Work, Families & Children

The purpose of the summit was to learn and engage with others about current research agenda opportunities and other opportunities for research, data, and design collaboration; share the latest research, data, and design insights with policymakers and others in the field; and co-create a roadmap and charge to develop a statewide early childhood policy research collaborative.

Participants were welcomed by WCW Interim Executive Director Georgia Hall, Ph.D., and Rep. Alice Peisch, Assistant Majority Leader of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. The afternoon discussion facilitated by Mo Barbosa, Senior Director of Community Engagement at Health Resources in Action, focused on crafting next steps for a coordinated, aligned collaborative of early childhood researchers, data analysts, and designers.

“It is time to come together to share what we know and what we want to know, now and into the future,” said WCW Senior Research Scientist Dr. Wendy Wagner Robeson, who organized the summit along with Dr. Kimberly Lucas, Professor of the Practice in Public Policy and Economic Justice at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, and Dr. Kyle DeMeo Cook, Research Assistant Professor at the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development at Boston University.

Presentations from Strategies for Children, the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), and the Massachusetts Education-to-Career Research and Data Hub focused on their respective statewide research agendas and available data. Given the day’s emphasis on collaboration, they also pointed out where they saw opportunities to work together and invited further conversation. 

When conceptualizing frameworks for child care decision- making, there should be acknowledgements that parents need to navigate their preferences and contextual realities, but also that the systems and structures into which those are embedded include constraints that manifest into what are often difficult tradeoffs.