Process & Partners

There were limitations to our work that we want to share to help inform any future participatory planning processes. For a full reflection of the limitations, please read the full Durham ECAP document, “Our Process.”

Systems change work requires building trust and trust-building requires sustained time. This is only the beginning and we hope to learn from these limitations to build a stronger network of local, early childhood changemakers.

Our biggest limitation was our ability to fully center voices from marginalized communities in Durham. Parents’ voices and the voices of those with lived experience navigating our early childhood systems must be central to any early childhood systems change efforts. Despite efforts to shift and respond to feedback along the way, we recognize that the design and nature of this planning process was not fully equitable. For instance, the parent survey respondents skewed wealthier, whiter, and highly educated. In response, trusted community leaders held focus groups and more targeted community conversations to prioritize needs, dreams, and ideas from BIPOC communities, particularly low-wealth BIPOC families.

The planning process itself shifted as well to move from larger workgroups to smaller action planning teams to address barriers that included language, meeting times, pacing, and communication style of the meetings. Despite these efforts, we recognize that we did not do enough to intentionally create accessible opportunities hear from parents with disabilities, LQBTQIA+ parents, Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, children, youth, parents who have lived experience with child protective services, and justice-involved parents. As we move forward, the implementation team will need to build relationships with trusted community leaders and members of these groups.

The other major limitation relates to the breadth of the plan. We made an intentional choice to focus on root-cause issues that drive disparities in early childhood outcomes, and this choice means that our plan is more comprehensive and far reaching than expected. Because of this, in addition to our not adequately engaging marginalized parents, we also were not able to fully leverage other types of expertise in our community that relate to all of the systems that are included in our plan. Follow-ups will be needed, and the plan may shift as we continue to learn from those with lived and content expertise in these areas.

It is with the deepest gratitude that we acknowledge all of the people who have come together to envision a better future for Durham’s children. The Durham Early Childhood Action Plan was made possible with the energy and commitment of more than 1,500 people across the County. We also acknowledge the many, many people and parents who we were unable to connect with directly due to barriers in the planning process. Each and every person in Durham has something to contribute to making our community a better place for children and families. We acknowledge that the land that Durham County occupies are the ancestral lands of the Shakori, Eno, and Tuscarora people and we acknowledge the violent history of settler colonialism. Today, North Carolina recognizes eight tribes: Coharie, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Saponi, Haliwa Saponi, Waccamaw Siouan, Sappony, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee. We recognize those peoples for whom these were ancestral lands as well as the many Indigenous people who live and work in the region today. (1) We acknowledge that in Durham we live, work, and raise our young children on stolen land.

We acknowledge that Durham has been built and developed on wealth extracted from the “labor of enslaved Africans and their ascendants who suffered the horror of the transatlantic trafficking of their people, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow. We are indebted to their labor and their sacrifice, and we must acknowledge the tremors of that violence throughout the generations and the resulting impact that can still be felt and witnessed today.” (2)

We choose to name the historical oppression and continued inequities throughout this report, but by no means intend to diminish the incredible strength and joy cultivated within communities that have experienced intergenerational trauma and systemic racism.

We also acknowledge the time, energy, wisdom and dedication that all ECAP participants have brought to this challenging process during a challenging year. There has been incredible collaboration and participation from people across our early childhood system. We are deeply grateful. A special thanks is owed to the diverse group of parents, community members, providers and leaders and the varying organizations and communities they represent.

Below we recognize the ECAP governing body, workgroup co-chairs and participants, action planning teams, review teams and advisors to the process.

(1) Duke University Student Affairs. “Land Acknowledgement.” Retrieved from: https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/cma/aboutus/land-acknowledgement.

(2) Diverse Issues in Higher Education. “On Labor Acknowledgements and Honoring the Sacrifice of Black Americans.” (February 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.diverseeducation.com/demographics/african-american/article/15108677/on-labor-acknowledgements-and-

honoring-the-sacrifice-of-black-americans.