Alliance Hosts Webinar on Group Prenatal Care Advocacy
October 31, 2024
In October of 2024, the Alliance for Early Success, the Centering Healthcare Institute, and the Michigan Council for Maternal &
The Alliance for Early Success is a 50-state resource for early-childhood advocates as they pursue the big, sustained impact that will ensure every child in every state, birth through age eight, has an equal chance to grow, learn, and succeed.
In October of 2024, the Alliance for Early Success, the Centering Healthcare Institute, and the Michigan Council for Maternal &
It is no secret that early childhood educators face challenges in Wisconsin and beyond, and yet plans to make the system more equitable are often missing the voices of these practitioners themselves. In Wisconsin, a new study that centers the voices of Wisconsin early educators from traditionally marginalized groups is already having an impact on policy in the state.
When advocates at Rodel in Delaware began planning a targeted messaging strategy for increasing child care subsidies, the Alliance connected them with Child Care Aware of America, who helped them build a dashboard that quantifies the gap in child care supply and demand at the local level. This allowed advocates to create fact sheets about the shortage of child care in each state legislative district and, ultimately, win more than $10 million in additional subsidy and reimbursement funding.
The Alliance Hosts 200 grantees for three days of reflection, discussion, and connecting insights to their work as individuals, leaders, and early childhood
advocates.
Successful advocacy helped Missouri buck a trend among many Republican governors who opted not to participate the federal Summer EBT program—and helped ensure that children who would have otherwise received food benefits through schools or child care programs continue to receive nutritious meals.
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, but grew over time. Four years later, “The 9:30 Call” is still happening and has an invite list of more than 2,000. More important, it is now a powerful, statewide conversation and a tool for ongoing and unprecedented advocacy.
When a baby or toddler is removed from their family due to alleged maltreatment or neglect, children are often placed in a child welfare system that has not developed policies and practices with the needs of infants and toddlers in mind. In Georgia, early childhood advocates have worked with Alliance responsive support providers to win a solution for this problem—the implementation of an evidence-based court team approach.
In lean budget times, successful advocacy can often take the shape of avoiding deep cuts or even planned eliminations to vital programs. This year, early childhood advocates in the District of Columbia and Louisiana leveraged grassroots voices and strategic messaging to defend investments in child care programs.
The Alliance for Early Success has announced that Mario Cardona has joined its Board of Directors. Cardona is a partner at Nelson Mullins, where he helps lead the work of EducationCounsel, LLC, a mission-based education consulting firm that combines experience in policy, strategy, law, and advocacy to drive significant improvements in the U.S. education system to help all children thrive. Prior, Cardona served as the former Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development & Education for the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Virginia advocates have have turned the Child Care NEXT principles and support into a string of wins for children, including, in the 2024 session, an historic commitment by the governor and legislature that means $1.1 billion will be available for child care services for low to moderate income families over the next two years.