclusion and continued progress for all women.

How has being a woman influenced your identity?

Keneischia Jones: Being a woman of color is my daily makeup. I get to wake up and change my hair and wear my afro today because that’s what I’m feeling. I’ve become the young Black woman that I wanted to be when I was younger and I wasn’t able to present like this. Now as a woman I have my bearings and I can show the world who I am at all times.

Rio Romero-Jurado: My identity in being a woman and a woman of color in particular has really shaped my values, social conscience and the kind of person I want to be and what I want to contribute to the world. I came to social work, policy and advocacy because I was naturally drawn to eliminating inequities in our society and empowering other women through social change and action.

That’s part of why I love what I do. Even in elementary school I really loved social studies. I recognized pretty early on that there was an underrepresentation, we all know, of women and people of color at our highest levels of government. I think that’s really further motivated me to embrace my identity as a woman and to be part of an organization to help ensure that women and the issues that matter to them and their families are prioritized in our society and in policy.

Kayla Goldfarb: There are so many things that have been shared that really resonated with me and are really energizing. Being a woman has influenced my identity in that I don’t feel limited in any way. But I also recognize how much of a privilege that is when you look at women globally and locally because that is not always the case. I’ve begun to understand the breadth of how people experience being a woman from a race, class, location and lived experience perspective. It’s been mind opening.

The Partnership for Pre-K Improvement (PPI) was launched in 2016 with a vision to develop and sustain high-quality, equitable state pre-K systems. Throughout the 5-year project, we partnered with 3 states – Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington – to learn alongside state education leaders, advocates and researchers about how to systematically improve pre-K quality. Along the way, we focused in on infrastructure and the policies, data, and implementation supports pre-K programs need to succeed.

As a culmination of this project, we created a report to capture lessons learned and recommendations for state early learning agency leaders, researchers and advocates, along with a free toolkit to support pre-K systems improvement.

What We Learned

• Systems change is complex and occurs over a long period of time. Although we saw important improvements during the life of the project, substantial systems change is ongoing and occurs in cycles as states navigate governmental, political, leadership, and funding changes and challenges.
• Practice frameworks can both advance and impede systems change work. While focusing on core elements of teaching and learning seemed that it would yield the greatest impact on quality, states were most successful when focusing on just one or two elements at a time.
• Implementation science is useful at the systems level but does not sufficiently advance equity. While an implementation science framework was very helpful in driving improvements, equity does not automatically follow quality changes. Equity must instead be intentionally centered.
• At the systems level, coordination, alignment, and resource-sharing across programs are necessary when striving to improve pre-K statewide. Quality and equity can only improve when pre-K is seen as a legitimate part of the broader education system.
• Strong, trusting, and stable partnerships between advocates and researchers are key to success of improvement efforts. Specifically, relationships that are pre-existing, intentional in terms of allocating staff and resources, and provide opportunities to learn from each other, are all critical factors in building stable and successful partnerships.

Recommendations

For state systems leaders, advocates and research partners:

• Build meaningful partnerships among systems leaders, advocates, and researchers.
• Think beyond pre-K.
• Recognize that implementation and infrastructure are critical missing pieces of systems change.
• Use intentional strategies for increasing equity and elevating parent and teacher voices.
• Prioritize data infrastructure and your state’s ability to use data for improvement.

For national and local consultants and technical assistance providers:

• Center equity from the beginning of any project.
• Ensure that state and local voices drive systems improvement consultation and technical assistance.
• Throughout this work, keep in mind both long-term vision, and more pressing, daily challenges.
• Provide flexible resources and funding.

Today’s early childhood organizations are vocal about their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). As leaders, we vary in the degree to which we responsively identify and change processes that make those commitments visible. Regardless of how long we have been or where we stand in the field of home visiting, we need not look far to find ways to move from intention to impact.

Consider this quick questionnaire:

• Think about the values and cultural backgrounds of families in your program. Is there cultural alignment between the practitioners and the enrolled families?
• Who is responsible for decisions of policy, job qualifications, and practice protocols for home visitors and supervisors in your program? How many of those who are making system and protocol decisions are actively engaged with families on a day-to-day basis?

COVID has prolonged widespread staff vacancies in early childhood settings. Today’s leaders are faced with the simultaneous challenges of hiring new staff and retaining their current workforce. During this season of workforce upheaval, we need to look for ways to cultivate and elevate the voice, experience, and expertise of those currently engaged in direct work with families to increase DEIB in our programs.

Home visitors, by the very nature of their jobs, are uniquely positioned to support caregivers’ goals for themselves and their child. Parents and home visitors co-develop action plans in the context of the family’s composition of members, culture, community, and economic resources. Home visitors partner with parents and caregivers directly to navigate culturally dismissive, disconnected community systems that are not responsive to the family’s identified needs. Practitioners hold expertise in their local resources, provide in-person and virtual support, are on top of trends and interests of families, and have the experience and perspectives of cultural brokers in the community. They honor a caregiver’s unspoken words, “…nothing about me without me…”.

As we prepare for the upcoming virtual National Home Visiting Summit in late March, let’s keep talking with each other and listening to the perspectives and expertise of home visitors. Let’s challenge ourselves to identify strategies that seek to invite, reach, engage, and cultivate the invaluable input of practitioners. When we return to the routines of our work, let’s commit to create and improve platforms for home visitors’ involvement in decisions related to policy, research and practice that directly impact them.

Interested in learning more about Start Early’s resources and learning opportunities for home visitors and supervisors? Check out our Essentials of Home Visiting online professional development experiences or reach out to us directly at professionaldevelopment@startearly.org.

Each year, we celebrate Black History Month to recognize the contributions and influence of African Americans to the history, culture and achievements of the United States.

Our Start Early staff members: Erice Evans, senior financial analyst; Stuart Lassiter, early childhood practice consultant; Kristie Norwood, education manager for the Early Head Start and Head Start Network of Illinois shared how their heritage has shaped their identity and impacted their work, how they maintain their culture and why it’s important to recognize Black History Month.

How do you feel that your African American heritage has influenced your identity and what do you appreciate most about being Black?

Kristie Norwood: What I appreciate most about being Black is being Black. It is a heritage and legacy of strength and strong traditions of faith and family. I love that feeling of coming into a room and even if there’s only one other Black person there is an immediate connection of knowing each other.

Erice Evans: We come from a very rich background and history that I appreciate as I’m older now that I didn’t really know to appreciate growing up. I love the melanin and the different colors, characteristics, traits and everything that makes us a beautiful people from the outside to the inside. My [African American] heritage has made me who I am today.

Stuart Lassiter: Being Black is my identity and it’s how I’m recognized by others and also how I recognize myself. My family has always stressed what it means to be a Black male. The idea that I heard from my great grandfather, grandfather and uncles of being the best you can be because you have to work from a place of excellence to be seen as being good.

One thing I truly appreciate is our strength, perseverance and striving to always overcome. It’s amazing that we’ve come so far and still have so far to go.

Erice Evans: I love that you mention strength because it is part of our heritage. We were taught the skills to overcome anything. If you get knocked down get back up and keep fighting. We don’t stay down.

Start Early has been named the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award for Achievement in Benefits Design and Administration for its paid parental leave program. The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize the world’s best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.

The overwhelming benefits of paid leave compel Start Early to advocate for these policies nationally and inspired our organization’s leading paid leave policy. During a child’s first few weeks and months, a nurturing and supportive environment lays the foundation for their future success in school and life. Our paid parental leave program allows families to be together at this most critical time.

In 2019, the People & Culture team set a strategic goal to transform our leave program through improved employee benefits, explicitly enhancing our paid parental leave for the year 2020. Infancy is the most crucial period of brain development and it is vital that babies and their parents are supported during this time to promote bonding and healthy attachment. We knew it was time to up our game and we needed to create a parental leave package that matched our mission and supported families in the moments that matter most: the earliest years.

After a series of focus groups with former and expecting parents to discuss what was working and where we needed to improve, we rolled out our new policy in 2020, including:

• Increasing our parental leave by more than 50% (from 12 weeks to 6 months) for both moms and dads Introducing 100% paid leave, eliminating the need for employees to use their own vacation, sick or personal hours to receive full pay
• Expanding our paid leave eligibility to include adoption, surrogacy, or foster parenting
• Launching an integrated family benefits platform, Cleo, to help connect families with the support they need to be their best at home and at work
• Activating Bright Horizons, a benefit that assists employees returning from leave with finding childcare or back-up care, if needed.

Together, these award-winning benefits help our families start off on a strong path.

Start Early and other honorees were recognized during a virtual awards ceremony on November 17. Details about the Stevie Awards for Great Employers and the list of 2021 Stevie winners are available at www.StevieAwards.com/HR.

Start Early is pleased to announce Yvette Sanchez Fuentes as Vice President of National Policy. In her role, Yvette will lead the organization’s national strategy to advance both the Start Early and Educare Learning Network policy agendas and strengthen partnerships with peer organizations and federal agency staff.

Yvette is a nationally recognized early childhood expert and advocate for children and families who has been influential engaging groups to drive effective policy and practice change at the local, regional and national level,” says Kristin Bernhard, senior vice president of advocacy and policy at Start Early.

Yvette has dedicated her professional career to understanding how policy, research and implementation impact lifelong outcomes for young children and their families struggling with adversities, including low-income families, migrant and seasonal farm workers, immigrant communities, American Indian and Alaska Natives, and dual language learners.

Most recently, Yvette served as the Associate Secretary for the Delaware Department of Education and her extensive work in the field includes former positions as deputy chief for policy and research at Child Care Aware of America and president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Families. As the director of the federal Office of Head Start within the Department of Health and Human Services, she led the agency in shepherding in sweeping reforms including the release of the Head Start Roadmap, the creation and rollout of the Parent, Family and Community Engagement Framework, the design and implementation of the designation renewal system and launched a pilot program that allowed grantees spending flexibility for creating programs for children ages birth to 5 that led to the implementation of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCP). She began her career at Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo, Inc. where she managed the family child care initiative in the migrant and seasonal Head Start program.

“Yvette’s depth and breadth of experience will undoubtedly shape and catalyze the National Policy Team’s work working closely with partners to advance the Start Early Policy Agenda and the Educare 5 policy priorities. We are thrilled to have Yvette at Start Early and in supporting the Educare Learning Network in centering equity, parent and provider voice, and research evidence in policy solutions,” Bernhard concludes.

Follow Yvette on Twitter (@ysanchezfuentes) or LinkedIn.

As Congress continues to push historic reforms to early childhood education towards the finish line, Start Early president Diana Rauner joined Drew Furedi, president and CEO of Para Los Niños and Alejandra Barraza, president of HighScope Educational Research Foundation for a conversation about early childhood development moderated by Mark Oppenheim.

All families need support

The panel also spend time talking about how every family needs foundational supports. Discussion included how families have never raised children by themselves—they’ve always relied on friends, supports and family to help them during this exciting and exhausting time.

But not every parent and caregiver has these supports, and children shouldn’t be punished. In our full-employment society, we must find a way for all children to be cared for in quality educational settings regardless of their location — be it a church basement, a child care center, an in-home provider or a preschool — so that parents can choose from developmentally appropriate, affordable and quality options.

Investing in what works

The panel ended with a great sports analogy by Drew Furedi, who shared that sports teams spend millions of dollars on scientific approaches that train and develop individual athletes. If we applied the same approach to develop each young person, we could gain so much—and we’re not talking millions of dollars per child.

We know what works. We have the answers. We just need to do it.