Vital Communities and its partners in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Initiative will hold a breakfast gathering on Monday, October 21, 7:30 to 9 am, to summarize new innovative programs and what’s needed next to improve the availability of affordable, high-quality care and education for young children.
Vital Communities and its partners in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Initiative will hold a breakfast gathering on Monday, October 21, 7:30 to 9 am, to summarize new innovative programs and what’s needed next to improve the availability of affordable, high-quality care and education for young children.The ECE Initiative Breakfast aims to bring together early childhood educators and providers, the employers and workers who rely on childcare, representatives of state and local government, and advocacy groups.
The breakfast is the culmination of the ECE Initiative, which Vital Communities began in 2021, with funding from Dartmouth College, the City of Lebanon, and the Couch Family Foundation. At that time, it was clear that the pandemic had worsened the Upper Valley’s chronic shortage of affordable, high-quality childcare and that everyone was feeling it: parents who couldn’t work, employers who couldn’t fill jobs, and the public who relied on those understaffed businesses.
The effort began with a two-day seminar and continued with the formation of a steering committee and working groups that worked on improving provider pay and training, addressing the stresses for ECE centers, and advocating for legislation in Concord and Montpelier. The steering committee has included representatives from Dartmouth College, the City of Lebanon, the Couch Family Foundation, the Early Care and Education Association of the Upper Valley, Creative Kids Adventures, and Let’s Grow Kids.
The initiative’s main accomplishment is greater connection among early childhood educators, business owners, parents, representatives of local government, and ECE experts and resource organizations. Another is advocacy. Through events, statehouse visits, and op-eds, the initiative drew attention to the issue and supported important legislation in both Concord and Montpelier.
Still more are projects aided by the initiative, including The Career Cultivator for permanent and substitute educators through the Early Care and Education Association and supported by Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Health, and the Couch Foundation; a Health Sciences course with an ECE pathway at the Hartford Career and Tech Center; and, at Vital Communities, a “farm to ECE” effort to help ECE programs provide their children with nourishing local food. This summer, staff partnered with Shelburne Farms and Let’s Grow Kids to help seven Orange County ECE programs purchase kitchen equipment, and a broader pilot project is being designed.