Center on the Ecology of Early Development

Check out what Dr. Stephanie Curenton is up to with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University as she continues to make significant contributions to the field! We encourage you to like and follow her page so you can stay more in tune with her amazing achievements, news, and more 🎗️. Congrats Dr. Stephanie Curenton! 🎉

📊 🌟 During National Black Business Month, we want to bring attention to home-based childcare, businesses most often owned and operated by women of color. Two aims of our Reimagining Childcare (RCC) Study, funded by RWJF, are to discover how grantees are honoring the dignity, aspirations, and service of home-based childcare providers and uprooting racism and sexism in the early childcare ecosystem. Black owned family childcare programs are a key element in reducing the wealth gap and providing high quality accessible early care and education in the Black community. Home Grown, an RCC grantee, explains the spotlight of home-based childcare providers during #NationalBlackBusinessMonth in a blog post: https://lnkd.in/ejSiC8qC.  Learn more about the RCC study here: https://lnkd.in/gfGjx9b9 

Our very own, Stephanie Curenton, will be presenting on Advancing Racial Justice in Early Care and Education, Tuesday, September 17th 🌟 Please use this link to register for the webinar: https://lnkd.in/eTPehfDA 

💫 Our next Reimagining Child Care (RCC) Research Study Grantee Spotlight is Economic Security Project (ESP)! ESP advocates for transforming the economy through innovative campaigns, interventions, and research. ESP’s Cash as Care campaign promotes guaranteed income for care providers and families, advocating that cash is necessary to transform the care ecosystem and is a fundamental determinant of health and well-being.    The RCC Research Study, funded by RWJF, tells the story of ESP’s Cash as Care work. This initiative is shifting the narrative around care by promoting the idea that guaranteed income supports parents and caregivers. ESP is mobilizing individuals through community engagement and events, organizing public support by building coalitions and partnerships, and positioning cash as a core component of the care movement by demonstrating its benefits and fostering collaboration among funders and policymakers. Within these efforts, ESP also deeply ties in the role cash plays to promote health and well-being for carers. These efforts aim to integrate guaranteed income into broader care infrastructure and policy.    ESP’s Cash as Care Campaign: https://lnkd.in/emHgunv3   RCC Research study: https://lnkd.in/gfGjx9b9 #childcare #RWJF 

Celebrate National Back to School Month with us this August! 📚🚍📓 Feel free to dive into this insightful publication by Stephanie Curenton, @Keshia Harris, Shana E. Rochester, Jacqueline Sims, and Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor on the vital role teachers and classrooms play in fostering racial literacy in young children. (linked below) https://lnkd.in/d3T45Dty #earlyeducation #backtoschool #backtoschoolmonth

We at @CEED 🌱 , in partnership with Multnomah County Preschool for All (PFA), have created a brief using findings from family focus groups, conducted in Fall 2023. The brief is titled "Family Perspectives of Multnomah County Preschool for All: Insights from Focus Group" and explores the experiences of family members enrolled in PFA. 🏡   This brief examines insights from family members who have children in PFA, exploring their thoughts about the program so far. Family members discuss factors that influence preschool site selection, illustrate experiences within the PFA program, and highlight what it means to have a "successful" preschool for all.   Read the full brief here: https://lnkd.in/e82AFG65   #earlyeducation #universalpreschool #ECEaccess Desiree' DuBoise, M.S., ABD Olivia Nazaire Sara Moran, MPP Ebony L. McQueen, Stephanie Curenton, Kyle DeMeo Cook, Center on the Ecology of Early Development, Boston University Wheelock College Center for Future Readiness  

Our next Reimagining Childcare (RCC) Grantee Spotlight is the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)! Together with residents and partners, LISC helps forge resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity across America–great places to live, work, visit, do business and raise families. For more than two decades, LISC has worked to build the supply of quality child care and early learning infrastructure, in the form of facilities development and organizational capacity-building, through technical assistance, grant-making and loan financing. LISC’s work with RCC is a partnership between LISC National Child Care & Early Learning and LISC Phoenix with support from the Affordable Housing and Income & Wealth Building national programs. Home-based child care educators are often the most convenient and affordable option for many households, but rising housing costs are exacerbating financial hardship and survival of these critical community resources. The RCC Study, funded by RWJF, tells the story of how LISC is facilitating relationships with home-based childcare providers and key partners to develop avenues to housing and financial stability for child care providers. By amplifying the voices and needs of providers, LISC’s aim to build power and stability for providers which will contribute to a resilient child care sector, improve high quality learning environments for children, and lead to sustainable wealth-building.      To learn more about LISC's work with home-based childcare, read their recent story: https://lnkd.in/gCAWSRXx #Parent #Child #Housing

Highlighting Minority Mental Health Awareness Month 🌟 🌟 Here is another CEED of mental wellbeing! 🌱 Feel free to explore these impactful publications related to mental health in Black families (linked below). Black motherhood and the dual pandemics: The protective role of stable income on mental wellbeing: https://lnkd.in/dNhqNYme By: Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor, Jacqueline Sims, Stephanie Curenton Initial validation of the Family Cultural Wealth Survey: Relation with racial discrimination and well-being for Black families. Adversity and Resilience Science: https://lnkd.in/eqN_TjkT By: Iheoma Iruka, Alexandria Forte, SIHONG LIU, Jacqueline Sims & Stephanie Curenton “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths” - Etty Hillesum #MinorityMentalHealth #NMMHAM, #EarlyEducation

🌟 July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month! 🌟 Remember to prioritize your well-being, take a moment to breathe and reflect, and explore these impactful publications on Black children's mental health (linked below). 🧘♀️🧘 ⭐ The promotive and protective effects of parents’ perceived changes during the COVID-19 pandemic on emotional well-being among U.S. households with young children: an investigation of family resilience processes: https://lnkd.in/eTMHxnn6 by: SIHONG LIU, Stephanie Curenton, Jacqueline Sims, and Philip Fisher from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood and the Center on the Ecology of Early Development. ⭐ Examining the relationship between discrimination, access to material resources, and black children's behavioral functioning during COVID-19: https://lnkd.in/exduHvHK By: Nneka Ibekwe-Okafor , Jacqueline Sims , SIHONG LIU , Stephanie Curenton, Iheoma Iruka , @Kerry-Ann Escayg , Beverly B., Philip Fisher #NMMHAM, #MinorityMentalHealth, #EarlyEducation

🗺 ✨ One of the many products CEED has developed in our partnership with Multnomah County Preschool For All (PFA) is our most recent brief “Mapping Early Care and Education Sites in Multnomah County: 2023-2024 School Year”. This brief provides maps to inform PFA decision-making with the goal of providing more context around PFA policies and strategies around recruitment and enrollment decisions. One of the key findings in this brief is related to the barriers faced by families relying predominantly on public transportation, implications of these barriers, and suggestions for program policy changes. Read the full brief here to learn more about this and other findings.  https://lnkd.in/g4Jb3YBN ❕ #earlyeducation #universalpreschool #ECEaccess #maps #preschool #earlylearning #MultnomahCounty Sara Moran, MPP , Stephanie Curenton, Kyle DeMeo Cook, Leanne Villareal, Center on the Ecology of Early Development Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development