November 23, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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Our November newsletter is here!
Read about opportunities for free one-on-one coaching for family child care providers and center directors and administrators; our new cohort of Small Business Innovation Program participants; and news from our program in Maryland!
November 23, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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As the Leadership Institute wraps up its first year implementing its Leading for Change curriculum in the post-baccalaureate program of the Maryland Early Childhood Leadership Education Program (MECLP), the Maryland State Department of Education has announced that it will invest an additional $150,000 in the program.
MECLP is an early education leadership program of the Sherman Center for Early Childhood Learning in Urban Communities at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Leadership Institute Executive Director and Professor Anne Douglass (fifth from right) and Leadership Institute Deputy Director Amanda Wiehe Lopes (fourth from right) with MECLP’s first cohort of Early Education Leadership Fellows.
November 22, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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Director of Leadership Programs Lynne Mendes
In her role as Director of Leadership Programs for the Institute of Early Education Leadership and Innovation, Lynne Mendes is much more than an educator, trainer, and facilitator. She is an evangelist for the field.
“We already have leaders working throughout early care and education. They might not think of themselves as leaders. But they’ve worked in every setting you can imagine,” says Mendes. “They come from all over the world and they’re so talented, so we just draw from that.”
One of the first things Mendes teaches the family child care and small business owners in the Leadership Institute’s Small Business Innovation Center program is that that they are, in fact, business owners. Through the course, which is anchored with the Leadership Institute’s curriculum on entrepreneurial leadership, participants go through a shift in mindset where they begin to see that their work is just as vital to the life of local neighborhoods as the pizza shop, hair salon, or insurance agency. Continue Reading →
November 19, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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Advocates for early care and education (ECE) reform gathered Nov. 13 for a virtual conversation about the state of the ECE workforce in MA, the challenges they’re facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the path to creating a more sustainable, racially equitable ECE system in which early educators are valued for their expertise and experience, and compensated accordingly—ideally with public funding.
The Leadership Institute’s Executive Director Anne Douglass, PhD was among the presenters who delivered hard truths about working in ECE at The Early Childhood (Virtual) Coffee & Conversation: The EC Workforce, which was hosted by The Boston Foundation and moderated by Brian Gold, the foundation’s early childhood program officer.
Douglass was joined by presenters Arazeliz Reyes, PhD Candidate, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Binal Pitel, chief program officer at Neighborhood Villages. ECE providers Joycelyn Browne and Alicia Jno-Baptiste, both graduates of Leadership Institute programs, also addressed attendees, sharing their experiences of working amid the pandemic and what is needed to alleviate the burdens on ECE professionals.
Douglass began on a positive note by pointing out the assets that the ECE workforce brings to the profession and the current child care crisis. She did so by presenting findings from the Leadership Institute’s pre-pandemic workforce survey (conducted with UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy and the Center for Social Policy) on which Reyes is also a co-author. Continue Reading →
October 29, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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The COVID-19 pandemic has widely exposed what early care and education (ECE) professionals have long known: our ECE system is not sustainable in its current patchwork configuration. Yet it is also vital to the functioning of our economy and must therefore be prioritized for systemic change.
This summer, we launched a webinar series, “Reinventing Child Care in Massachusetts” to facilitate a detailed discussion of what the sector needs, and we’re eager to share what we learned. More than 700 ECE professionals and other stakeholders participated and attendees gathered online to share ideas for reinventing an ECE system that is high-quality, accessible to all families, provides professional compensation to educators based on their skill and experience, has sufficient resources for professional and leadership development, and addresses racial inequities. Continue Reading →
October 28, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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Our October newsletter is here!
Read about the random control trial we are running with family child care and small center providers in Boston and the Early Childhood Support Organization we are creating!
October 19, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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The Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation (the Leadership Institute), housed in UMass Boston’s College of Education and Human Development, announces that Songtian (Tim) Zeng PhD, BCBA and Anne Douglass PhD are co-principal investigators on a study measuring the effectiveness of the small business innovation and shared services model for home- and center-based child care providers serving high-poverty communities in the city of Boston. The $250,000 study is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and will be administered by United Way of Massachusetts Bay from 2020 to 2022.
“Early childhood education is the essential foundation for improving all levels of education,” said College of Education and Human Development Dean Joseph Berger. “I am proud of the ongoing leadership provided by the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation as they apply their exceptional expertise to improving quality and equity of early childhood education throughout the state and beyond.” Continue Reading →
October 19, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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The Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation (the Leadership Institute), housed in UMass Boston’s College of Education and Human Development, announces today that it is designing a new Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) for the state’s licensed early care and education programs. The Leadership Institute is partnering with longtime collaborators the UMass Donahue Institute (UMDI) and Start Early (formerly the Ounce of Prevention) to deliver services. The 4.5-year, $3.75 million project is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care and New Profit, a venture philanthropy organization that invests in systems change initiatives that break down barriers to opportunity.
“The ECE field urgently needs high impact professional and leadership development supports that promote early educators’ expertise and abilities to improve program quality,” said Anne Douglass, PhD, the Leadership Institute’s founder and executive director. “Research shows that to be effective, ECE educators and leaders need a workplace context that is designed to develop and sustain teachers’ ongoing learning and practice.” Continue Reading →
October 13, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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“Every day, I look forward to starting my day with the children—teaching them new skills, social interaction, celebrating milestones like their first step or their first word; watching them try new foods and making new friends, and all that stuff,” said Joycelyn Browne, owner of Little Ones Child Care in Dorchester.
But Browne also knows there’s more to operating a successful ECE program than the joy of helping children learn, grow, and thrive. That’s why she enrolled in our Small Business Innovation Center program, which Browne credits with teaching her “different ways of improving my business, marketing my business, different ways of teaching the kids, and creating curriculum.” Continue Reading →
September 28, 2020
by Anne Douglass
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Our September newsletter is here! Read about our new class of Early Education Leadership Fellows, our webinar series on reimagining systems of early care and education, and how we’re working with early educators as they reopen—and stay open—during the pandemic.