SEF Toolkit

Welcome

Unleashing the Power of Family Voice

Integrating parent perspectives into early childhood policy and practice

Introduction

Hello, I am Dr. Felicia Cumings Smith, President of the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL). NCFL is a national nonprofit that has worked for more than 35 years to eradicate poverty through education solutions for families. We believe education is a shared, nonpartisan responsibility and that collaboration among families, schools, and community members can lead to powerful learning experiences. We have partnered with The Southern Education Foundation to build this toolkit.

Hello, I am Raymond C. Pierce, President and CEO of The Southern Education Foundation (SEF). SEF is a research, policy, advocacy and leadership development organization that works to advance education opportunities for underserved students. Founded in 1867 as the Peabody Fund, we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to advancing more equal education policies and practices, especially for students of color and from low-income families.

Learn more about SEF

Learn more about NCFL

Learn more about SEF

The National Center for Families Learning

Families are essential partners in building strong, equitable early childhood systems. When families’ expertise is meaningfully integrated into policy development and systems design, decisions are more responsive, more sustainable, and more likely to reflect the realities of children and communities. Yet across many state and local contexts, family voice remains inconsistently embedded in the policy process, often limited to consultation rather than shared leadership. In this toolkit, “family voice and leadership” refers to approaches that intentionally position families as partners in decision-making, policy development, and systems change—not simply as participants or consultees. Family voice elevates families’ lived experience, perspectives, and priorities to inform decisions, while family leadership ensures families have meaningful roles, shared authority, and sustained influence in shaping policies, practices, and outcomes that affect children and communities. As a partner in the SECEJ Network, the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) is committed to advancing authentic family voice and leadership—approaches that move beyond engagement toward shared leadership, co-creation, and sustained influence in policy and systems change. This commitment reflects NCFL’s long-standing belief that families are not only stakeholders but essential leaders whose voices are critical to shaping the conditions for children’s learning and well-being. This toolkit builds on that belief. It is informed by a comprehensive Scan of Family Leadership/Family Voice Promising Practices, which examined national research, policy frameworks, and implementation examples, alongside site-based learning from SECEJ Network states. The scan identified a set of promising approaches–such as family-led advisory councils, compensated leadership roles, storytelling for policy influence, and structured pathways from engagement to advocacy–while also surfacing persistent gaps. The toolkit is organized into several sections that highlight key insights from this work and offer resources for policymakers, advocates, and practitioners seeking to strengthen family voice and leadership. NCFL’s vision is to establish coordinated and aligned family learning systems in 60 communities, built with and for families, to increase education and economic outcomes and create thriving communities. For more information on NCFL, visit .

familieslearning.org

The Southern Education Foundation (SEF)

The Southern Education Foundation launched the Southern Early Childhood Education Justice (SECEJ) network, uniting more than 30 state policy organizations and advocates to focus on improving and expanding early learning opportunities for young children across the South. The SECEJ network advocates for systemic and transformative early childhood policy improvements in the South, focusing especially on historically underserved children of color and those in low-income families. The Southern Early Childhood Education Justice (SECEJ) Network is a multi-state collaborative led by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) that advances equitable early childhood policy across the southern region of the nation by strengthening state advocacy efforts and elevating family voice and leadership in policy development. Centered on families working to find solutions, the network supports states in navigating how the voice and leadership of families are central to making change happen for young children and families. Through shared learning, collaboration, and policy engagement, SECEJ amplifies Southern leadership, ensuring that families most impacted by early childhood systems drive policy development and reform. SECEJ states share a commitment to embedding family voice because these states believe strong policy is created with families, not for families. This toolkit reflects that stance and is designed to support organizations, practitioners, and policymakers in strengthening both the practice and policy dimensions of family leadership. Policies shaped without family voice risk overlooking lived experience, reinforcing inequities, and missing opportunities for durable change. By contrast, policies co-developed with families are more likely to address root causes, anticipate implementation challenges, and earn public trust.

For more information on the Southern Education Foundation, visit . .

https://southerneducation.org/

Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Users will find this toolkit organized around real-world examples from SECEJ Network states, paired with synthesis and reflection drawn from a comprehensive Scan of Family Leadership/Family Voice Promising Practices. Together, these elements aim to expand the field’s understanding of how family leadership can be structured, supported, and sustained, and how it can meaningfully inform early childhood policy decisions. Across SECEJ Network states, several consistent patterns emerged:

• Family leadership is strongest when formalized, with clear roles, shared decision-making authority, and compensation for family leaders.
• Storytelling is a powerful policy lever, translating lived experience into actionable influence with decision-makers.
• Capacity-building is essential, supporting both families and systems to move toward shared leadership.
• Policy contexts vary widely, underscoring the need for flexible, non-prescriptive approaches.

Rather than presenting a single model or prescriptive roadmap, this toolkit:

• synthesizes approaches and insights from across the South to highlight what is working, under what conditions, and why.
• features case studies and eamples that reflect different stages of development, levels of capacity, and policy environments.
• underscores that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, but there are common principles that can guide effective practice.

Methodology

Click each point along the continuum to learn more about the methodology involved in creating this resource.

A National Scan

Recommendations

Insight Synthesis

Site Visits

Southern Early Childhood Education Justice (SECEJ) Network Map

Across SECEJ Network states, family leadership efforts are most effective when they move beyond participation toward shared responsibility and influence. The examples within the SECEJN organization's profiles highlight how family voice and leadership are being advanced across various policy and organizational contexts. These profiles are not intended to represent a single model or level of progress, but rather to illustrate a range of approaches shaped by local priorities, capacity, and policy environments. Some states have established robust family leadership infrastructures embedded in advocacy and governance; others are building momentum through emerging councils, campaigns, or storytelling efforts. Together, these examples offer practical insight into how authentic family voice can be advanced at different stages.

Click on the pin drop of each state to view:

Council States

Network Partners

Network States

Organization: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS)

GA

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Visit the Website

Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students is a nonprofit organization operating to inspire and provide leadership for a statewide movement on quality early learning and healthy development for all children ages birth through five.

Organization: Black Child Development Institute (BCDI) - Atlanta

GA

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

BCDI-Atlanta, established in 1981, coordinates community programs across Georgia focused on early care and education, literacy, and family engagement. BCDI-Atlanta envisions a society that secures a successful future for all children in Georgia. Its mission is to improve and advance the quality of life for Black children and families in the state through education and advocacy.

Visit the Website

Organization: For Providers By Providers (4PXP)

LA

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Led by Louisiana’s Early Care and Education leaders, 4PXP supports Type III Early Learning Centers and Family Child Care Homes by advocating for policies, providing professional development, and building providers’ business and networking capacity. As the only provider-led organization in the state, 4PXP ensures that providers’ voices are represented, operating under the principle: for us, by us—nothing about us without us.

Visit the Website

Organization: Louisiana Policy Institute for Children

LA

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Louisiana Policy Institute for Children is a nonpartisan, Louisiana-based nonprofit that uses independent data and research to improve early care and education for children from birth to age four and their families. Louisiana Policy Institute for Children exists to inform policymakers and partners and to advance policies that set young children up for success in school and in life.

Visit the Website

Organization: Geaux Far Louisiana

LA

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Visit the Website

Geaux Far Louisiana believes in an equitable, unified early childhood system centering racial equity and ensuring families access to seamless, high-quality early child development, health, and educational services.

Organization: Mississippi Early Learning Alliance (MELA)

MS

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

The Mississippi Early Learning Alliance was founded in 2019 with support from the SonEdna Foundation, building on the work of the Thrive by 3rd advisory committee established in 2015. Its purpose is to unite partners to create systemic change for children ages 0–8 in Mississippi. Today, MELA leads collaborative efforts to reimagine and improve the state’s early care and education system to better serve childcare providers, families, employers, early childhood professionals, and children.

Visit the Website

Organization: Kids Win Missouri

MO

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Kids Win Missouri is a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to advancing the well-being of children across the state. After the closures of Citizens for Missouri’s Children in 2010 and Partnership for Children in 2013, Missouri lacked a unified voice for children in state policy discussions. In response, a group of child advocacy leaders came together in late 2013 to establish a new statewide organization, originally called the Missouri Children’s Leadership Council. In 2017, the organization rebranded under a new name—Kids Win Missouri—to better reflect its mission and vision.

Visit the Website

Organization: Black Child Development Institute (BCDI)-Carolinas

NC

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

For more than 50 years, NBCDI, a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C., has been at the forefront of engaging leaders, policymakers, professionals, and parents around critical and timely issues that directly impact Black children and their families. In 2005, the BCDI-Charlotte Affiliate was established to utilize volunteers at the grassroots level to implement programs, engage in advocacy, and provide services that improve the quality of life for children and families within the Charlotte community. In 2023, we became BCDI-Carolinas and continue to implement culturally-relevant and research-based programs promoting literacy, health, parent engagement, and college-readiness, while advocating for better, stronger, and more effective policies for children ages 0-8 at the local, state, and federal levels.

Building with Families

Visit the Website

Organization: Empowered Parents in Community (EPiC)

NC

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Visit the Website

Empowered Parents in Community is a Black-led, community-rooted, asset-based organization that is unapologetically focused on Black children. We started our work in K-12 spaces but grew into Early Childhood Education out of necessity to increase parents’ authentic engagement earlier in their child’s life.

Organization: Institute for Child Success (ICS)

SC

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Institute for Child Success, founded in 2010, is an independent research and policy organization dedicated to improving outcomes for children from prenatal to age eight and their families. By partnering with policymakers, service providers, and leaders, ICS advances research-based policies and holistic solutions in early childhood development, healthcare, and education, driving bold ideas to build a more just society.

Visit the Website

Organization: First 8 Memphis

TN

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Shelby County’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) Plan was launched in 2015 by a diverse group of public and private stakeholders. To carry out its strategies, Seeding Success partnered with local and national experts to establish First 8 Memphis in 2019. The initiative focuses on home visitation, high-quality childcare, shared services, universal needs-based Pre-K, K–2 interventions, family supports, and a shared data system.

Visit the Website

Organization: West Virginia Association for Young Children (WVAYC)

WV

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Visit the Website

West Virginia Association for Young Children is the state association for early childhood professionals in West Virginia. WVAYC advances high-quality early childhood programs, strengthens the workforce, and advocates for the state’s youngest learners.

Organization: EducationCounsel

WV

Work In Action

Connection to SECEJN

Visit the Website

EducationCounsel is a mission-based education consulting firm that combines experience in policy, strategy, law, and advocacy to drive significant improvements in the U.S. education system to help all children thrive.

Organization: Save the Children Action Network (SCAN)

WV

Work In Action

Storytelling

Policy

Building with Families

Save the Children Action Network is Save the Children’s bi-partisan political advocacy arm, created in 2014 to be the political voice for kids. Through a combination of grassroots activism, compelling messaging, and candidate engagement, we build relationships with policymakers to increase investments in expanding access to early childhood education, preventing child hunger in the U.S and globally, and protecting children around the world from harm in times of crisis.

Visit the Website

Promising Practices

These promising practices explore approaches observed in the SECEJ states that have shown promise in elevating family voice and leadership, including examples of structures, strategies, and supports that help position families as partners in policy and systems work.

Promising Practice 1: Embedding Family Voice Early in Policy Design

Promising Practice 2: Formalizing Family Leadership Roles

Promising Practice 3: Supporting Family Leadership Through Compensation and Infrastructure

Promising Practice 4: Using Storytelling as a Strategic Policy Tool

Promising Practice 5: Aligning Family Leadership Efforts With Policy and Funding Structures

Promising Practice 6: Creating Clear Pathways From Engagement to Leadership

Recommendations

Across SECEJ Network states, family leadership efforts are most effective when they move beyond participation toward shared responsibility and influence. While approaches vary by context, several patterns consistently emerge:

• Family leadership is strongest when roles are formalized through councils, fellowships, or advisory bodies rather than informal engagement.
• Compensation and practical support (stipends, childcare, flexible participation) are critical to sustaining family participation.
• Storytelling has the greatest impact when paired with clear policy goals and advocacy strategies.
• States with clearer governance or policy structures for family engagement demonstrate stronger alignment between family priorities and policy outcomes.

Click on each number below to reveal a key recommendation for strengthening family voice and leadership in early childhood policy development and what it looks like in practice, drawing from the patterns and lessons observed across SECEJ Network states.

Conclusion

The state examples highlighted in this toolkit demonstrate a clear and consistent lesson: family leadership is not an add-on to policy work; it is a driver of stronger, more equitable early childhood systems. Across the southern region, families are shaping advocacy agendas, influencing legislative priorities, informing implementation strategies, and holding systems accountable in ways that would not be possible without intentional structures for shared leadership. At the same time, this work underscores important realities that continue to shape the field, including uneven policy alignment, limited early-childhood-specific evidence, and wide variation in how states operationalize family voice. Too often, family voice depends on short-term initiatives rather than being embedded as a standard practice in governance and policy development. Recognizing these conditions is essential—not as a constraint, but as a call to strengthen alignment, learning, and shared approaches that support sustained family leadership over time.

Taken together, the findings from the scan and the case studies in this toolkit point to several cross-cutting recommendations for the field:

• Move from involvement to shared leadership. States and organizations should establish formal roles, councils, and decision-making structures that position families as partners, not just participants.
• Compensate and support family leaders. Sustainable family leadership requires stipends, training, and logistical supports that recognize families’ time, expertise, and contributions.
• Integrate family voice early and often. Families should be involved at the beginning of policy design, not only during feedback or implementation phases.
• Align practice with policy. Promising family leadership efforts are strongest when reinforced by state or local policy guidance, funding priorities, and accountability structures.
• Invest in learning and documentation. Continued research, storytelling, and evaluation are needed to strengthen the evidence base, particularly for early childhood, and to support adaptation across contexts.

This toolkit is intended to serve as both a reflection of where the field is and a resource for where it can go next. For organizations and advocates, it offers concrete examples and tools to strengthen leadership pathways and advocacy strategies. For policymakers and systems leaders, it illustrates how authentic family voice can inform smarter, more responsive policy decisions. For families, it affirms that their lived experience is not only valid but vital to shaping the future of early learning. By elevating lessons from the South and connecting them to national research and practice, NCFL and SEF aim to contribute to a growing body of knowledge that positions family leadership as a cornerstone of early childhood policy and systems change. The work of the SECEJ Network shows what is possible when families are centered as leaders and invites others to build on that momentum in their own communities.

Resources

Offers a small set of practical tools and templates designed to help organizations, advocates, and policymakers begin strengthening family voice and leadership in their own contexts.

The Lifecycle of A Policy

Your Family Leadership Readiness Checklist

The Lifecycle of Policy

Often, creating change at the systems level involves engaging with policy. One helpful way to understand this process is through the policy cycle, sometimes called the policy life cycle, which provides a general guide to how policies are developed and amended. While the number of stages may vary and different terms may be used, most policy cycles include at least five key stages. These stages are often shown in a circular format to reflect the ongoing nature of policymaking, where policies can be reviewed, amended or even repealed over time. The policy examples highlighted here demonstrate that family voice is most influential when embedded throughout the policy cycle— during agenda setting, drafting, and implementation—and is not limited to testimony or feedback after decisions are made. Policy wins are more durable when families help define priorities, shape solutions, and inform implementation strategies. Conversely, where family leadership is episodic or advisory only, policy impact is harder to sustain over time.

Use the illustration to explore the general stages of the policy cycle. Click on each number to reveal specific reflection questions to consider where your organization or families may currently be, and what actions may be important to consider at that stage.

Family Leadership/Family Leadership Readiness Checklist

Ready to get started? Use this practical reflection tool as your checklist to make sure family voice is consistently embedded. Reach out to the for additional support.

National Center for Families Learning

Recommendation #3: Embed Family Voice Throughout the Policy Lifecycle

Engage families early and consistently, from agenda setting through implementation.

Policy Implications:

What this can look like in practice:

Family voice is most impactful when it shapes priorities at the beginning of the policy process, rather than only when responding to proposals already underway. Early and consistent involvement allows families to help define problems, identify root causes, consider solutions, and anticipate implementation challenges.Embedding family voice throughout the policy lifecycle strengthens alignment between community needs and policy decisions, while also building trust and shared responsibility.

• Engaging families during agenda setting and problem solving
• Involving families in drafting, reviewing, and refining policy proposals
• Maintaining feedback loops during implementation and evaluation
• Creating opportunities for families to reflect on outcomes and inform future policy direction

3. Strategy and Development

Planning how to influence change

• What solution would you like to see implemented?
• What are the realistic first steps to move this solution forward?
• Who are the key decision-makers you need to reach?

Policy

The Louisiana Policy Institute for Children considers the outcomes as significant policy wins for early childhood education, highlighting preserved funding, new stability investments, tax credit expansions, and increased advocacy engagement as part of a greater effort to strengthen Louisiana’s early childhood system.

2025 Legislative Session

2025 legislative session

Policy

A Day Without Childcare

is designed to create a coordinated advocacy push urging Louisiana lawmakers to stabilize and expand early care and education (ECE). Partners, families, and community leaders work together to call for immediate and sustained state investment so more young children (birth–5) can access high-quality care, and so parents can work, businesses can thrive, and the economy can grow. Child care is essential infrastructure. Louisiana still has tens of thousands of young children who need quality ECE, and funding gaps are forcing families out of the workforce and costing the state significant economic gains. Investing early delivers strong returns, better third-grade literacy, a more reliable workforce, improved health and social outcomes, and long-term savings.

A Day Without Childcare

Join the Movement and Click Here to Register!

Work In Action

West Virginia Champions for Child Care

The West Virginia Association for Young Children launched to bring together providers, parents, and advocates to improve child care through coordinated advocacy and collaboration. Champions meet monthly on Zoom to share strategies, define concrete actions, and then mobilize their local communities with updates and calls to action. The initiative invites committed individuals statewide to organize, collaborate, and drive positive change for West Virginia’s children and families.

West Virginia Champions for Child Care

Child Care Access in West Virginia: Mapping the Gap™

WVAYC uses as a concrete, county- and community-level data source to power its advocacy. WVAYC pairs the map with a direct “Find your Local Legislator” tool so advocates can take the data to decision-makers and push for solutions aligned to documented gaps (e.g., funding, capacity, workforce supports)

Child Care Access in West Virginia: Mapping the Gap™

Building With Families

The First 8 Memphis Leadership Council

is its early care and education coalition, bringing together more than 25 leaders and organizations representing public agencies, health systems, philanthropic organizations, and community-based organizations that directly serve and support young children and families. The Leadership Council is responsible for aligning strategies across sectors, advancing shared policy and advocacy priorities, and strengthening the infrastructure that supports young children and families across Memphis and Shelby County. Through this collaborative structure, family and provider perspectives are intentionally centered and elevated, ensuring that initiatives, policies, and advocacy efforts reflect the lived experiences of those most impacted. The Leadership Council exemplifies how collective action and shared accountability can build a more equitable early care and education system for Memphis and Shelby County’s youngest learners.

Storytelling

First 8 Memphis uses its as a strategic storytelling platform to connect its mission to the lived experiences of children, families, and early childhood professionals. Rather than simply posting updates, the organization shares reflective narratives, community perspectives, program highlights, and timely resources that illustrate why early childhood investment matters. Through story-driven titles, real-life examples, and accessible language, the blog humanizes policy conversations and translates complex early education issues into relatable, community-centered stories.

blog

Geaux Far Louisiana formalizes family leadership by placing parents and providers in paid, governing roles with real authority. Its parent-led steering committee determines advocacy priorities, policy positions, partnerships, and organizational strategy, with members receiving stipends that recognize leadership as labor.Family leadership is ongoing and structured, offering families the chance to be decision-makers rather than just advisors. Geaux Far Louisiana provides a clear example of family leadership that is embedded into organizational structures.

Building With Families

Read to Succeed

Developed by the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), the program promotes early literacy and language development for families with children from birth to age 8. The program helps families establish home libraries with culturally responsive, developmentally appropriate children’s books and provides supplementary resources through their National Village Network, of which BCDI-Atlanta is a part.

Read to Succeed

Powerful Families

BCDI-Atlanta’s program strengthens whole families to improve economic stability by meeting the needs of children and caregivers together. It equips families with culturally relevant books and early childhood learning materials to build school readiness, while providing early care and education staff with toolkits, training, and professional development to deepen relationships and expand year-round supports for the children and families they serve.

Powerful Families

The is a 12-week initiative designed to provide parents and caregivers with the knowledge, tools, and skills to effectively support their children’s learning and development.

Family Engagement Program (FEP)

Family Engagement Program (FEP)

Work In Action

Avenues of Advocacy

The Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Education, conducted a survey of families on the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) waiting list in September 2019. The asked families about the impact of not receiving child care assistance on parent employment, education, or job training; the affordability, availability, reliability, and quality of the child care they are accessing; stress related to finding child care; and household budget and living expenses. Results from the survey show the significant challenges facing working families who must balance the care and education of their children with their other basic needs:

survey

• Nearly half of working parents reported experiencing a change in employment or education without child care assistance, including reducing work hours or quitting a job or education program altogether.
• 90% of respondents worry about finding child care without child care assistance.
• 2 in 3 respondents are borrowing money to pay for child care.
• Over half of respondents are also sacrificing basic household necessities, such as food, clothing, and utilities, to cover the costs of child care.
• Almost 80% of respondents struggle to find quality, affordable child care without child care assistance.
• Over 60% of respondents choose their child care based on affordability.

The Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, Council for a Better Louisiana, the Louisiana Budget Project, the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, and Louisiana Partnership for Children and Families jointly released a new outlining how federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act can be maximized to benefit young children in Louisiana.

Maximizing American Rescue Dollars for Young Children

policy brief

Storytelling

WVAYC’s Archives house , a refereed, statewide journal featuring practitioner-oriented articles on early childhood development and care. It invites manuscripts with applied insights across topics like creativity, development, nutrition, health, safety, environment, guidance, special needs, developmentally appropriate practice, assessment, multicultural learning, and professional development, and it preserves past volumes (e.g., 1996–2002) for public access. By publishing practitioner and community voices in a peer-reviewed format, the Archives turn everyday experiences, case examples, and culturally responsive practices into documented stories that others can learn from and cite. These collected narratives, organized by clear themes, enable advocates, educators, and policymakers to elevate real-world scenarios, strategies, and outcomes that inform policy asks, professional learning, and community engagement. In this way, FOCUS operates as WVAYC’s durable storytelling channel, curating and preserving on-the-ground stories so they can shape practice and advocacy over time.

FOCUS

Building With Families

Home Visiting Coalition

Kids Win Missouri leads a coalition of families, home visitors, home visiting programs, regional home visiting collaboratives, and state administrators. The coalition is working to identify shared principles and develop and advance a common vision for home visiting in Missouri.

Work In Action

Each year, over 500 advocates and 50 community partners gather at the Missouri State Capitol for , continuing a 40-year tradition of advancing children’s well-being, education, and safety. In 2026, the launch of the Child Advocacy Summit will further strengthen this movement by equipping leaders with practical tools and renewed inspiration to create lasting systemic change

Child Advocacy Day

Child Advocacy Day

In 2022, Kids Win Missouri launched a groundbreaking early care and education (ECE) advocacy initiative. This initiative included a statewide fellowship program for both providers and family leaders, intending to amplify their voices in the policymaking process

Early Care and Education (ECE) Advocacy Initiative

Work In Action

Since launching in 2019, First 8 Memphis has:

• Increased Pre-K seats from 7,800 in 2019 to 8,500.
• Expanded available needs-based seats from classrooms from 1,360 in 2019 to 1,600.

2. Analyzing the Policy

Understanding current rules, decisions, or systems

• What policies, practices, or decisions are currently connected to this issue?
• Who created, enacted, and implemented these policies?
• How are these policies helping or not helping families and communities?

Click on each of the logos to see the organization's profile.

Policy

• First 8 Memphis works with local government, partners, and community leaders to advance policies that strengthen early childhood systems in Memphis and Shelby County.
• First 8 Memphis helped spearhead the approval of the first-ever universal Pre-K program in the state, Pre-K for All, through a revised joint ordinance for free Pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds in Memphis and Shelby County, regardless of income.
• First 8 Memphis also contributes to the policy conversation through research and analysis. Its report, , examines the social-emotional supports available to young children and families and helps inform local policy discussions and planning.

Lovin’ on Our Babies: An Assessment of the Social-Emotional Landscape in Memphis and Shelby County

consistently uses storytelling as a central strategy to advance literacy, family engagement, and policy advocacy for Black children and families. Through initiatives like , the organization centers culturally relevant stories that reflect children’s lived experiences, using narrative to strengthen identity, confidence, and academic outcomes while framing book access as affirmation and representation. Storytelling is also embedded in community literacy events where families are recognized as “literacy champions,” and in the Family Empowerment Program, which honors parents’ lived experiences as assets for learning and leadership. This emphasis continues at the policy level, where lived experience is elevated alongside professional expertise through the Advisory Council, ensuring community narratives inform advocacy and systems change.

Black Child Development Institute- Carolinas

The uses storytelling both directly and strategically in policymaking spaces. Parent and teacher stories are gathered through recurring listening sessions, validated with surveys and interviews, and then translated into concrete policy recommendations that are carried to legislators. Families are also invited to testify directly to decision-makers, ensuring that their lived experiences shape the solutions ICS advances. Storytelling is not performative; it is a core advocacy tool tied to legislative action and budget outcomes (e.g., child care wage enhancement, nutrition policy).

South Carolina Institute for Child Success (ICS)

Read to Rise

Building With Families

Families and providers are engaged and prioritized in leadership and decision-making throughout the state’s early childhood system. This is enabled by Geaux Far Louisiana’s parent-led steering committee, which consists of parenting adults and early childcare providers in the education, health, mental health, and entrepreneurial fields. They are paid a stipend of $8,000 to decide what the non-profit advocates for in the ECE space, how they do so, and who they partner with for legislation and policy advocacy. This parent-led steering committee leads the entire organization's mission, vision, goals, and process for collaborating and implementing practices, strategies, and bodies of work.

Policy

Early Childhood Changemakers (EC2)

GEEARS launched the as a strategic vehicle to elevate the voices of parents and communities in early childhood policy and systems change. The campaign was designed to respond to a critical gap in grassroots engagement and to ensure families and communities most impacted by early childhood issues are active participants in advocacy and solution-making.Changemakers are distinct from but aligned with other GEEARS campaigns, such as the PAACT Ambassadors, which focuses on helping City of Atlanta neighborhoods understand and access their early learning options. The Changemakers have a broader statewide reach and organizing approach. The Early Childhood Changemakers is built on a distributed organizing model that integrates local place-based leaders (the Changemakers) beginning in three communities across Georgia (Statesboro, Columbus, and Augusta). As of early 2026, GEEARS is currently finalizing recruitment for the first cohort and onboarding them.

Early Childhood Changemakers (EC2)

Work In Action

is an event that includes more than 100 fathers from across Louisiana at the State Capitol to ensure their voices are heard on issues affecting fathers, families, and children. This initiative has grown organically out of efforts by Dad-A-Port, Fathers on a Mission, Fathers Matter, Geaux Far Louisiana, the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, the New Orleans Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, and others.

Dad’s Day at the Capitol

intentionally supports families in North Carolina in moving from initial engagement to sustained leadership and systems influence through a clearly structured, well-supported model. Beginning with listening sessions and community conversations, parents share their lived experiences, which are translated into parent-led solutions and collective action.

Empowered Parents in Community (EPiC)

The provides a clear and intentional progression from initial engagement to sustained leadership. Families, providers, and advocates can begin by participating in accessible entry points such as Child Care Community Conversations and the Champions for Child Care network, where they meet regularly to learn, share experiences, and take coordinated action. Participants are then supported with concrete tools, data, and access to policy, including Mapping the Gap and legislator contact tools that help turn learning and discussion into direct advocacy. WVAYC further strengthens this pathway by investing in emerging leaders through supports such as the Ann Nutt Memorial Fund Scholarship, reinforcing leadership development and long-term influence in child care policy and systems change.

West Virginia Association for Young Children (WVAYC)

Through a defined leadership progression, capacity building, advocacy, and systems change, parents become organizers, facilitators, and decision-makers within schools and communities. EPiC further strengthens this pathway through train-the-trainer programming that expands leadership beyond the organization; removes participation barriers through childcare, meals, and flexible scheduling; and equips parents to use data, research, and lived experience to advocate for meaningful policy and systems change.

Building With Families

To better understand how Louisiana families with children under age five were impacted by and managed during the COVID 19 pandemic, the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, in partnership with Agenda for Children, the Louisiana Department of Education, the New Orleans Campaign for Grade Level Reading, the Urban League of Louisiana, and Women United of Southeast Louisiana, conducted a statewide survey of parents and guardians in Fall 2020. This survey, the contributes to a multi-year research series on child care and economic stability, including Struggling to Recover (2021), Now More Than Ever (2022), and Maintain the Momentum (2023), which collectively examine how child care access, affordability, and public investment affect Louisiana’s working families.

Louisiana Child Care Parent Poll

Louisiana Child Care Parent Poll,

Click on the logo below to see the organization's profile.

Storytelling

Led by GEEARS, the Georgia Infant-Toddler Coalition has worked to gather and amplify stories from those with lived experience through audio, video, and written communications. Stories have been primarily collected through the Storytelling Campaign, and letters have been written for various advocacy days, such as Strolling Thunder. Participants receive a small stipend in appreciation of their time. In the last year, 101 letters and 31 audio/video child care stories were shared with lawmakers.

#GANEEDSCHILDCARE

#GANEEDSCHILDCARE

Recommendation #2: Sustain Family Leadership Through Intentional Supports

Provide compensation, training, and logistical structures that recognize families’ time and expertise.

Policy Implications:

What this can look like in practice:

• Providing stipends or honoraria for family leaders
• Offering childcare, transportation support, or flexible meeting options
• Investing in leadership development and training connected to real policy and advocacy work
• Designing participation structures to accommodate families’ schedules and responsibilities

Authentic family leadership is difficult to sustain without practical supports. Barriers such as time constraints, transportation, childcare needs, and financial considerations can limit who can participate and for how long. When these barriers are not addressed, leadership opportunities often remain accessible to only a small group of families. Intentional supports help to broaden participation, promote equity, and signal that families’ contributions are valued and essential to the work.

Policy

EPiC curates research, datasets, and community-captured insights to spotlight root causes of inequities and guide local action. By providing materials on disparities in discipline, access to advanced coursework, teacher diversity, and culturally responsive practices, EPiC ensures that parent advocacy is grounded in evidence rather than anecdote. These help families understand the root causes of unequal outcomes and prepare them to engage school leaders, district officials, and policymakers with informed questions and solutions

resources

Storytelling

Kids Win Missouri displays storytelling through personal testimonies and compelling narratives from families and children affected by policy issues. By sharing real-life experiences, the organization can effectively advocate for changes in child care and other issues affecting children and families.

Click Here To Read Our Provider and Parent Spotlights

Policy

BCDI-Atlanta advances policy through its by partnering with NBCDI and the Pritzker Foundation to engage families, early childhood educators (including Family, Friend, and Neighbor providers), community members, and other stakeholders in shaping a prenatal-to-three legislative agenda. As a member of the Georgia Coalition for Paid Leave, the organization supported the successful 2021 adoption of paid leave in Georgia and helped amplify evidence for policymakers by promoting 9to5 Georgia’s report, “Dollars and Sense: A Cost/Benefit Analysis of Paid Leave in Georgia,” aligning paid leave with its core prenatal-to-three policy goals. BCDI-Atlanta encourages year-long civic engagement by partnering with to help community members vote safely and stay informed. Through this collaboration, families can register to vote, choose mail-in or in-person options, and track key details such as voter registration status, mail-in application and ballot status, polling place and early voting locations, elected officials, registration information on file with the county, sample ballots for upcoming elections, and provisional ballot status. BCDI-Atlanta holds an annual Policy Briefing with members, partners, program participants, and community leaders to develop yearly advocacy goals in alignment with .

Prenatal-3 Inititative

Prenatal-3 Initiative

Vot-ER

Vot-ER

Annual Policy Briefing

NBCDI’s Eight Essential Outcomes for Black Child Development

To inform the development of this toolkit, NCFL conducted a national Scan of Family Leadership/Family Voice Promising Practices, examining existing research, policy frameworks, and documented examples related to family leadership in early childhood and related systems. Insights from this scan helped establish a shared understanding of the current landscape, identify promising approaches, and surface common challenges and opportunities that informed the toolkit's direction and focus.

Building With Families

Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors

The launched in early 2018, in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools. In preparation for their work in the community, each cohort of Ambassadors participates in a series of workshops which focus on the value and benefits of high-quality early education for children, their families, and the community as a whole. The program recruits community members through an application process and trains them through four workshops with GEEARS, APS, the Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), and Quality Rated center directors. GEEARS then deploys cohorts of 30 ambassadors for a one-year term to do three- to four-hour canvassing shifts.

Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors

Strolling Thunder Georgia

GEEARS continues to work to ensure the participation of diverse families and providers in . For example, GEEARS worked to make the event inclusive and to provide an avenue for families with children with disabilities to share their unique experiences (e.g., by providing an accessible changing table and sensory toys/equipment). GEEARS also partnered with CDF Action, an organization that supports diverse children and youth in Clarkston, GA, to include refugee families who speak many different languages in the event.

Strolling Thunder Georgia

Building on the scan, NCFL team members engaged directly with partners across the SECEJ Network, conducting site visits and structured engagements with state advocacy organizations and their partners. These visits provided opportunities to learn how family voice and leadership are being advanced in practice, including through advocacy efforts, leadership structures, storytelling strategies, and policy engagement. The state-specific content featured throughout this toolkit—available in the SECEJ Network Map section—was developed based on learning gathered during these visits.

5. Policy Implementation

Putting the policy into action

• How is this policy being carried out in real life?
• Are families and communities experiencing the changes as intended?
• What is working well, and what challenges are showing up?

Storytelling

BCDI-Atlanta’s Powerful Families video series presents relatable parent-child moments through short videos that model intentional, attentive time together and demonstrate how everyday interactions build attachment, language, and school readiness. By inviting families to watch, reflect, and try the practices at home, the series turns narrative scenes into practical routines, amplifies parents' voices and lived experiences, and makes guidance memorable and shareable through its .

Powerful Families Video Series

YouTube channel

Work In Action

Strolling Thunder Georgia

Now in its ninth year, , our annual advocacy day, brings together over 100 families from across the state to speak directly with legislators about the joys and challenges of raising young children. Organized by GEEARS, this one-of-a-kind event allows families to participate in virtual advocacy trainings, then travel to Atlanta with their strollers, diaper bags, and little ones to share their stories with elected officials. GEEARS continues to work to ensure diverse families and providers participate in Strolling Thunder. For example, GEEARS worked to make the event inclusive and to provide an avenue for families with children with disabilities to share their unique experiences (e.g., by providing an accessible changing table and sensory toys/equipment). GEEARS also partnered with CDF Action, an organization that supports diverse children and youth in Clarkston, GA, to include refugee families who speak many different languages in the event.

Strolling Thunder Georgia

The First 2,000 Days

GEEARS is leading a statewide public awareness campaign to spread the message about the importance of a child’s first 2,000 days of life. Engage your community about the importance of the first 2000 days of a child’s life and why early learning is a priority for our state. is available for organizations that sign on as partners!

The First 2,000 Days toolkit

Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors

GEEARS uses the as a neighborhood-rooted advocacy and recruitment corps that helps families access Pre-K and other early learning supports. The Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors are a group of engaged parents, grandparents, teachers, and community members who lead pre-K recruitment and early learning advocacy efforts in targeted Atlanta communities. This team of Ambassadors serves as advocates and community leaders for early education in Atlanta Public Schools’ Washington and Douglass clusters.

Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors

4. Policy Enactment

When decisions are being made

• When and where are decisions about this issue happening (meetings, hearings, votes)?
• How can you or others participate at this stage (e.g., public comment, meetings, outreach to the policy makers and media outlets)?
• What message do you want decision-makers to clearly hear from you?

Policy

The BCDI-Carolinas Advisory Council is a trusted group of educators, advocates, caregivers, and community builders who amplify the mission across North and South Carolina. Council members ensure programs are grounded in local realities and community strengths, offer expert and lived-experience guidance on family support, early education, and child wellness, strengthen partnerships with agencies, nonprofits, faith leaders, and funders, center family voice with attention to those historically marginalized, and expand impact through fundraising and strategic visibility. BCDI-Carolinas engages community leaders and families in shaping policy priorities through its Advisory Council. The council brings together trusted educators, advocates, caregivers, and community leaders to provide guidance on issues affecting young children and families across North and South Carolina. By combining professional expertise with lived experience, the council helps ensure that BCDI’s advocacy and partnerships reflect the realities facing families. This structure allows the organization to elevate community perspectives in conversations about policies affecting early learning, family support, and child well-being.

BCDI-Carolinas Advisory Council

Storytelling

Louisiana Policy Institute for Children believes that parent voices are vital in understanding the impacts of child care. To bring those impacts to life and influence early childhood policy, the organization collects and shares parent testimonials on its website so that policymakers, advocates, and the public can hear firsthand how child care affects real families and why investment in early childhood matters. These stories provide decision-makers with lived perspectives that complement research and policy data.

Work In Action

2025 Legislative Session

Geaux Far Louisiana sees the as a series of advocacy wins aligned with its vision for a family and provider-driven early childhood system.

2025 legislative session

Key wins include:

• Maintaining 78 million dollars in early childhood education funding through the state budget.
• Preserving the Early Childhood Care and Education Commission
• Increasing the tax rate on sports wagering to potentially expand revenue for the Louisiana Early Childhood Education Fund.
• The coalition also supported family economic stability by preserving the Earned Income Tax Credit and improving employer-supported child care tax credits to encourage greater business participation.

Beyond funding, the session produced meaningful gains in health and family supports at the systems level. Medicaid reimbursement rates were increased, private insurance was required to cover home visiting services and specialized infant formula, and doulas were made more accessible to families on Medicaid. A Fatherhood Task Force was established to strengthen paternal engagement in policy making, while legislation increased transparency around election law changes and voter participation. Additionally, SNAP was moved to the Louisiana Department of Health to better align nutrition assistance with health and family services. Together, these wins reflect a coordinated effort to build a more family-driven, health-centered, and economically secure early childhood system in Louisiana.

Click on the logo below to see the organization's profile.

Recommendation #5: Invest in Families as Leaders

Recognize the lived experience of families as essential to developing and advancing solutions to the challenges facing children, families, and communities.

Policy Implications:

What this can look like in practice:

Families bring critical insight into how policies and systems function in real life. Their lived experience offers a perspective that cannot be replicated through data alone and is essential to understanding both challenges and potential solutions. When families are positioned as leaders and consultants rather than participants, they contribute not only stories but also deas, strategies, and direction that strengthen problem-solving and policy development.Investing in families as leaders shifts the narrative from recipients of services to contributors to solutions. This approach supports more responsive policies and reinforces shared responsibility for addressing complex and interconnected challenges.

• Supporting families to help identify challenges and propose solutions grounded in lived experience throughout the entire problem-solving process
• Positioning families as contributors to strategy development, not only as sources of feedback
• Creating leadership roles that allow families to influence priorities and approaches over time
• Encouraging collaboration among families, organizations, and policymakers to advance shared solutions

Storytelling

Geaux Far Louisiana uses video storytelling to share its mission and show how working together makes a difference. The organization features first-person interviews with coalition members, partners, and advocates to highlight the real experiences, motivations, and dedication of those leading its work. These tell stories of teamwork, shared responsibility, and a statewide commitment to improving early childhood systems. By sharing these authentic voices, Geaux Far Louisiana turns policy goals into personal stories, helping viewers see what the coalition does and why it matters.

videos

"We’re going to build leaders and power and coalition, so that it'll be a movement, and it’s gonna be a revolution."

Policy

WVAYC advances policy by organizing parents and providers through , a monthly action hub that circulates concrete “calls to action” and even links participants to tools to find and contact their legislators, turning community priorities into direct outreach.WVAYC also partners beyond early childhood circles to elevate child care as a legislative priority. For example, WVAYC worked with local business groups during the to keep child care at the forefront of lawmakers’ agendas and supports statewide town halls that feed real family and provider testimony into policy asks.

Champions for Child Care

87th Legislative Session

Following the site visits, NCFL synthesized insights across states to identify patterns, variations, and conditions that support effective family voice and leadership. This synthesis process focused on understanding how approaches differed across context, capacity, and policy environments, as well as where common strategies and challenges emerged across the network. Rather than elevating a single model, this work sought to surface shared principles and lessons that could inform broader application.

Building With Families

BCDI's Family Empowerment Program

is a twelve-week, strengths-based course that builds parents’ and caregivers’ capacity as their children’s first teachers and advocates from birth. It is designed to honor the cultural and linguistic assets of families of color. The Family Empowerment Program is culturally relevant and responsive, trauma-informed (with content on brain development, toxic stress, ACEs, resiliency, and protective factors), evidence-based (evaluated by Child Trends), developmentally appropriate, and action-oriented, connecting families to local resources.

BCDI’s Family Empowerment Program

Storytelling

Every year, ICS hosts recurring parent and community listening sessions with dozens of family advocates to surface what’s working and what isn’t in early childhood systems. ICS translates those insights into clear policy recommendations and carries those priorities to legislators. Parents are invited to testify directly to decision-makers, share lived experience, and illustrate the real impact of policy gaps. Their voices determine which solutions we champion. ICS follows up with surveys and interviews to confirm patterns rather than single stories. Recently, we also brought speakers from North Carolina to support with the Department of Social Services (DSS), and we continue advocating for sustained state funding; the governor has included this in a $20 million budget proposal.

South Carolina’s Child Care Wage Enhancement Program

embeds family voice at the very beginning of policy design, not after priorities are set. Through its Prenatal–3 Initiative, annual policy briefings, coalition work, and partnerships, families, caregivers, and providers are engaged from the start. They help shape legislative agendas, advocacy goals, and policy positions. Storytelling, lived experience, and structured feedback are used upstream to define what the organization advocates, ensuring that policies are grounded in family realities before proposals are finalized.

Black Child Development Institute - Atlanta

From their to their extensive coalition-building efforts, centers families as design partners in identifying problems, defining needs, and shaping statewide visions. Surveys, convenings, visioning sessions, and feedback loops all happen upstream, before policy proposals are finalized or advanced. This ensures that advocacy efforts reflect what families actually experience and need, rather than assumptions made on their behalf.

Roadmap to Strengthen Child Care

Kids Win Missouri

Finally, NCFL drew on the combined learning from the national scan and site-based insights to develop recommendations for effective practice. These recommendations highlight approaches that show promise in elevating family voice and leadership in early childhood policy development and are intended to support adaptation across diverse contexts. Together, these methods ensure the toolkit reflects both research-informed perspectives and on-the-ground experience from SECEJ Network states.

Building With Families

EPiC builds with families by creating intentional spaces for healing, connection, leadership development, and advocacy. Through Circles of Hope, parents receive peer support and stress reduction in clinician-facilitated groups, with participants reporting increased coping skills and balance between family and work. Listening sessions elevate lived experiences, ensuring parents feel seen, heard, and valued while surfacing inequities such as disproportionate discipline impacting Black students. Community forums and Collective meetings move families from sharing experiences to organizing around solutions, strengthening relationships with educators, and building parent-led advocacy power. In 2023–2024 alone, EPiC hosted 49 events, including listening sessions, Circles of Hope, Collective meetings, collaborations with organizations, and community forums, demonstrating a sustained commitment to cultivating Black parent leadership and driving systemic change. Please see their for more information.

impact report

Click on the logo below to see the organization's profile.

Work In Action

$2 billion in investments

Through coordinated efforts across multiple states, SCAN has supported over to expand early learning opportunities and address child hunger. In addition, their engagement in the political process has contributed to the election of bipartisan champions for children at both the state and national levels. A key aspect of their work is mobilizing community voice, with millions of messages sent to lawmakers since 2014 to influence policy decisions. Together, these efforts demonstrate how sustained advocacy, strategic engagement, and collective action can lead to tangible improvements in policies that impact children and communities. This work is accomplished through SCAN’s Volunteer Leader, Student Engagement, and Family Engagement programs - creating a pipeline of well equipped community leaders. Additionally, SCAN’s digital advocacy platform allows users to take immediate steps, such as contacting lawmakers, joining advocacy campaigns, and staying informed about key policy efforts.

Storytelling

EPiC tells stories by centering the lived experiences of Black families and turning those narratives into community leadership and action. They host Listening Sessions and Community Conversations where parents, caregivers, educators, and students share first-hand experiences with schools and inequities relating to safe spaces to surface parent-led solutions and build collective power.

EPiC features pieces that elevate the voices of parents and staff and celebrate Black joy, culture, and identity through spotlights, interviews, and essays on its News blog. Click here to view!

Policy

roadmap

• Kids Win Missouri engaged stakeholders across the state to develop a for strengthening Missouri’s child care system, providing policymakers with recommendations for building a high-quality, equitable early childhood system.

• Kids Win Missouri supports policies that work for all children, including those with disabilities. We’re proud to partner with organizations like Missouri Disability Empowerment (MoDE) to further their work improving the lives of individuals with disabilities.
• Kids Win Missouri works to advance policies that strengthen opportunities for children and families across Missouri. Through coalition leadership, policy development, and sustained advocacy, the organization has helped shape several statewide policy changes. For example, Kids Win Missouri is proud to partner with organizations like Missouri Disability Empowerment (MoDE) to further their work improving the lives of individuals with disabilities.
• Kids Win Missouri successfully advocated for expanding Pre-K access for families. School districts and charter schools can now claim funding through the state education formula and access grants for children eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
• Kids Win Missouri formed and led a coalition of child and maternal health stakeholders to successfully advocate for extending health coverage from 60 days to 12 months after a mother gives birth. This new policy supports the health of moms and babies and helps them thrive.

1. Identifying the Problem

Understanding what needs to change and why

• What information or data would help show that this issue is real and important?
• Who is most affected by this issue? How do you know?

• What stories or experiences (your own or others’) help explain why this is a problem?

Connection to SECEJ Network

As a national partner within the Southern Education Foundation’s Southern Early Childhood Education Justice Network (SECEJN), EducationCounsel brings critical policy and strategy expertise to support systemic change in early childhood education. EducationCounsel works alongside partners to move from ideas to action by developing policy solutions, building implementation plans, and navigating the complexities of laws and stakeholders across local, state, and national levels. Their approach is grounded in research, data, and collaboration, helping coalitions align around shared priorities and advance evidence-based strategies.

Click on each of the logos to see the organization's profile.

Storytelling

BCDI Carolinas uses storytelling as a core method to build literacy, identity, and family engagement. In its literacy work, they intentionally curate books that “reflect children’s experiences and show them a mirror,” positioning stories as tools for pride, belonging, and a lifelong love of reading. They also weave live storytelling into community events, family literacy nights, book fairs, and end-of-summer celebrations framed explicitly around “the power of reading, storytelling, and community joy,” where families participate together and are recognized as “literacy champions.”

Read to Rise

Read to Rise

Recommendation #4: Strengthen Alignment Between Practice and Policy

Reinforce family leadership efforts through guidance, funding priorities, and accountability structures.

Policy Implications:

What this can look like in practice:

• Incorporating expectations for family leadership into policy guidance and frameworks
• Aligning funding priorities to support shared leadership structures
• Connecting family leadership efforts to accountability and improvement processes
• Ensuring clarity about how family leadership informs system-level decisions

Family leadership initiatives are most effective when they are reinforced by broader policy and system structures. Without alignment, strong local practices can remain isolated or dependent on individual champions. Alignment helps ensure that family voice is not random, but embedded within how systems operate.When policies, funding mechanisms, and accountability structures support family leadership, efforts are more likely to be sustained and scaled.

Building With Families

4PXP’s annual is a premier event designed to empower, connect, and inspire providers, owners, leaders, teachers, parents, advocates, and families in Early Childhood Education across two impactful days in New Orleans, LA. Whether you're an early learning professional, a center leader, a passionate parent, or a community advocate, this conference is designed to Recharge Your Mind, Body, and Business - Amplify Your Impact.

Early Learning Conference

Early Learning Conference

Building With Families

The West Virginia Association for Young Children builds with families by creating spaces for shared learning, leadership development, and data-informed advocacy. Through its , the organization brings parents, providers, and local leaders together to share lived experiences, identify barriers to access, and collectively push for practical solutions that strengthen child care systems. These conversations center on family voice while fostering collaboration across sectors. In addition to convening community dialogue, the organization invests in long-term leadership through the , which supports the growth of early childhood leaders committed to improving quality and expanding access for children and families. By pairing relationship building with leadership development, the organization strengthens the ecosystem that supports young children. The organization also equips families and partners with actionable data through , an interactive dashboard that compares child care supply and demand across communities. This tool empowers local stakeholders to identify access gaps and strategically target advocacy and resource allocation where they are needed most. Together, these strategies demonstrate a comprehensive approach that blends storytelling, leadership cultivation, and data-driven action to advance equitable child care systems.

Child Care Community Conversations series

Ann Nutt Memorial Fund

Scholarship

Mapping the Gap™

Click on the logo below to see the organization's profile.

Work In Action

initiative seeks to increase the diversity of early childhood education leaders and provide ongoing leadership support for childcare program owners, center directors, and family/group childcare providers. This initiative consists of 3 tiers: Tier 1 includes professional development for adults who live and work with Black children through BCDI-Atlanta's annual Culturally Responsive Early Education & Care Summit. Tier 2 is the Community level, providing professional development on cultural responsiveness and inclusion. The Community Tier includes self-paced online training on strategies to improve personal, workplace, and child/family goals, along with professional development and networking opportunities such as the Tier 3 includes annual fellowship program offerings–intensive training, coaching, and mentoring programs with the goal of advancing and diversifying the early education workforce through inclusive and equitable leadership.

BCDI-Atlanta's Expand ECE (Early Care & Education)

Tier 1

Tier 2

Leadership & Equity Advancement Network (LEAN).

Tier 3

Storytelling

Avenues of Advocacy

MELA uses storytelling through story circles, focus groups, and family-led features to center lived experiences in advocacy. Their includes templates for op-eds, letters to the editor, and social media posts. MELA elevates authentic family and provider voices in media coverage and policymaker engagement. They meet with state leaders, provide testimony, and share stories that highlight why early childhood investments matter for Mississippi’s future. Some key challenges that MELA faces when storytelling are balancing privacy, preventing story fatigue, and scaling multimedia storytelling capacity statewide.

Built for Babies Communications Toolkit

Storytelling

Powerful Families Video Series

Provider-led and provider-powered, 4PXP has established an independent policy voice for ECE centers serving Louisiana’s low-income children of color. With and a companion podcast, 4PXP sparks and sustains conversations that advance equitable, high-quality early learning for working families.

Let's Talk Adocacy Calls

Work In Action

The 4PXP is designed to improve the quality of Early Childhood Programs by providing coaching and technical assistance to help them expand their revenues and profits, increase compensation for their workers, and grow their businesses. It is led by experienced ECE providers and small business owners who provide trusted technical assistance and business support for fellow and aspiring ECE directors. During this six-month cohort, 4PXP pairs worked with child care owners as mentor coaches, alongside peers seeking support, with a focus on expanding access, improving revenue and profitability, raising wages, and growing child care centers.'''

Peer-to-Peer Business Consulting Program

Peer-to-Peer Business Consulting Program

The 4PXP is Louisiana’s first federally registered apprenticeship program for early childhood educators. LECEA is a strategic, targeted workforce initiative created and designed to address critical staffing shortages, reduce high turnover rates in early learning, and build a sustainable pipeline of skilled lead teachers.

Louisiana Early Childhood Educator Apprentieship (LECEA)

Louisiana Early Childhood Educator Apprenticeship (LECEA)

serves as a systems-builder and early childhood policy convenor in Shelby County, TN by bringing together city and county government, educational partners, service providers, and community leaders through a formal Leadership Council. Its role in coordinating funding, supporting universal Pre-K access, and aligning community-wide early learning efforts reflects how structured alignment between practice and policy can support sustained family voice and systemic change.

As a provider-led organization, Louisiana’s (4PXP) ensures early childhood educators shape advocacy priorities while building business sustainability through peer coaching and technical assistance. Its federally registered apprenticeship program and coordinated advocacy efforts intentionally connect leadership development to workforce investment and public funding decisions, positioning providers as drivers of both policy change and resource allocation.

First 8 Memphis

For Providers By Providers

Work In Action

EducationCounsel works alongside clients and partners from the early stages of setting goals through the full process of planning, implementation, and long-term improvement. They help build consensus, develop actionable strategies, and navigate the complexities of laws, policies, and stakeholders across different levels. Their approach is grounded in research, data, stakeholder engagement, and practical experience, allowing them to identify high-impact opportunities and move them forward effectively.

Work In Action

Since 2020, BCDI North Carolina's initiative has been rooted in a simple but transformative belief: Through the collective strength of our board, donors, and community fundraising efforts, over 60,000 culturally relevant, high-quality books have been distributed directly into the hands of children and families at no cost. These books have seeded home and classroom libraries that affirm culture, celebrate brilliance, and nurture the early literacy skills children need to thrive.

Read to Rise

Read to Rise

when children see themselves in the stories they read, they rise in confidence, identity, and achievement.

Work In Action

• Every year, ICS hosts recurring parent and community listening sessions with dozens of family advocates to identify what’s working and not working in early childhood systems. We turn what we hear into clear policy recommendations and bring those priorities to legislators.
• ICS invites parents to testify directly to decision-makers, share lived experience, and speak to the real impact of policy gaps. Their voices guide the solutions ICS pushes forward.
• ICS also follows up with surveys and interviews to make sure we’re accurately capturing patterns, not just single stories.
• We also brought speakers from North Carolina to advocate for South Carolina's Child Care Wage Enhancement Program with the Department of Social Services (DSS). ICS is continuing to advocate for this with state funds. The governor did put that in his 20-million-dollar budget.
• ICS serves a broad and diverse community, including retirees and individuals without school-aged children. Advocacy for children and families should not rest solely on parents; it is a shared community responsibility that benefits all generations.
• Through partnerships with state-based nonprofits that support children and families, these initiatives are currently operating at the state level in Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington. ReadyNation is operating nationwide through a partnership with a national non-profit, and ICS is working to strengthen Fight Crime: Invest in Kids and Mission: Readiness nationally.
• South Carolina Early Childhood Common Agenda (SC ECCA)

Strong Nation:

Click on the logo below to see the organization's profile.

Policy

Through the , The Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council provides practical templates for op-eds, letters to the editor, and social media posts that help community voices translate personal experiences into policy-relevant narratives. These stories are elevated in media coverage and brought directly into policymaker engagement, including meetings with state leaders and formal testimony, to illustrate why early childhood investments are critical to Mississippi’s future. MELA also approaches storytelling with care by balancing privacy, preventing story fatigue, and expanding statewide multimedia storytelling capacity so family voices are amplified responsibly and sustainably.

Built for Babies Storytelling Toolkit

MELA advances family-centered policy by supporting six weeks of state employees, promoting more equitable support for families. It equips employers with practical tools by developing the and launching a free adapted from the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children and modified by MELA for Mississippi businesses, to inform child care investments.

Paid Parental Leave for Mississippi

Business Child Care Tax Credit Toolkit

Economic Impact Calculator

MELA also elevates workforce issues by leading the Child Care Workforce Compensation Study, which spurred a legislative review of early educator wages. The organization published demonstrating how improving access and affordability can boost labor force participation among parents of young children and drive broader regional economic growth.

“Child Care: A Critical Piece of Mississippi’s Labor Force Puzzle,”

Recommendation #1: Shift from Involvement to Shared Leadership

Establish formal roles and decision-making structures that position families as partners in policy and systems work.

Policy Implications:

What this can look like in practice:

Family engagement alone does not guarantee influence. When families are invited primarily to provide feedback after decisions are made, opportunities to shape priorities and solutions are limited. Shared leadership creates conditions in which families contribute meaningfully alongside organizational and policy leaders, helping ensure that policies are shaped by lived experience and grounded in community realities.Across SECEJ Network states and beyond, efforts that move beyond engagement toward shared leadership are more likely to deepen families’ influence and strengthen connections between family priorities and policy outcomes.

• Establishing standing councils, steering committees, or advisory bodies with clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Clarifying and communicating how family perspectives inform decisions and policy development
• Creating regular, structured opportunities for families to participate in planning, governance, and advocacy
• Treating family leadership as ongoing work rather than time-limited consultation

Building With Families

Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) demonstrates how organizations can intentionally build with parents and caregivers by creating clear and accessible pathways for advocacy. Currently operating in 6 states and 11 rural communities, SCAN’s Family Engagement program equips parents and caretakers with leadership and civic advocacy skills and connects them with concrete opportunities to engage in issues that impact children in their communities, such as early childhood education and child hunger.

embeds family leadership into its core infrastructure. Parents and providers hold real decision-making authority through a parent-led steering committee, receive paid stipends for their leadership, and directly shape the organization’s advocacy priorities, policy positions, and partnerships. Family leadership is ongoing, compensated, and governing–not advisory– offering a clear example of treating family leadership as essential infrastructure rather than volunteer participation.

Geaux Far Louisiana

The unites parents, caregivers, early educators, health professionals, and community advocates to strengthen systems for children from birth to 5. The council offers stipends to reduce financial barriers and recognizes family leadership as valuable labor rather than volunteer input.

Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council

Work In Action

Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council

The unites parents, caregivers, early educators, health professionals, and community advocates to strengthen systems for children from birth to 5. Members help set policy priorities–from child care and health to family economic stability–while receiving training, resources, and statewide connections through the Mississippi Forum for the Future and the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance. To support sustained participation, strategies include stipends, hybrid meeting options, rotating facilitation, and clear communication channels through text and virtual updates. Together, they elevate community-driven solutions that lead to real change for young children and families.

Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council

Select a national partner below to view its profile.

EducationCounsel

Building With Families

Family engagement and leadership are central to ICS’s approach. The organization invites parents from partner organizations to participate in its congressional sessions, strengthening family voice in policy conversations. ICS also connects with families through faith-based leadership networks and actively recruits participants at local and state conferences. In addition, the organization collaborates with early childhood education organizations to broaden its outreach and expand its collective impact.

Building With Families

The Mississippi Forum for the Future

is a movement to transform the childhood system in Mississippi. More specifically, it’s a collective impact initiative designed to help early childhood organizations, business leaders, and policymakers break down silos and leverage our combined efforts, resources, and expertise to build a state-of-the-art childhood system that meets the needs of all children and families in Mississippi. The Forum’s work is guided by a Steering Committee composed of a cross-sector group, including parents, providers, and state leaders guiding Mississippi’s Common Agenda.

The Mississippi Forum for the Future

Policy

SCAN operates across 10 staffed states, working alongside community members to raise awareness about issues affecting children. Through community outreach they connect with people directly and encourage participation in advocacy efforts. Even in states without a formal presence, SCAN continues to support federal initiatives and facilitates advocacy training and engagement opportunities.

Click on each of the logos to see the organization's profile.

Work In Action

Community Conversations

with educators, parents, and students bring together those with lived experience to offer parent-led solutions that address disparate data-driven outcomes within a school or school system.

Community Conversations

Train-the-Trainer Programs

empower parents, caregivers, and invested school-community partners to lead and organize collective advocacy initiatives to close the opportunity gap. The course is 10 months long and includes:

Train-the Trainer programs

• 6 trainings on the EPiC model of authentic engagement to collective power and advocacy
• monthly 1:1 meetings and strategy planning
• internal infrastructure with the EPiC toolkit for the parent coordinator to begin engaging the community

See all upcoming EPiC programming and events!

Storytelling

The Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) uses storytelling as a key advocacy strategy by centering the lived experiences of families and community members to illustrate the real impact of policy issues. Through stories that highlight individuals, such as parents and advocates, SCAN connects personal experiences to broader challenges like access to early childhood education and child hunger. SCAN highlights like and others that reflect real individuals and families.

stories

“Dad, Advocate and Head Start Graduate”

Policy

• ICS has helped secure over $866 million in new since 2010:

investments for South Carolina children and families

• $53 million annually in new statewide preschool expansion
• $33 Million towards quality nurse home visiting

• $8.5 Million raised for Hello Family Spartanburg
• 500,000 working families are benefiting from the Earned Income Tax Credit
• 53,000 SC children receiving books from Reach Out and Read

• ICS helped push for the expansion of the , which benefits hundreds of thousands of South Carolina families and has proven positive impacts on children's health, academic success, and economic stability.
• In 2024, ICS received a budget provision to provide free meals to children who had only received reduced-price lunches, and did so for all children in South Carolina. ICS backed this effort in their , which lists “Free School Lunches for all Children” among ICS’s policy priorities—specifically, urging lawmakers to require schools eligible for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) to offer free meals.

SC Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

2023 Annual Report