Wanda Castillo, Community Leader
Kim Firth, Program Director, Endowment for Health
Sandra Pratt, Community Leader
Fionn Shea, Communications Associate, Endowment for Health
When families have the conditions they need to thrive, children thrive.
In 2020, the Endowment for Health, Child Trends, and people in communities across New Hampshire began work that would become the Early Childhood Equity Movement (ECEM). Research in this movement is paving the way for greater equity in family services, services like early care, education, and health care. All families should have access to these services. Too many do not.
Collaborative, community-driven research sowed the seeds of this movement. The partners in the ECEM project embraced an equity-centered approach and shared power with community leaders at every phase. They created momentum for sustainable change to improve access to services for racially and culturally diverse families with young children. They worked to create a movement based on the ideals of community power and self-determination.
Because change, ECEM knows, happens when funders listen to—and act with—communities.
Understanding ECEM
In an increasingly diverse state like New Hampshire, families need services that best suit their needs. According to the New Hampshire Center for Justice and Equity, 10 percent of the state’s population identifies as Black, Indigenous, and persons of color, and five percent identify as Hispanic—a number that likely underrepresents the community. More than 60 languages are spoken by students in the school districts of Manchester and Nashua, New Hampshire’s two most diverse cities.
Deep inequities exist for families of color in New Hampshire, and the state’s fragmented system of services is difficult for families to navigate. That’s true for everyone, but even more so for families with economic, language, or cultural barriers. Right now, not all families have what they need for their children to thrive.
To create change to this system, we must first understand what conditions families need to thrive. Community leaders did exactly that. They led focus groups with New Hampshire families in Spanish, Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese, Nepali, and with Native and African American families to better understand the root causes of health inequities and how to improve access to family services. After listening to the families’ needs, community leaders began leading accessible, culturally relevant community events to help connect families to services that they might not be aware of—or able to access.
At these meetings, access is a priority—all materials are translated and simultaneous interpretation removes language barriers for participants. Child care and transportation are provided. Community members and providers and liaisons share culturally appropriate meals—chicken biryani and vegetable biryani, empanadas and curries, dishes made locally by BIPOC and immigrant-owned businesses.
And everyone is heard and listened to. Everyone’s voices and preferences and opinions are important.
One of ECEM’s goals is to learn directly from families and their communities to understand what strengths exist in the community and to build on them. The movement identifies challenges and explores approaches that might work better. To do so, ECEM centers community leaders in all decisionmaking. Researchers and foundation staff work to share power and invest in the community by training coresearchers and community leaders in research techniques.
This community-led research found that families with young children struggle to access needed services. They reported confusion and frustration when navigating New Hampshire’s fragmented service systems. They spoke of relief when materials were translated but underscored the struggle to advocate for access to an interpreter. Some voiced appreciation for providers who made them feel welcome, but others spoke of discrimination they faced based on race, gender, language, and immigration or economic status.
Families spoke of the importance of building positive relationships with service providers. How providers best serve families comes down to basic empathy: treating families with the dignity and respect they deserve when accessing health care, child care, and social services.
A report from Child Trends detailed ECEM’s findings and provided recommendations for improving equity in family services, focusing on the role of organizations in healing discrimination, while expanding services and making them easier for families to navigate.
Funding Impact
The movement is addressing and improving families’ access to services like early care and education, health care, and other services. By shining a light on challenges in New Hampshire’s early childhood system, the movement is educating the provider community and state government about their blind spots, modeling accessible research by translating findings, and hosting community events that center families and are culturally responsive. ECEM has engaged over 200 families, over 30 providers, and multiple state agencies at community events—and more events are planned. They’ve translated outreach and informational materials. Government agencies are now listening to families.
The ultimate outcome will be families getting the services they need to support their children’s healthy development.
These meetings allow ECEM to serve as a bridge between community members and service providers. It is an opportunity to model for providers what language access should look like and to hold providers accountable for follow-up to help families enroll in beneficial programs. It is also an opportunity for community members and providers to break bread together and to begin to erode mistrust.
What comes next for ECEM? Community leaders have two answers: collaboration and education. They stress that ECEM should collaborate with other statewide organizations, with providers, and with families. Perhaps most importantly, they’d like to see more people get involved in this work.
Funders, for their part, need to understand that their prescription might not work, that what they’ve prescribed as needed is not always what a community needs. ECEM is one example of how foundations can effectively, authentically partner with communities and codesign solutions. Supporting parents, families, and children means supporting communities. Funders play an important role by centering equity in research and funding practices. This is the first step toward changing systems to work for the people they serve, put power in the hands of communities, and train providers to persist in kindness. It means including everyone in the conversation. It means listening and codesigning solutions—with communities—that support families and young children.
The earliest years of a child’s life provide a lifelong foundation for health. The well-being of communities starts there: caring for children and families.
Click here to learn more about the Early Childhood Equity Movement and read the research findings.