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You may recall that earlier this year we introduced the Care and Learning Coalition, or CandL, and the Listening Tour as part of our mission to transform North Carolina early childhood education.
Phase 1 is taking off and we remain committed to our transformative vision:
We are committed to working with families and communities to engage their strengths and address their values as we reimagine and rebuild early care and education in North Carolina for all children, regardless of zip code.
ICYMI: There are 5 Phases of CandL Initiative:
- Phase 1: Data collection and intense family and community engagement “9 Month Listening Tour” – January 2022 – September 2022 (We are here!)
- Phase 2: Completing the vision for the campaign – approximately six months.
- Phase 3: Policy Analysis and policy gap analysis – approximately six months.
- Phase 4: Priorities – approximately six months.
- Phase 5: Launch the CandL Campaign!
To ensure that the voices and needs of parents, teachers, and providers are heard, a listening tour will be conducted of focus groups among these stakeholders across the state. The goal of the listening tour is to listen to and more fully understand the wants, needs, and dreams of families and providers in early care and education (ECE).
At the beginning of planning all of this last year, we began thinking about, How are we going to keep this larger stakeholder group engaged in our work, and fully transparent in Phase One? Because this is really important. This is, in fact, the most intimate part of the work.
This is where we’re reaching out to families, providers and communities, to ask them about, not just their needs, but their desires for the ECE systems in our state. We’d like to highlight more stories from the road, as it is appropriate and as communities, families, and providers are comfortable with us doing so.
As themes are becoming more evident, we are taking you all along with us. I know nobody needs to be brought along a commitment curve, because we all want to use this time to transform the system to make it more affordable, accessible, equitable, and maintaining high quality. It is helpful to know the things that we’re hearing along the way.
Without further ado, here is the full roadmap for our Listening Tour, starting with feedback from the initial Pilot Sessions.
3 Locations Held 6 Pilot Listening Sessions
- Mecklenburg:
- Charlotte Bilingual Preschool, February 21 and 23
- BCDI-Charlotte, February 24 and 25
- Craven: Peletah Ministries, February 22
- Durham: Equity Before Birth, February 26
Discussion Flow of the Listening Session Pilots
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Key Quotes from the Listening Session Pilots
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Listening Session Pilot Themes
4 Child Advocacy Network (CAN) Hub Listening Tour Locations
- Buncombe: Children First/Communities in Schools Buncombe County
- Guilford: Hayes-Taylor Memorial YMCA
- New Hanover: Communities in Schools of Cape Fear (fiscal sponsor) and New Hanover Resiliency Task Force
- Wayne: WAGES (Wayne Action Group for Economic Solvency, Inc.)
All 3 Regions of NC are Covered: in 17 Counties
- Alamance
- Cabarrus
- Cumberland
- Forsyth
- Gaston
- Halifax
- Harnett
- Hertford
- Lenoir
- Onslow
- Pitt
- Polk
- Richmond
- Robeson
- Swain
- Wake
- Watauga
24 Total Listening Tour Counties & Partnering Organizations
“It just really shows the excitement about the work of CandL, and what this really could be for North Carolina,” said Shanda Sumpter, NC Child and Coordinating CandL leader.
In selecting these 24 locations, we were intentional to be inclusive of a range of community and family representation, such as tribal, military, population age demographics, race, prevalence of dual language learners, rural/eastern/western, most severe child care deserts, etc.
This listening tour has been and will continue to be an opportunity for families and providers to co-design with advocates, community leaders, and policy makers, rather than being left out of the conversation around a system so very vital to their everyday lives.
Links to the PowerPoint Presentations:
- CandL Stakeholder Update Presentation (English)
- CandL Stakeholder Update Presentation (En Espanol)
- Link Group Data Analysis (English)
- Link Group Data Analysis (en Espanol)
Links to the Recorded Meeting:
- English: https://youtu.be/zepGO-L6jW8 (change into thumbnails)
- Spanish: https://youtu.be/odoGHIN44Hs (change into thumbnails)
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