In support of the Every Child Ready Chicago initiative, Start Early began exploring the creation of a Chicago early childhood research consortium, which would bring together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, families, and community representatives across sectors in a robust, long-term research-practice partnership focused on helping Chicago achieve its vision for a strong early childhood system.

Access to relevant, actionable, and timely evidence and data that can guide the decisions of policymakers and program leaders is critical to the success of early childhood, and any other, systems-building initiatives. For an early childhood system as large and ambitious as Chicago, no one research partner or institution can provide these supports alone; a consortium of researchers and research institutions working together is key. Chicago already benefits from several research consortia, but none focus specifically on the city’s early childhood system.

Our exploratory report presents the findings of the initial inquiry phase: stakeholder interviews with 26 participants from 16 different organizations, including researchers, advocates, practitioners, leaders of community-based organizations, City of Chicago officials and staff, and other experts. The consensus that emerged was clear:

• Chicago needs an early childhood research consortium to serve as a long-term, sustainable research partnership focused exclusively on Chicago’s cross-sector, systemwide early childhood priorities.
• The research consortium should function as:
  • A neutral third-party without allegiance to, or conflicts of interest with, any City agency, office or department.
  • A trusted thought partner and capacity support for City agencies, offices and departments, as well as community and systems leaders.
  • A “hub” for researchers across institutions and disciplines.
  • An integrated complement to existing and emerging infrastructure, systems, consortia and partnerships; it should not duplicate or replace them.

The exploratory interviews also helped to specify a set of important strategic questions that remain unanswered. In the next phase of this work, it will be important to bring together potential partners for nuanced discussions regarding these recommendations, strategic questions and additional topics that emerge as this work progresses. We are excited to catalyze these conversations and facilitate this process for Chicago’s early childhood community.

Start Early is excited to partner with Noggin, Sparkler Learning and more than a dozen other partner organizations on Big Heart World, a new social and emotional learning initiative for families and educators.

Social and emotional learning is at the heart of children’s early development. The first five years of life are a period of developing communication, collaboration and self-regulation skills through interaction with a supportive, stimulating environment. The initiative seeks to support educators and families with free and publicly available resources to help their children develop these critical skills and reach their highest potential.

Each month, the initiative will share new content, in English and Spanish, focused on three core areas of emotional learning:

• Learning About Me: Awareness of self: identity & belonging, feelings and self-regulation
• Learning About You: Awareness of others: empathy, appreciation of diversity
• Learning About Us: Relationships with others: interpersonal strategies

Content will include monthly guides for Educators and Parent & Caregivers, as well as play-based learning activities, videos, songs and games designed to help children develop self-confidence, self-awareness, an appreciation of others and strong relationships. Or as our partners like to say, everything children need to “build a big heart.”

We’ll also be sharing resources from Start Early experts as part of the initiative and look forward to the shared learning with families and educators across the country as we together work to address our youngest learners’ pressing social and emotional needs.

Teri Rogoway’s love of nature started early, with her own mom. “My mom taught me from a really young age that nature was a gift and that we could be better people as a result of interacting with nature,” she shares. “I’ve always had a positive experience in nature and I wanted to give those kinds of experiences to other people.”

As the educational programs coordinator for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, Teri helps children engage with nature from an early age. “We do stroller walks with parents and infants and toddlers, where we let the kids play outside and make things out of twigs, rocks and leaves. I never tell them what to make, I just let them create,” she notes, which helps build creativity skills that follow them into their later years.

Engaging parents is key to increasing young children’s exposure to and appreciation of nature. “You want parents to feel comfortable being out in nature because children watch how their parent responds. If the parents are afraid, then a child might pick up on that fear and carry it with them through life,” she explains.

This week’s verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd is a significant step towards confronting the institutional structures that maintain and condone systemic violence towards people of color. As we work towards a country where all children have an equitable opportunity to thrive, we know there is still a long way to go: Since testimony in the case began in late March, three people a day have died at the hands of law enforcement, including children like Adam Toledo and Ma’Khia Bryant, parents like Daunte Wright and others. As members of the early childhood community, many of us are still processing the pain and hurt caused by watching societal systems continue to fail adults and children of color. Just as one community confronts a killing, another happens.

We know early education and care will play a critical role in helping our communities level the playing field and set a foundation for children to succeed in life. We also recognize that quality early childhood experiences are just one critical piece of the solution and alone won’t fix the formal structures and systems that, in tandem with our country’s history and culture of white supremacy, perpetuate racism and inequities.

But as individuals who interact with, shape and influence these systems, we commit to collectively supporting and partnering with our communities, children and families in healing from this ongoing trauma and dismantling oppressive structures. We will continue to reflect upon the ways in which our own early learning community has, at times, aligned with this systemic violence, including disproportionate expulsion rates for young children of color, enrollment patterns, underpayment of staff and continued segregation. We will continue to work towards centering parent and community voices by honoring their leadership, needs, desires and hopes — for themselves, their families, their communities and our country.

We invite our partners and supporters to help us address these imperatives with passion and urgency, and to hold us accountable on our learning journey. Our efforts to dismantle racism will continue not only in the aftermath of incidences of violence, but as long as the health, development, and well-being of the children and families we partner with and serve are jeopardized by racist systems, practices and behaviors.

Earlier today, we hosted our Annual Luncheon — a virtual, nationwide celebration of the transformational power of starting early. Through the inspiring stories of families, educators and early learning champions, we witnessed how quality early learning and care programs lay a positive foundation for our youngest learners and provide necessary supports for all families.

Presented by LaSalle Network and the Zell Family Foundation, our Luncheon welcomed more than 3,000 individuals from coast to coast, many first-time attendees who are new to the Start Early family, along with some of our longest supporters. If you were unable to join us, 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 early childhood workforce. From spreading the word about early learning’s impact in our communities, to contacting your legislator in support of an advocacy campaign or sharing the gift of financial support, your investment of time or resources will make a difference. Learn more about ways to get involved.

I am overwhelmed with appreciation for the families, educators and early learning champions, including our Luncheon Co-Chairs Kelly King Dibble and Diana Sands, who shared their personal and inspirational stories to help demonstrate the importance of early learning and care programs. Thank you to:

Michelle Obama
Former First Lady of the United States

Dr. Clinton Boyd, Jr.  
Postdoctoral Associate, Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity

Diana Barrios
New Mother

Patricia Ceja-Muhsen
Doula, Healthy Parents & Babies

Danielle Jordan  
Senior Master Teacher, Educare Chicago

Michelle Morris  
Family Support & Community Engagement Manager, Educare Chicago

Kelly King Dibble
Senior Vice President, The Northern Trust Company; Board Member, Start Early

Diana Sands
Board Member, Start Early

Curt Bailey
President, Related Midwest; Board Chair, Start Early

We are so grateful for the overwhelming generosity of our donors and event sponsors, who helped us surpass our fundraising goal of $1.2 million. Each dollar invested in this mission will change the course for our youngest learners and their families. You can still show your support by making a gift. When we come together and invest in early childhood education, we can transform the lives of our future generation.

Thank you for joining us at our virtual 2021 Annual Luncheon, and we hope to see you again soon.

Start Early is pleased to announce the merger of Start Early and the Early Learning Lab (ELL), a nonprofit with expertise in human-centered design, systems thinking and technology solutions. As part of the merger, ELL will join Start Early as a new division operating under chief learning officer Rebecca Berlin.

The merger will uniquely position Start Early to develop new ways of working that draw upon the collective experience of both organizations in elevating parent voice, systems change, and knowledge transfer and network building. By integrating ELL’s human-centered design capacities with Start Early’s deep expertise across program, policy and research, Start Early will drive stronger, more equitable solutions, programs and policies that are better informed by community voices to improve early childhood systems across the country.

“We are excited to build on the culture of innovation that has always been at the heart of Start Early,” said Diana Rauner, president of Start Early. “The merger will extend and deepen our capabilities to innovate as we seek to elevate parent and family voice and improve early childhood programs and systems at scale.”

Start Early has long believed engaging families and elevating the voices of parents and caregivers are critical to create high-quality, equitable and effective early learning programs and systems.

The merger comes at a key juncture for the early childhood field, as COVID-19 underscored the need for a more equitable, comprehensive and sustainable early childhood system that proactively addresses existing disparities and ensures that programs meet the needs of all children and families, especially those from under-resourced communities.

ELL’s reputation for elevating parent, caregiver and teacher voice will build upon Start Early’s work to create programs and systems that are grounded in parent and provider voice through its Early Head Start & Head Start Network, Home Visiting & Doula Network, Educare Learning Network and solutions and engagement work.

“Providing services that are truly equitable and beneficial begins with understanding what families want and need,” said Sheetal Singh, executive director of the ELL. “We’re excited to join Start Early and continue our work to flip the narrative so that families and caregivers are partners in co-learning and co-designing programs and systems.”

Through the merger, Singh and five additional ELL staff will join Start Early. Additionally, Start Early will gain current ELL assets and intellectual property, including applications and online platforms.

In FY 22, ELL will continue its previous commitments funded by the Packard Foundation, the William Penn Foundation-funded Philadelphia Parent Institute and its partnership within the National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement (NCPFCE) to lead innovation in resource and product development and field testing.

As a part of Start Early, ELL will help advance the organization’s goal to transform the early childhood field’s ability to deliver quality at scale by generating knowledge, deploying solutions and expertise, maturing systems, and navigating the field toward a cohesive vision.

About Start Early

Start Early (formerly known as the Ounce of Prevention) is a nonprofit public-private partnership advancing quality early learning and care for families with children, before birth through their earliest years, to help close the opportunity gap. For nearly 40 years, Start Early has delivered best-in-class doula, home visiting, and Early Head Start and Head Start programs. Bringing expertise in program delivery, research and evaluation, professional development, and policy and advocacy, Start Early works in partnership with communities and other experts to drive systemic change so millions more children, families and educators can thrive.

About the Early Learning Lab (ELL)

The Early Learning Lab (ELL) was founded in 2015 to bring new methods and tools from the social innovation sector to the early childhood field to catalyze the design, implementation, and scaling of high-impact programs. ELL’s approach is based on rapid-cycle learning, human-centered design, and behavioral science, and leverages technology and data for impact and scale. ELL has deployed innovative technology and solutions in education arenas and achieved recognition for the effectiveness of their approach and tools. ELL has also brought their human-centered design work to communities through their Parent Innovation Institute programs in Oakland and Philadelphia and as an advisor for the California Department of Education (CDE), PBS SoCal, and others.

“As a child care provider, I always imagined I’d do something with new parents,” recalls Tina Greer, a doula for the Child Abuse Council’s Healthy Families program in the Quad Cities, one of the 30 home visiting programs in Start Early’s Home Visiting & Doula Network.

Tina was propelled to become a doula after experiencing the unimaginable loss of her own son at just 17-days old. She knew becoming a doula combine her passion for social work and new families. She also knew that having experienced loss equipped her with the empathy and resources to help families in similar situations. Now, nearly four years later, Tina is close to securing her Stillbirthday Bereavement Certification so that she can offer parents experiencing loss this unique support.

“You have to turn that loss into something positive otherwise it’s unbearable to live with,” she reflects.

Vehr reflects on how even a 3-month policy wouldn’t have felt sufficient. “With a 3-month policy, I would have spent about a third of my leave with at least one child in the hospital. The extended 6-month leave meant that I could spend meaningful time, especially in those precious early days, focused on establishing new routines and caring for my children.”

Decreasing an employee’s salary and retirement savings opportunities at a time when their expenses are increasing causes high levels of stress, conditions that have been shown to negatively affect children’s growth and development. Start Early’s parental leave program also aligns with research evidence about the impact caregiver stress and access to high-quality healthcare has on young children by providing employees with 100% of their salary and benefits during parental leave.

“I was really one of the fortunate parents in the NICU,” says Vehr. “I think about mothers who have to return to work before they’ve fully healed or parents who are forced to return to work when their little ones are so very young because not receiving a paycheck is simply not an option.”

A comprehensive paid parental leave program can aid in retaining women in the workforce. One study from Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that implementing paid parental leave policies in California and New Jersey resulted in a 20 percent reduction in the number of women exiting their jobs in the first year after welcoming a child and up to a 50 percent reduction after 5 years.

“When you invest in your people, they invest back in the organization which ultimately leads to increased retention,” notes Byville. “I feel a much stronger sense of loyalty to Start Early because of the space they made for my family.”

Vehr agrees, “I feel a deeper sense of commitment to our organization and more cared for as an employee.” She adds, “it really calls on employers to consider a far more empathetic, humane approach to parental and family leave, and it also calls on our lawmakers to support employers with that aim.”

The benefits of paid parental leave set families, employers, and our communities up for success, which is why Start Early will continue to advocate for family-friendly policies that support time for parents and caregivers to bond with and care for their children without jeopardizing their ability to afford basic needs.

Laura, a professor of nursing at Bradley University, signed up for Family Connects Illinois with her students in mind. The evidence-based, universal home visiting program is offered to families with newborn children in Peoria County.

“As I was signing the paperwork to be induced, hospital staff shared information about this free program that they thought I might be interested in,” she recalls. “I thought I would see what it was about not only for myself, but to help connect my students to new opportunities that further their knowledge.”

After giving birth, Laura returned home with her newborn son, Tommy. She had all but forgotten about the program until she received a call a few weeks later, connecting her to her nurse home visitor, Marianne.