In the early, crushing days of Covid, early childhood advocates in Massachusetts began to talk to each other daily on Zoom about making a way through the pandemic. These meetings were small at first, with 20 or so people, most of whom were long-time statewide advocates. Slowly throughout 2020, the number of people on the call grew, from 20 to 50 to 200. Four years later, the call’s sign-up list has grown to more than 2,000 individuals. What started out as a response to a crisis became a statewide conversation, a tool for ongoing and unprecedented advocacy, now known as The 9:30 Call that anyone could use.
“I always say it’s the call you didn’t know you needed,” Amy O’Leary says. She’s the executive director of Strategies for Children, which quickly took up the work of hosting the half-hour call every morning at 9:30, inviting guest speakers from the Governor of Massachusetts to state legislators to funders, advocates from other states, and local early educators sharing reports from the field.
The call created new connections among early childhood providers as well as between providers and policymakers. Zoom made it possible for anyone anywhere in the state to participate. Funders had access to real-time information about challenges and needs. Over time, The 9:30 Call became a place where people could virtually bump into each other, even if one person was in Boston and someone else was all the way across the state in Pittsfield.
Strategies staff paid attention to who was on the call — and who wasn’t. The desire to reach educators who work during the day as well as Spanish-speaking educators led to the launch of two spinoffs: The 9:30 Call at Night and The 9:30 Call en Español.
Earlier this year, Strategies released a case study, “The 9:30 Call: From Crisis to Enduring Community in Action.” Funded by the W. Clement & Jesse V. Stone Foundation, the case study tells the story of how The 9:30 Call grew and evolved, how it could be a resource for other states.
“It’s not about replicating The 9:30 Call,” O’Leary says, “it’s about finding opportunities in your own context.”
The case study and Strategies for Children’s staff share lessons about how advocates can develop their own calls. The “key ingredients,” the case study explains, include consistency, inclusivity, and building on existing relationships.
Connections are also crucial. O’Leary draws on an extensive network of existing and new professional contacts to find guests for the call. One question O’Leary regularly asks is, Tell us about you and how you came to your role? The answers can be both humanizing and inspiring.
Another ingredient is change.
“The call has gone on for four years because we’ve let it evolve,” Marisa Fear, Strategies’ Director of Policy adds. “We have the flexibility to focus on different issues, and the call is structured so that people can join when it’s helpful to them.”
“If you feel you have to stay locked on one topic, you can get stale,” Titus DosRemedios, Strategies’ Deputy Director, says. “But if you adapt and keep the conversation flexible, you stay relevant and fresh.”
Strategies uses surveys to ask 9:30 callers about their interests and about their feedback on the call. And thanks to Zoom’s chat feature, there are always lively comments being shared during the call.
One question Strategies staff have been asked is: Do you need a crisis to launch a call?
“I would say that there is always a crisis,” Diagneris Garcia, Strategies’ director of communications says. “There’s always a crisis whether it’s homelessness or immigration. And so building on that collective sense of anxiety, you can bring people together to talk about issues.
“I’m sure there will be communities where it might not be a virtual conversation. They might want to meet in person based on the size of the community and who is being served.”
Garcia also says other tools can be used, pointing to a WhatsApp conversation among the Spanish-speaking early childhood community. It’s called ECCHO-Latino (or Educadores Comprometidos por la Calidad de la Educación Infantil en el Hogar – Latino), and it was launched by Western Massachusetts family child care owners Paula A. Echeverri Durango and Harold Blanco
Other states are starting to test drive their own calls. O’Leary says that Florida has held a similar call, and Ohio is developing one. Advocates from both states have met with the Strategies team to pick their brains and learn about the planning and teamwork that go into hosting the calls. To help more states do this work, Strategies is developing a blueprint that explains the logistics of hosting a call, from identifying and building a base of callers to booking guests.
“You can start a call from scratch,” O’Leary says, offering encouragement to anyone who wants to start. “You do it in bite-sized pieces. You find an issue and start working on it. You build infrastructure as you go.”
Strategies infrastructure includes a 9:30 Call webpage and a YouTube playlist of the calls that are recorded. A weekly email announces upcoming call topics and guest speakers, and all slides presented on the call are archived on Google drive.
“You can keep the call going,” O’Leary adds, “for as long as it is helpful and needed.”
