Building the Village
CEED strives to provide leadership and mentorship opportunities grounded in equity and antiracist coaching, training, and systemic professional development plans that prepare diverse scientists, practitioners, and teachers for success in the field.
Reimagining Childcare
Reimagining Childcare (RCC) is an initiative designed to examine seven grantees from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Reimagining Childcare (RCC) Portfolio. The RCC portfolio was a series of investments with the following goals:
To orient advocates toward understanding the “dignity, aspirations, and service of family childcare providers”
To create mechanisms of accountability that can help advocates see how their efforts center families and children who are racially or economically marginalized
To identify new advocacy practices to anchor the early care and education system in a way that uproots sexism and racisms
To positively advance the narrative of caregivers.
This project will assist RWJF in learning more about the contribution that these projects made to changing the advocacy ecosystem, and specifically take a deeper look at the evaluation components of this work. Based on the information we learn from this initiative, CEED will develop an overall conceptualization model of an advocacy ecosystem that includes lessons learned from across the grantees.
Resources
Centering Parent Voices
The Centering Parent Voice Project is part of an ongoing collaboration with the Center for Evaluation Innovation. The project builds on participatory approaches to investigate parents' advocacy and policy development within early care and education ecosystems. Early care and education ecosystems reflect a wide network (e.g., parents and family advocates for children, teachers, early childhood programs, funders, medical and human service providers, policymakers, state administrators, community organizations, etc.) that operate within complex structures for making change.
In 2021, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) funded two 18-month projects to support state policy advocates working in the areas of Early Head Start/Head Start (EHS/HS) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to increase the role that parents play in their advocacy efforts, particularly parents who have experienced the effects of structural racism within and outside of ECE ecosystems. The Centering Parent Voice Project is motivated by a focus on racial equity and shifting the way that grantmaking occurs-ultimately with the goal of centering parent voice in culturally-grounded and authentic ways.
Year Two
At year two, CEED and CEI have expanded their work to further examine the advocacy processes, opportunities, and structural barriers that inform parent advocacy across nine states (Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with national partners, state leads, parent organizers, and equity consultants who provided technical assistance. Additional data sources included a parent survey and semi-structured interviews of parent advocates with a range of experiences from five states - namely Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina - to take a deep dive into the distinct state conditions that shape advocacy using a racial equity lens. CEI and CEED will continue to partner throughout preliminary analysis, dissemination of findings with the RWJF, Start Early, Zero to Three, state leads, and parent or community advocacy groups who have been instrumental throughout our work.
