What we heard; Key levers to strengthen the Early Childhood System
The Early Childhood Action Strategy extended mapping team, including representatives from governmental agencies, nonprofits, and individuals with lived experience navigating the systems that are intended to support early childhood wellbeing, met in October to identify areas of the map where they believe there is the greatest potential to make positive changes in the systems that are designed to support the wellbeing of young children, and also to flag those areas where meaningful change is unlikely to occur in the near future.
With leadership from Bailey Goldman from Engaging Inquiry and Kanoe Enos from A'ali'i Alliance, participants in the leverage workshop worked to identify areas of opportunity within the map, and lifted up the potential offered by four interconnected opportunities. These include:
the critical role of refashioning the way we understand and support the significant role of the early childhood workforce;
the potential for innovating with the goal of scaling and sustaining those innovations;
pathways to increase and align our use of data and evidence to guide our practices; and
the need to strengthen and expand opportunities for authentic collaboration with an expanded range of voices that extend far beyond the current stakeholders in the system.