Neighborhood Villages, a nonprofit that advocates for solutions to the greatest challenges faced by the early education sector, applauded the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) Board’s vote to recommend Amy Kershaw as Commissioner. | Press Release

Highlighting the many benefits of the direct-to-program operations grants for early education and care providers, Neighborhood Villages and Strategies for Children are urging policymakers to make these grants a permanent funding vehicle for the early education and care sector. | Press Release

“It’s really not a system at all. It’s a private market,” said Lauren Birchfield Kennedy, cofounder of Neighborhood Villages, an organization that advocates for child care reform. “The way it operates right now is too expensive for parents to afford, and too expensive for providers to provide.” | The Boston Globe

The grantees—Bunker Hill Community College, Neighborhood Villages, Urban College and the University of Massachusetts-Boston—will provide soup-to-nuts support to childhood educators and those who aspire to be. Whatever applicants need, from tuition, books and supplies to child care, transportation, technical support and other financial assistance, will be provided. | Early Learning Nation

Anyone with young children at home has probably experienced the rampant fevers, coughs, and runny noses that are resulting from this year's tripledemic, the collision of flu, RSV, and COVID cases. Now, these respiratory illnesses are wreaking havoc on the supply chain. | CBS News Boston

Today, Neighborhood Villages announced a new partnership with the LEGO Foundation and Boston Public Schools (BPS) Department of Early Childhood to develop a new leading play-based, vertically aligned curriculum for early childhood education settings. | Press Release

Four Boston-based institutions have been listed as the recipients of the $7 million Growing the Workforce Fund, which is aimed toward supporting Boston’s struggling child care industry, Mayor Michelle Wu announced today. The organizations – Bunker Hill Community College, Neighborhood Villages, Urban College and the University of Massachusetts Boston – will use the fund’s money to recruit new early childhood educators while helping existing early educators earn additional credentials. | MassLive

Neighborhood Villages announced its new initiative to create a comprehensive approach to workforce development within the early education and care sector. The organization has been awarded a $1 million grant from the City of Boston to help launch its new Comprehensive Workforce Pathways (CWP) initiative, which includes establishing a Registered Apprenticeship Program for the early education and care workforce. | Press Release

“No one’s okay. No one is fully staffed. The people who are there are stressed out,” says Sarah Siegel Muncey, cofounder of Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based childcare nonprofit that advocates for early education and care policy reform. | Fortune

Bostonians Sarah Siegel Muncey and Lauren Birchfield Kennedy recognize this landscape from multiple vantage points: as mothers who scrambled to find good care for their children, as professional women working in education and health care policy, and as citizens committed to a society that works. | Early Learning Nation

“We’re in a workforce shortage. We’re in a wage crisis. We’re hemorrhaging people—there’s no bodies, the lights are off,” says Sarah Siegel Muncey, cofounder of Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based childcare nonprofit that advocates for early education and care policy reform. | Fortune

Neighborhood Villages commended the Massachusetts Legislature for passage of An Act relating to economic growth and relief for the Commonwealth, which includes critical funds for the early education and care sector.

LAUREN BIRCHFIELD KENNEDY, J.D. ’09, and Sarah Siegel Muncey, Ed.M. ’05, met through a mutual friend when they were both pregnant. “Our babies were born within just a couple days of each other,” Kennedy says, “and like so many working moms, we thought, ‘How is it still like this for working parents? How am I supposed to figure out what my career looks like now? How am I supposed to find childcare?’ Sarah and I spent a very long time really thinking through the contribution we could make to this dialogue about the imperative to fix the childcare crisis on so many different levels.” | Harvard Magazine

Neighborhood Villages today applauded the Massachusetts Legislature for prioritizing funding for early education and care in the FY23 budget. | Press Release

"Extension of the C3 Stabilization Grant Program, coupled with an investment in salary increases for early educators serving lower-income children, will be critical for retaining early educators and keeping classrooms open for children and families," Lauren Kennedy, co-president of the Boston early education nonprofit Neighborhood Villages, said. "Moreover, ensuring that state reimbursement for child care subsidies is now tied to enrollment of children, rather than attendance, marks an important change in policy, one that will help to strengthen and build the capacity of the early education and care sector." | WBUR

"This is a down payment," said Lauren Kennedy, co-president and co-founder of the nonprofit Neighborhood Villages. "We're very excited at the legislature's commitment, but certainly, there remains more work to be done over the long-term." | WBUR