Statewide engagement is vital to building a strong early childhood infrastructure that is responsive to families’ diverse needs and where educators are recognized and supported. There are some important questions advocates should ask themselves as they do this work, though, in order to maximize trust and achieve the success they are after. Jacy Montoya Price, Senior Director of Advocacy and Issue Campaigns at the Alliance for Early Success, recently shared some principles advocates should consider as they explore statewide engagement.
Advocates who want to see what this looks like in practice need look no further than North Carolina, Florida, Missouri, and Louisiana—where coalitions and organizations are transforming new statewide learning and relationships into tangible plans.
While each group took a different approach, their strategies reveal common themes that offer valuable lessons to advocates.
Involve parents, providers, and educators throughout the process.
Montoya Price recommends advocates start with landscaping—traveling throughout their states to listen. “The best results,” she says, “come from working with communities instead of for communities.” Each group conducted months-long listening tours across their states, speaking directly with parents, providers, and educators about their day-to-day challenges and visions for the future. They also maintained ongoing channels for stakeholder feedback.
In North Carolina, the Care and Learning (CandL) Coalition partnered with grassroots organizations to host listening sessions in 34 counties across the state. Community voices shaped every step of the CandL process, from informing the group’s vision to the current phase of narrowing priority policy recommendations. After releasing the roadmap, CandL plans to include listening session participants in its advocacy efforts, including meetings with elected officials to advance their shared goals. “I want this work to be different. I do not want to speak on your behalf. I want you to be at the table,” says Shanda Sumpter, Project Director for CandL.
In the fall and winter of 2020, Kids Win Missouri virtually convened hundreds of partners, community leaders, parents, educators, and providers and invited them to share their valuable experiences. This work was instrumental in creating Missouri’s Roadmap for Child Care, a comprehensive policy proposal that outlines a five-pronged strategy to promote parent, provider, business, government, and media engagement. The group continues to include community stakeholders in the policy and advocacy process well beyond their initial listening sessions by hosting regular meetings to discuss new policy proposals. “We have built these different mechanisms through which we are creating constant feedback loops between parents, providers, and other systems partners in our state,” says Casey Hanson, Deputy Director at Kids Win Missouri.
Value lived experience.
Each group compensated parents, providers, and educators who participated in the process, showing that there is inherent value in community knowledge and lived experience. Geaux Far Louisiana, a Child Care NEXT coalition led by the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children in partnership with For Providers By Providers and others, engaged thousands of stakeholders from across the state in its listening process. Its Steering Committee helps advance Geaux Far’s five pillars: a family and provider-driven system, a healthy start, a net that works, childcare for everyone everywhere, and family-friendly workplaces. Libbie Sonnier, CEO of the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children and Co-Chair of Geaux Far Louisiana, has pledged that parents and providers will always constitute more than half of the steering committee. Currently, 70% of members are parents and providers. Each member is given a quarterly stipend for contributing their perspectives, time, and expertise—all crucial to a family and provider-driven approach.
Partner with community organizations.
Montoya Price invites advocates to reflect on how the community perceives their organization and whether others feel welcome and respected in their spaces. She encourages them to identify partnership opportunities and provide resources (e.g., funding, time, connections) to support partners’ existing work.
Each group collaborated with local community organizations across the state to host listening sessions and provided stipends to offer child care, translation services, and food for participants. In turn, they were able to build relationships with grassroots organizations across the state and gather authentic information directly from community members.
Be flexible and trust the process.
Statewide engagement efforts may take longer than initially expected and demand flexibility. The Children’s Movement of Florida created a process that directly involved parents, educators, and providers in policy development and considered their unique needs and schedules. This resulted in Florida’s Early Learning Roadmap. Rocio Velazquez, Vice President of Statewide Engagement at the Children’s Movement of Florida, stresses the importance of adaptability when working with parents and educators. She encourages advocates to recognize these groups “have different rhythms.” “You have to be patient and be flexible,” Velazquez says, “to change the process so that they can really be part of it and not just fill in some gaps.”
Though prioritizing the inclusion of parents and members of the early childhood workforce may require additional funding and consideration, efforts to include them have a significant return, she explains.
“This process helped us face challenges and build relationships with parents and educators. We know their names. We know their stories. It was a very good thing because it has allowed us as advocates to ground ourselves in their realities, and that is what we are carrying forward.”
Statewide engagement strategies have helped these coalitions build meaningful, authentic connections, identify widespread challenges, and develop strategic plans. Through these efforts, they have made significant progress toward creating a more equitable and sustainable early childhood education system in which all children have a strong foundation and early childhood professionals are given the respect and compensation they deserve.
“The road is not easy, but it is absolutely worth it,” Montoya Price says. “These groups have shown what is possible when we value lived experience and community engagement in policy and advocacy work and include parent, provider, and educator voices in agenda setting from beginning to end. This work is about building collective power and advancing a long-term strategy that ensures there are voices in all corners of the state who are loud and engaged early childhood champions. It is inspiring, and I cannot wait to see what comes next.”
