Strong Starts for Children Background

Photo: Iroots Media

Youth Media Project’s Hannah Hilbrick interviews Maria Brock to create a video as part of telling the story of Strong Starts for Children.

In the spring of 2010, Everyday Democracy launched Strong Starts for Children. Through this initiative we're working closely with five communities in New Mexico to help them find ways for all kinds of people to talk, work, and take action together on issues related to the success of all children from birth to eight. Because children exist as part of families and communities, efforts to help children must support whole systems. In this initiative, people are working on such success factors as school readiness, linked systems for health and education, access for families to development and training for employment, financial literacy and educational opportunities.

As part of the initiative, Everyday Democracy is:

• helping communities build on what they are already doing, and involve all kinds of people in talking about and taking action on creating success for all children.
• providing resources and tools to sustain the kind of public participation that leads to problem solving, policy change, and improved conditions in all children’s lives, particularly those who are most vulnerable.

Generous funding for this initiative comes from the Our Voices, Our Children initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Our Voices, Our Children is aimed at engaging citizens and policymakers in talks about the future of early childhood development in New Mexico. These community and state-level dialogues will reveal perceptions, priorities and policy preferences, and ultimately help improve practices and programs.