Equity from the Start: Worcester’s vision of child care that works for everyone

Members of Together For Kids Coalition in Worcester, Mass., have a vision of achieving “Equity from the Start,” a system of early education and care that works for all families.

To achieve this vision the Coalition had families who live in the Main South, Bell Hill, and Vernon Hill neighborhoods meet with a team of Clark University graduate students. 

“This project highlighted important issues such as the lack of trust within the child care system and the fact that providers are underpaid and under-resourced,” Ella Henry explains. Henry is one of the graduate students who worked as a research assistant on the project.

“The families looked at Worcester data with the students and discussed the ways they felt the data did and did not represent their life experiences,” the nonprofit organization Edward Street Child Services explains on its Facebook page.

Parents answered four guiding questions:

• “What factors drive the persistence of EEC deserts in the Vernon Hill, Bell Hill, and Main South neighborhoods?”

• “What resources do families in these neighborhoods rely on to take care of their young children?”

• “What barriers do they face when attempting to access formal EEC?” and

• “What are the systemic barriers to providing EEC in these three neighborhoods?”

Edward Street adds, “The results are shared in powerful posters that convey neighborhood assets and challenges and will stimulate dialogue on what more Worcester can do to support families with young children in the city.”

Funding for the project comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The posters — printed in English and Spanish — tell a sadly familiar story: child care is too expensive; there aren’t enough child care spots to meet working families’ needs; and public funding largely focuses on families with the lowest incomes.

The posters also share parents’ voices and point to the problem of child care deserts.

Henry, the graduate student who worked on the project, is excited about its potential.

“One thing that this project could do,” Henry says, “is help improve the early childhood delivery system. It could lead to more funding for providers, especially home-based providers who more commonly lack resources. The state could also create a central hub to assist families with processes like applying for a voucher, finding subsidized care, and navigating waiting lists.”

There’s more work to do. Worcester has more children than child care spots.

So if you’re a Worcester parent, please join the conversation to ensure that all the city’s child care programs keep their focus on providing “Equity From the Start” of children’s lives.