As the NBCDI advances its “Eight Essential Outcomes” for childhood learning—health, education, nutrition, digital safety, representation, climate, narratives and safe community—the organization seeks to align with the local partners who can bring those opportunities to life. As NBCDI’s Vice President of National Partnerships and Community Mobilization, Allyson Jones leads that effort.
Why was the Undisputed World Champion in the Super Featherweight Division at a conference on early childhood learning? Because at some point in life, we all need to step into the ring, and before any of us does, “it's important that every child knows what confidence is.”
Sesame Workshop’s Antonio Freitas and Melicia Whitt-Glover, Executive Director at the Council on Black Health, explain how to bring the Workshop’s Whole-Child Wellness resources to your town, and how powerful that impact can be.
Fresh off his first book, Touchdown Time, Bryson Best took time to discuss his writing process, and how sports and education connect. As Bryson notes, the key to succeeding in either environment is the same: you have to put in the work.
From the area they call “The 757,” BCDI-Hampton Roads is focused on literacy and parent engagement – from giving away books to holding parent workshops and beyond. And President Darlene Walker leads the way.
Dr. Anita Fleming-Rife was born and educated in Iowa, “a product of Des Moines Public Schools back when Iowa was number one in the country in terms of education.” Now, as BCDI-Iowa Village President, she has returned home to work with educators, parents and more to build childhood learning in alignment with Iowa’s traditional place of educational excellence.
BCDI-Atlanta recently released its State of the Black Child Report Card for Georgia, which identified several paths for immediate improvement, from supporting positive discipline to end suspensions and expulsions, to supporting the social-emotional development and mental health of Black children. As President, Dr. Bisa Batten Lewis explains, it’s all with the goal to address the group’s three key focus areas: Early care and education, literacy and family engagement.
With experience from around the world, the President of BCDI-Carolinas compellingly synthesizes what she sees as the root challenge to early childhood learning: Mindset. Dr. Devonya Govan-Hunt outlines the five ways she and her colleagues have set out to tackle that obstacle, with special focus on excessive disciplinary actions in preschools.
Dr. Joan Lombardi has spent her career exploring early childhood learning from multiple perspectives: policy, public sector, private sector, university and more. Among her current efforts is leveraging unique survey data and insights to identify “material hardships” that parents face, and identifying new ways to empower communities to advance the developmental continuum and—in Dr. Lombardi’s words—“raise the barn” together.
As Senior National Education Administrator for T-Mobile for Education, Dr. Kiesha King helps oversee T-Mobile’s Project 10Million, a $10.7 billion effort to bridge the digital divide by providing access to devices to “ensure internet access is not a barrier to a child's education.”
NBCDI President Dr. Leah Austin discusses how the 52-year-old national organization that focuses on the healthy child development of Black children takes its mission and message to all U.S. communities, working with key local leaders, educators and parents to improve education, as well as offering key lessons from the NBCDI’s Early Years Climate Action Task Force.
Dr. Raquel Martin, a licensed clinical psychologist, professor and scientist, describes how black mental wealth encompasses mental health and well-being “because mental health and physical health and the way individuals are treated in society are all linked.” And shares how we all can start to address the challenge by first seeing “children as children.”
