Celebrating a Community of Inclusion

   

Parents, ECE professionals, policymakers, and stakeholders joined together on April 25 in Center City Philadelphia to discuss, recognize, and celebrate inclusion practices in early childhood settings. More than 100 people attended the event listening to keynote speakers, recognizing exemplar ECE programs and participating in panel discussions. Thank you to keynote speakers, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Estelle Richman, former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare.

Mayor Kenney spoke about the importance of inclusion for all children in high-quality early childhood programs. Kenney also reaffirmed the City’s commitment to providing a high-quality Pre-K experience to every Philadelphia preschooler through the PHLpreK program.

Ms. Richman shared her historical perspective and observed changes in inclusion policies and efforts to increase the quality of early learning programs.

Visit the Supporting EVERY Young Child page for more information about the event.

Did you attend the event? Please take a few minutes to complete a short survey to help us shape our next steps.

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The Early Childhood Action Collective

The Early Childhood Action Collective (ECAC) is a new initiative at Public Health Management Corporation, sponsored by the William Penn Foundation. ECAC is a multi-disciplinary research and policy consortium developed to identify data and interventions that have promising innovative applications for use in Philadelphia. The group will produce a comprehensive assessment of risks and opportunities associated with specific strategies; provide a forum for discussing risks and challenges; and develop recommendations and action steps to build successful early childhood programs in Philadelphia and the state.

ECAC will establish a platform for shared communication among key organizations and decision makers in the city, as well as a forum for discussion among cities engaging in this work. Potential stakeholders and audiences include program designers and administrators, policy makers, advocates, funders, government officials, the pre-K commission, ECE networks and partnerships, capacity building entities that provide technical assistance, institutions of higher education (IHEs), parents and families, providers from all program types, other cities and the media.

The goals of the Collective are to:

• Establish and maintain a shared knowledge base and facilitate informed decision making.

• Create the multi-disciplinary set of analyses necessary to adequately inform decision-making within the highly complex and interconnected industries that constitute the ECE landscape. 

• Maintain a birth to five years old focus in developing and implementing solutions.

• Develop and implement a communications strategy with effective methods of distributing research, aggregating consortium member contributions, and disseminating information to the target audience and beyond.

• Build capacity among providers, administrators, and various organizations to enhance and deliver quality programming to children in Philadelphia.

• Leverage existing work in the city, state, and beyond, to contribute to improved delivery of high quality early education programs in Philadelphia.

• Share information about findings and successes to encourage and enhance the work of programs nationwide.