Funders understand it’s past time for the U.S. to create and support a quality early education system. In her latest piece for Inside Philanthropy, reporter Connie Matthiessen takes a look at the Educare Learning Network and Start Early as a model for change, including the Educare model’s focus on parent engagement, the importance of public-private partnerships and providing parents and families with comprehensive, prenatal-to-five supports.

In the piece, Jessie Rasmussen, president of the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, calls Educare “an initiative by private and public partners to do two big things: change the life trajectories for the children who come into our care, and change the way America approaches and funds high-quality early care and education. By doing what science tells us we need to do in terms of providing quality, we are narrowing and even closing the achievement gap. By working with peers across the country, we’re showing what it takes to deliver such high quality, including a well-prepared, well-compensated workforce, a reliance on data-driven practice, and care that partners with families and nurtures the healthy growth and development of every child.”

Last month, families across the country began receiving the first payments under the Advance Child Tax Credit (ACTA), a part of the American Rescue Plan Act. For many families with young children, like Educare Chicago parent Cheryse Singleton-Nobles, the expanded Child Tax Credit offers integral support that increases their ability to provide a stable environment and experiences for their children to thrive.

“A lot of us are struggling. Even though the pandemic is ending, that doesn’t end the financial impacts it created,” Cheryse shares.

Across the nation, even as employment is rising and strains on household budgets have eased in recent months families continue to struggle. One in three adults with children report difficulty covering usual household expenses, and one in eight report their families don’t have enough to eat. This financial strain and chronic stress can undermine young children’s sense of security, safety and joy. If prolonged, it can have a negative, long-term impact on their development.

“If it’s stressful for an adult, imagine how stressful this time has been for young children whose entire routine was disturbed,” Cheryse continues. “The Child Tax Credit puts us in a place of peace so that we can be in a better mental state to focus on doing more for our children and not worrying as much about things getting turned off or bills not being paid.”

The expanded Child Tax Credit will help directly alleviate the strain that so many families are experiencing on multiple fronts. Eligible families will receive up to $3,600 per child under age 6 and $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17, with half made available to families in advance through six monthly payments and the rest claimed when they file their tax returns.

Many organizations, including our own Educare Learning Network, are proactively reaching out to educate families on the tax filing process and helping them take full advantage of the Child Tax Credit. At Educare Chicago, “staff let us know it was coming, who to contact and offered to assist with the tax filing process,” Cheryse shares.

Start Early is pleased to announce Clarissa Love as our first Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB). In her role, Clarissa will lead the organization’s continuing journey in becoming an anti-racist organization that creates systemic improvements in early childhood education so that equitable access for all becomes a reality.

“Clarissa is well-positioned for this critical role within our organization, bringing more than a decade of knowledge, tangible experience and demonstrated effectiveness in leading DEIB strategy,” says Michael Hoffman, Chief Operating Officer at Start Early.

Previously, Clarissa served as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant at Michigan Medicine’s Office for Health, Equity and Inclusion. In this role, she enlisted over 5,000 voices (students, staff and faculty) to develop a DEIB strategic plan that created opportunities for individual growth and development, enhanced team culture and strengthened networks to build internal and external community equity. She managed DEIB leads across Michigan Medicine to build momentum and change at the department level. During her tenure she created relevant courses to build leadership capacity and some of the topics included cultural humility and daring leadership. She also co-led the design of implicit bias, anti-racism, belonging and well-being tools that supported self-reflection and the evaluation of team and organizational practices and policies and ran a weekly community engagement program open to the Michigan Medicine community. She has also spoken nationally to bolster awareness of DEIB practices that engage the community. Her interests include organizational engagement, leadership development and uplifting voices to build change.

Start Early believes a critical component of advancing racial equity is creating an organization where the presence, voices and ideas of staff and the communities we serve are represented, heard, valued and acted upon. The organization is a proud participant of StriveTogether’s Equitable Recovery Pledge, supporting the development of more just, equitable systems that align resources to youth, families and people of color. In 2017, Start Early staff established an Advancing Racial Equity (A.R.E) Taskforce to promote racial equity internally and externally.

“I’m excited to build on this strong foundation by leveraging my experience in collaboration with our staff, Board members, families and external partners to continue to elevate Start Early as a national leader in centering parent and community voice,” Clarissa shares. “I believe DEIB will continue to be at the forefront of organizational transformation and societal change, particularly during this pivotal time.”

Learn more about Clarissa’s professional journey in her leadership bio. You can also follow her on LinkedIn.

Start Early was recently awarded a 5-year Head Start grant to provide quality early childhood programs and services to more than 2,100 children from birth through age 5 and their families in Chicago. Diana McClarien, vice president of our Early/Head Start Network and Claire Dunham, senior vice president of programs & training recently spoke with the Chicago Tribune and Chalkbeat Chicago about how our new grant will double the number of children and families we serve, as well as increase provider pay and create professional development opportunities for the early childhood workforce.

“Who am I?” From the moment babies are born, they are learning about who they are, how to express their feelings and what makes them special. Their earliest relationships with parents and caregivers help develop a sense of belonging and set the foundation for their future learning and success.

Parents and caregivers can help young children along as they grow and learn more about who they are, their feelings and how they fit into this world.

Chicago is a key part of Start Early’s story and identity. Since our founding in 1982, we are proud to have supported each mayoral administration in their efforts to create an exemplary early childhood system here in our hometown.

In the fall of 2020, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched Every Child Ready Chicago (ECRC), a multiyear, public-private partnership to align the various prenatal-to-five systems and supports serving Chicago’s children and families under a shared vision of success and build the early childhood systems infrastructure needed for thousands more children to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

Through its work, the initiative seeks to create a strong and equitable early childhood system where all parents and children, particularly those in under-resourced communities, have access to quality services. By partnering with parents and communities, the initiative can build a forward-moving plan capable of withstanding changes in leadership throughout the city that are bound to happen.

Supporting Black fathers in their role as a child’s first and most important teacher is an investment in our children and our communities. This Father’s Day, let’s intentionally change the narrative, advocate for local, state and federal policies that benefit Black fathers and promote positive and culturally relevant parent and home visiting programs that benefit early childhood development.

Learn more about my work and continue to follow this blog for the latest updates from Start Early.

In April 2021, Start Early merged with the Early Learning Lab (ELL) — a nonprofit with expertise in human-centered design, systems thinking and technology solutions — to drive stronger, more equitable solutions, programs and policies that are better informed by community voices to improve early childhood systems across the country.

The merger uniquely positions 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.

The Early Learning Lab 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 products and programs.

Now, the Early Learning Lab is a new division within Start Early. The Lab will continue its work to lift up family and community voices and advance smart technology solutions in early childhood programs and systems.

Start Early is pleased to announce Diana Sands, former Boeing executive and Start Early Board member of 11 years, has been appointed to lead its Board of Directors. Diana retired from the Boeing Company in 2020, where she was an executive officer and oversaw a diverse team including ethics & investigations, compliance risk management, corporate audit, security, and internal services.

“I’m honored to take on this role at such an exciting time for Start Early and a pivotal time for early learning more broadly,” Diana Sands shares. “Coming out of the pandemic and with the massive influx of federal spending, we have an unprecedented opportunity to transform early childhood and create a world where families are supported and prioritized when it matters most.”

Diana’s commitment to helping all children and families access quality early education began with her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. to attend graduate school. From her earliest years, her parents strove to provide Diana and her brother with a good education. As she has learned more about how children, families and communities benefit from quality early learning and care, her passion for the issue has only increased.

Diana succeeds outgoing Board Chair Curt Bailey, president of Related Midwest, who served from 2017-2021. Under Curt’s leadership, Start Early advanced its ambitious strategic plan to connect the early childhood field and build cohesion with colleagues and thought partners on a national scale. During his tenure the organization experienced significant growth and transformation, including our expansion to Washington State and our recent merger with the Early Learning Lab, as well as our successful rebrand from the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

“Diana is a distinguished professional and leader who brings a true passion for our youngest learners and their families,” says Diana Rauner, president of Start Early. “Start Early has always been fortunate to have the right leadership at the right time. We are grateful for Curt’s passion and vision, which has helped transform and grow our organization. As we move forward under Diana’s leadership, we are poised to continue to expand our reach and our impact in the coming years.”

Start Early’s Board of Directors is comprised of 30 champions for early learning who each bring a diverse range of experience and backgrounds together to ensure we’re taking an innovative and thoughtful approach to our work.

Businesses merge all the time. Nonprofit mergers are more rare, but experts have long pointed to the potential advantages of joining forces. In a recent article, Early Learning Nation shares how the recent merger of Start Early and the Early Learning Lab is a great study in how to capitalize on the strengths of both organization to amplify their effectiveness.

The article explores how Early Learning Lab’s human-centered design approach combined with Start Early’s consulting work will strengthen the human capacity and infrastructure states and communities need to build strong and equitable systems. As Rebecca Berlin, chief learning officer at Start Early sums it up, “We’re better together than apart.”