“It has been the purpose of this project, and all those who worked on it, to break silences…to open the way to bring the noise that knows. Good noise. Good noise that shows you love your children best. Good noise that articulates your wants, needs, and desires for your children…Good noise that speaks truths that need to be heard.”
– Sterling Freeman, CounterPart Consulting, speaking to parent leaders and advocacy organization partners
From May 2021 to June 2022, five state teams (Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington) set out to identify policy and advocacy priorities to increase access to Early Head Start and Head Start, placing special emphasis on partnering with families and promoting equity. A new paper from ZERO TO THREE, Breaking the Silence and Bringing Good Noise, highlights states’ experiences and lessons learned as they worked to develop sustainable parent partnership models with shared power and reexamine methods of early childhood advocacy with an equity lens.