Host Karen Ponder speaks with two leaders from Michigan’s Great Start Collaboratives: Rachel Pritchard, Great Start Specialist at the Michigan Department of Education and Flavia Maccio, Parent Coalition Coordinator of the Great Start Collaborative in Oakland County.
More information about Michigan’s Great Start Collaboratives here.
Visit BUILD Initiative here.
Karen Ponder:
Hello, and welcome to Critical Connections. A podcast from the BUILD initiative. I'm Karen Ponder. This series focuses on the importance of strong state and community connections for developing equitable early childhood systems. You'll hear about key ingredients needed to build and sustain this work. And you'll also hear some lessons learned from some of the early developers
Karen Ponder:
Today, we're talking about Michigan's early childhood statewide system and highlighting it's state and local work that began in 2005 with the creation of the early childhood investment corporation, and a statewide network of local, public-private partnerships called the Great Start Collaboratives. In 2007, each collaborative was charged with creating and sustaining a great start parent coalition that allowed for more families to join the initiative and provide their voice to changes and enhancements to their local early childhood system. Today, every community in Michigan is represented by Great Start Collaborative and a parent coalition. In 2013, the oversight and support of the collaboratives and parent coalitions moved to the Michigan department of education.
Karen Ponder:
Joining me today to discuss Michigan's important work are two seasoned early childhood leaders. Rachel Pritchard is the great start specialist at the Michigan department of education. Rachel has served in various positions and worked at both the community and the state levels. Thank you, Rachel, for joining our conversation.
Rachel:
Thanks for inviting me, Karen.
Karen Ponder:
Also joining us is Flavia Maccio. Flavia is the parent coalition coordinator of the Great Start Collaborative in Oakland county, Michigan. She is a parent and understands what families need. I'm so glad you can be with us today, Flavia, and we're eager to learn from you.
Flavia:
I'm happy to be here.
Karen Ponder:
Just so we know you a little bit better, I'm just wondering how each of you got started in this particular kind of work. Flavia, you want to share your story with us?
Flavia:
Of course. I started this work at another county, in Ottawa county on the west side of the states. At the time I was not familiar with anything related to early childhood. I had moved from Argentina not long before that and the job needed Spanish speakers. So that opened the opportunity for me. I had worked in elementary and high school education in my country, but I really fell in love with early childhood when I realized the impact that programs and practices can have improving families whole future.
Karen Ponder:
Rachel, how about you?
Rachel:
So I started as a parent on our local Great Start Collaborative in Waco county. I became their parent liaison shortly after that, and then moved around a little bit to become a technical assistance consultant at the regional and state level, and then moved to the department of education about seven years ago. And now I'm overseeing the Great Start Collaboratives and parent coalitions for the department of education.
Karen Ponder:
It certainly sounds like everything that you both have done before prepared each of you for this groundbreaking work in Michigan that we're talking about today. I'm a big fan of Michigan. There are so many great things about the state. Your state also has a lot of greats associated with young children, all of these within the department of education. So Rachel, help us understand the differences between them.
Rachel:
So we have great start readiness program, which is our state funded four year old preschool program in the state. We have great start to quality, which is our quality rating and improvement system for child cares. And then we have our great start collaboratives and great start parent coalitions, which is what we're going to talk about today. The good thing is all of those greats work together and so the local great start readiness programs and child cares and other technical assistance consultants that work with great start to quality, all work with their great start collaborative and parent coalition to improve the local early childhood system.
Karen Ponder:
So, Rachel, let's just go right with the bottom line. How does Michigan pay for each component of this work?
Rachel:
Yes. So the collaboratives and parent coalitions are paid for out of state funds. So out of our state school aid fund. And that goes through a budget process every year with the legislature. And these are foundational funds, so they help pay for things like staff and some of our requirements that we hand down at the state level around the work. Other funds do come into play. Some areas have local philanthropy, or they may write grants that help pay for other areas of the work, but that foundational dollars really come in from the state funding. And each year the collaboratives write a yearly work plan that is determined based on their funds, but really on their local needs, what their data says needs to be worked on at the local level. And then we'll look at it to see how their budget can best fit those needs and achieve those goals.
Karen Ponder:
Thanks for helping us understand that. One of the important learnings from some of our earlier interviews was the importance of having a source of funding to pay for staff at both the state and local levels of this kind of state local together early childhood system. While it doesn't downplay the importance and value of volunteers, oh my goodness, what would we do without them? It simply means that someone needs to be held responsible. They need to be paid to be in a position to make things happen, to convene the collaborative tables. We also found that states that didn't support both levels of this work were not able to maintain their collaborative work over a period of time. So I applaud Michigan for your forethought in this very bold endeavor. Flavia, I want to turn to you now. Tell us a little bit about how the local priorities are determined? And if you will, how the parent coalitions really determined the issues that are most important to them?
Flavia:
Well, we do work toward four goals that we all have throughout the state, and those goals start when the children are born healthy, they are thriving, developmentally on track, they are ready to succeed in school, and they are ready to succeed in school and beyond by reading proficiently by the time they are eight. So those goals coincide with important moments in a child's life. So every decision that we make has to align with these goals. So the decisions are made through the collaborative. Community stakeholders and partners get together. Parents are part of those conversations. And also the parent coalition, we have a leadership group that are parents that want to work a little bit more intensively in this work. So we look at our communities, we look at the data that we gather from the communities so we can make data driven and community led decisions. So parents are very instrumental in how the decisions are made.
Karen Ponder:
So wonderful to hear this and to recognize that not only are parents involved, but they are actually looking at the data and looking at what's happening in their community, as they help to make recommendations and make their decisions. Rachel, from the state side of things, what are the grant requirements that you have in place to help support the parent and family voice for these coalitions? And then tell us a little bit about the supports that you believe help to recruit parents and then to keep them involved over time.
Rachel:
So we have great requirements around supporting our parents. We have to have staff involved. So we have a great start parent liaison in every community and their requirements for how many hours that they should work at a minimum. We have requirements around how many parents should be sitting at a minimum on our great start collaboratives. So a minimum of 20% of the membership on the collaboratives needs to be parents and parents only serving in the role as parents. So I can't sit on and be a parent because I also have a professional hat. So I can only choose one when I come to the table.
Rachel:
And then we make sure that those parents are reimbursed for their time. Everyone else at the table is paid through their positions, and we want to honor that parents may have to take time off of work and, or they may have to find childcare, and either take public transportation or drive their own cars. So we pay for things like childcare and transportation, and we have food at meetings so that parents don't have to sacrifice out of their own budget to also participate, we want to honor that voice and the time that it takes and the commitment to our work.
Karen Ponder:
Well, it certainly sounds like it's working in Michigan. States have moved toward more involvement of families in their early childhood systems over the past years. And every state involves parents and families in different ways. But as two leaders of this important work in Michigan, what did you see as the important roles of parents in an early childhood system? I'll start with you, Flavia.
Flavia:
Well, parents are not only the most important people in a child's life, but also their first teachers. So the role of parents is foundational in an early childhood system. We can't add parents to the system as an after thought to get approval of feedback, because that would be like putting the cart before the horse. That's why I love working with parents in Michigan because parents are partners. They're not clients, they are not customers. They are people that inform and direct the work. They are part of the decision-making. So they know their participation has a real impact in their communities. They can see how their input or their view of a certain issue determined how certain programs adapted and adjusted to support families later on.
Karen Ponder:
Rachel, anything to add to that from your viewpoint?
Rachel:
I think Flavia is exactly right, we don't want our parents coming to the table and being tokens or box checkers. We really value their voice and want to emphasize them as co-creators in the work. There's a difference between approving something that someone's already created and being a part of that work from the beginning and saying, "No, this program might not work for all families. How about we do this?" Or, "This works really well in our community. Does that work really well over here?" And so making sure that their voice really is beneficial and has value and you're walking alongside the professionals. This is why we have those great requirements and funding to pay families, to be seated at the table. This is not only true just for the collaboratives and the parent coalitions, we have this in other tables at the state level where we have parents who are representative of the programs and services that they have used in the past.
Rachel:
And we have an office of great start advisory council that has 50% of that board that is parents that come from all over the state and are nominated to again, use their voice, but at the state level this time, around those programs and services that they've used.
Karen Ponder:
Wow, that's impressive that half of your great start advisory council is family voices. I don't know anybody else that is that committed to families having a true voice in decision-making. When it comes right down to it, though, what do you think the secret sauce of these parent coalitions is? How do they exactly work and what do you think makes them most effective? Flavia?
Flavia:
I don't know that there's a secret sauce. I think each community finds the recipe to the secret sauce. I think that what makes them effective is that parents realize that they are in a place where they are valued and respected and cheered on. Parents feel attacked by many factors in our society, they feel less than, they feel like they are not equipped. So finding a place where they feel like they have what it takes to be a great parent, we are here to support you, we are here to encourage you, is very important. Establishing relationships with parents, listening and learning and supporting them. We are not in our roles to teach parents. We are there to support them and say, "What do you want to learn? How I can support your learning? Where do you want to go? Where do you want to express your voice and make things better for you, your family and your community?" In that they discover and they acknowledge their leadership skills.
Flavia:
Many parents don't realize that they are leaders. And every parent is a leader. You're leading a bunch of little ones or at least one. So you are a great leader. And when they realize that that's available to them and what is available to them in terms of community resources, they become the strongest advocates to support other parents and further the work of the whole early childhood system. I think parents are the most powerful voice for other parents to know what's available for them and join the early childhood system.
Karen Ponder:
Wow. I'm just curious because both of you started all of your early childhood work, your major early childhood work as parents, and then as parent leaders. And I'm wondering if it's common or is it typical for parents within the coalition to then move into positions of leadership as the two of you have? And was that unusual or is that more common?
Rachel:
No, that's pretty common. So one of the things that I think is unique about our parent liaisons and our parent coalitions is that we nurture other leaders within the parent coalition. And the idea with that is that if a parent liaison moves into another position, you've already grown leaders within the coalition who can step into that role naturally, whether it's just in the interim, because maybe they don't have more time to give, but they can help out in a little bit until you get another liaison, or if they want to step up into that role as their next position, they're their job for a little bit, but it's not uncommon.
Rachel:
We have parent liaisons. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of turnover, but for the better, because a lot of them go on to find other part-time or full-time work in the early childhood system. So they may become home visitation parent educators, or paraprofessionals in an early childhood classroom or teachers, if there's someone who is a parent working on a degree. But we have lots of people who've gone on to other roles like myself. We have directors of advocacy at nonprofits. We have some parent liaisons that have gone on to be their great start collaborative director. We have technical assistance consultants who've moved up within the system or moved around the state to provide other technical assistance. And even right now in our state legislature, the house of representatives minority leader used to be a parent liaison. So we have them at all levels right now.
Karen Ponder:
Wow. That's quite impressive. Talk about learning it from the ground up and then being a leader with all those skills. How incredible. Flavia, what else do you want to add to this?
Flavia:
I think many off the parent liaisons in Michigan started being members of the parent coalitions. When I moved to Oakland from Ottawa to lead the parent coalition here a few years back, one of the parents in our family coalition took on the work there. Like Rachel said, other parents became a family advocates for organizations. One of our parents moved to another county and she's running for city council member. So when I connected with her to congratulate her, she said that she had found her voice being part of the parent coalition. So that was very rewarding.
Karen Ponder:
I'm sure it was. Talk about seeing the fruits of your labor. In state and local house systems, we're always looking for results. And you've talked about some serious results already, but I'm wondering if you have other examples to share from the collaboratives or the coalitions about changes that have resulted directly from this community work?
Rachel:
Yeah. Hopefully, I can just narrow it down to a few. We have some counties who do diaper drives and gather donations for diapers, for families who was children are in childcare, but they may use cloth diapers at home. So in order to relieve that burden, they donate disposable diapers to childcare providers and families across their community. We have a multi-generational childcare center that just opened up in a community that the collaborative really brought all those partners together to see how they can attach this childcare center to an assisted living center and have that multi-generational approach to the learning there. We have other collaboratives, we have one that worked with their city and township leaders to change ordinances where public parks will now be non-smoking.
Rachel:
And that came directly from a parent coalition member who was having a hard time with their children with asthma, not being able to go to a park and have it be smoke-free. So another process that came from a parent in a coalition was this family had been referred to our part C of IDEA, which is zero to three special services. And there was no way to connect back with their pediatrician that they had been accepted into the program. So the pediatrician didn't know what their home visitor was also doing at home. So that collaborative figured out a way to connect both of those programs together, so pediatricians knew when their families were being accepted into those other services.
Rachel:
And there's another collaborative where every family who has a child within that community receives an initial home visit. And at that initial visit, the home visitor determines which program is best for the child and family, not just which home visiting program has an opening, because they could go to any program, but which one really fits that child and family's needs. So those are just a few that are the top of my head, but there's so many great work that is being done at the local level.
Karen Ponder:
Well, thank you for that. The list goes on of the success and the results from this work. Flavia, what would you like to add to this?
Flavia:
Oh, like Rachel said, there's so many things that are so exciting happening in all communities in Michigan. In Oakland, we have our literacy initiatives. These early literacy were created in partnership with parents. They brought their input in to our literacy work group. They decided what to do, where and how we connected with local libraries and especially since last year, we are distributing early literacy kids that not only provide materials for kids to be supported in their communication and the first steps into reading, but also is empowering for parents because it includes a guy that says, "Hey, did you know that when you read a sign on the street, you're already contributing building your child's brain towards literacy?"
Flavia:
So that really empowers parents, make them feel that they are not at any fault because a lot of parents are feeling a lot of guilt since last year. For reasons that are obvious to everybody, but it's been impactful because reviewing data from these projects, we had infant and toddler kit, and a preschool kid that included the guide, a book, activities that they can do with objects that we provided, but also that they could find in any house like a funnel or like a ruler or whatever. So we were reviewing data from these projects and over 90% of the families who received these kits and responded to our survey are reporting, reading, talking, and playing more often with their children. We wanted these kids not to be just a giveaway, but create habits, knowing that reading 10 minutes every night or every day with your child really makes an impactful difference.
Flavia:
And there was a parent that says, "This was a great idea. I love the accessibility and the tools that were provided for opportunities to work with my kids." So that is very encouraging. And another thing that is very important to us is to provide a space where parents can connect and find the early childhood resources that they need. Our community survey showed that parents said that they find it easy to use the services when they find them, but hard to find them. So many times we hear parents say, "Oh, I wish I knew this when I had my first child," or, "I wish I used this service when my child was born." So we have our parent line is one number the parents can call, text, they talk to a person, a real person, not a machine, and they can find the early childhood support they need and that they are available in our community.
Flavia:
They are local resources like developmental screening, early intervention, free preschool, social and emotional needs, home visiting programs. So everything that a family can have at their fingertips to help their child succeed is there available to them just by calling one number.
Karen Ponder:
I feel your passion, Flavia, as you speak about this work, I know how important it is to you. I'm wondering in just a few words, can you say what really gives this work meaning to you?
Flavia:
I think that what gives it a lot of meaning is that you never know what word or a door that opens to a parent can lead to. The ripple effect of a parent finding what they need, whether it's connection, supporting their parenting, the opportunity to use their voice, that can never be predicted. It's a multiplying effect in their life and in their child's and any other parents that they might be in contact with because they can share what they found with others. So I think that you can never tell where a door is going to open to and what other doors those parents can go through, that will make that community stronger and those families healthy and happy.
Karen Ponder:
Wow. I know really, Rachel thinking about you. I know how difficult it is to balance all the work at the state level. And I'm curious to know what really keeps you going in this day-to-day, hard early childhood work?
Rachel:
That's a really good question. I started in this work and my boys were three and four. And so now they are 19 and 17. And I just remember going through some of the challenges, just navigating the early childhood system. And I had support and I still had to figure out how to get them into childcare, how to get them into preschool, when we moved, when I became a single mom, how to navigate all of those things, and it was tricky and it was hard and I was in the system as a leader.
Rachel:
And so I continue to think about, even as they get older, that there are families that are still going through some of that. And I don't want things to be hard for them. When they have a baby, when they have little kids, they should be focused on everything that's going right. They shouldn't have to worry about navigating all of the stuff around them to make sure that their children are succeeding. So I really just want the system to work for those children. And so I probably won't be happy until the system really is working for them, instead of working the way the adults behind the desks want it to work.
Karen Ponder:
It reminds me of how important it is that parents are involved because you and Flavia came to this work as parents. And look what you've led, look how you've made changes and supported communities and supported other state partners. And you've changed things. You've changed outcomes for children and families. And I'm just grateful for your work. Michigan has led the nation in making parent coalitions a formal part of their early childhood system. And I just thank you both for all you've contributed to this groundbreaking work. It's such an inspiring and enlightening story and conversation. So thank you, Rachel and Flavia for sharing your thoughts with us today.
Rachel:
Thank you so much for asking us to be here. I'm glad we can share the Michigan story.
Flavia:
Yeah, thank you so much. I'm aware that I'm standing on the shoulders of a lot of people that are working with families and they have been working for way longer than I have, but we are just so happy that we have this opportunity to share what Michigan has been doing, supporting families and parents.
Karen Ponder:
Thanks for joining us for this episode. Please leave a review and rate us on Apple podcasts. It helps others find us. You can follow us there or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Critical Connections is a podcast from the BUILD initiative. It is produced by LA Antigua. Williams and Co. Coten Texeiro is our producer and sound designer. Jen Gian is our editor. BUILD initiative as a national organization that is a catalyst for change and support state leaders to develop equitable early childhood systems. BUILD assists state leaders from both the private and public sectors as they work to set policies, offer services, and advocate for young children and their families. If you would like to learn more about our guests or our organization, visit BUILD's website@buildinitiative.org. I'm Karen ponder. Thank you for listening.