https://www.fcd-us.org/a-letter-from-president-and-ceo-vivian-tseng-advancing-social-justice-for-young-children/
At the Foundation for Child Development (FCD), both the stark inequalities unveiled by the pandemic and the inspiration sparked by mass protests for racial justice compel us to work towards a more just world for the next generation.
Children of color have become the majority of our child population, yet we are far from being a society that fully values them and enables them to reach their potential.
Over the past year, our Board and staff have engaged in deep reflection and exploration as we consider how we will meet this moment. We are looking back at our history, looking out at the needs and opportunities for young children in this social and political moment, and looking forward to chart our future directions.
As we embark on FCD’s next chapter, five principles will guide our journey:
- Center children marginalized by racism, xenophobia, and
economic inequality, - Work at the nexus of research, policy, and practice to benefit
children, - Take a clear-eyed view of history and learn from it,
- Navigate our journey through inclusive dialogue, and
- Act with respect and care for our relationships.
Below, I share our observations from our look backward, discuss our initial insights as we look outward and forward, and invite readers to dialogue with us to improve our thinking and work in the years ahead.
LOOKING BACKWARD: FCD IN THE MODERN ERA
“You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you have been.”
Author Maya Angelou’s words resonate as we reflect on FCD’s past work and seek inspiration for its future. This summer, I reviewed our Annual Reports from the past 50 years, and in the voices of our past leaders, I discovered a pattern of organizational development akin to child development — a delicate balance of continuity and change.
Our legacy as “a small foundation with big ideas” was articulated two decades ago by Board Chair Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and President Ruby Takanishi. “We identify new ideas for improving children’s lives, convene multiple stakeholders to pursue these ideas, and fund creative, budding initiatives.” Those words launched the Foundation’s commitment to PreK-3rd, a national movement to align systems of public education for children from early childhood through elementary school, an endeavor that continues to this day through the efforts of the National P-3 Center, New America Foundation, Campaign for Grade-level Reading, and many others including a recent call from the United States Department of Education to make “Kindergarten a sturdy bridge” for children’s educational transitions. While the Foundation’s big ideas have shifted over time, our leaders have consistently looked out onto the horizon to chart its course.
Partnership has been another hallmark of FCD’s work. In the late 1970s and 1980s, FCD President Orville “Bert” Brim partnered with the William T. Grant Foundation to establish SRCD’s Congressional Fellows Program and Washington, DC policy office, bridging developmental science with public policy. Bert was also a proponent of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaborations well before it was popular. He “encourage[d] people from disciplines not traditionally concerned with children to bring their talents to bear on the major economic, legal, social, and political issues that impact children.”
FCD’s unique niche in philanthropy is bridging research with policy and practice. In the 1970s, President Robert Slater underscored the need to make research of practical use to benefit children. This concern has been consistently upheld by each successive president, most recently by Jacqueline Jones, who championed research to support and strengthen the early care and education workforce. The challenge
of making research useful, used, and impactful persists today, but we are fortunate that the Foundation can leverage recent advancements in democratizing evidence, research on research use, and engaged research to accelerate our progress.
In today’s times when patience often runs thin, I take pride in leading a Foundation that embraces a sense of moral urgency while operating with a long time horizon. FCD’s leaders have tackled big problems over extended periods, evolving their strategies as they learn more and the context around them shifts. The Foundation learned its way into the PreK-3rd initiative, for example, by first focusing on transitional kindergarten, then universal Pre-K, and then the alignment of the early education and K-12 systems. Philanthropy is at its best when we can evolve and adapt to deliver more tomorrow given what we learn today.
LOOKING OUTWARD AND FORWARD: SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
“Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society.”
Activist Yuri Kochiyama inspires our future directions in today’s troubling social and political context. We are committing to young children marginalized by racism, xenophobia, and economic inequality and advancing a more just society for them. Centering children at the margins may seem intuitive, but while work is often conducted in their name, efforts are too seldom guided by their lived experiences and their parents’ hopes for them. Despite decades of critique, the research and policy communities are laden with deficit views of children of color and their parents. While research on communities of color has grown, research agendas are too seldom guided by the goals that marginalized communities have for themselves and instead are shaped by what others think should be studied. The same can be said for policy and advocacy agendas designed by policy elites and system leaders. Bringing impacted community perspectives from the margins to the center of our research, policy, and advocacy agendas can aid us in “reimagining the possibilities.”
Over the coming year, our new Social Justice for Young Children Conversation Series will feature guest bloggers and webinar speakers from diverse academic disciplines, social justice movements, and local, state, and national advocacy efforts. By forging connections between early childhood research, policy, and advocacy on one hand and immigrant, racial, and economic justice movements on the other, we hope to uncover powerful synergies to benefit the youngest in our communities.
Amidst the bleak moments of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government passed a package of policies — covering childcare, health, nutrition, housing, and paid leave — that slashed child poverty nearly in half. In partnership with Olivia Golden, a distinguished child advocate, we are identifying lessons from the organizing and advocacy efforts that led to that historic, though temporary, success. Olivia has interviewed about 20 leaders spanning traditional early childhood advocates to parent leaders to social justice organizers. We are compiling those lessons for a co-authored 2024 FCD publication. A sneak preview is in Olivia’s FCD Conversation Series blog post. Partnering with The CARE Fund, we also co-hosted a convening to collectively reflect on the lessons learned and their implications for coalition-building and advocacy to cement the pandemic-era policies that benefited children and families as the status quo.
This year, we extend our warmest congratulations to the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) on its 50th anniversary. FCD, an early funder of CDF in 1973 when it was known as the Washington Research Project, is pleased to support the next era of CDF’s work to safeguard child well-being under Reverend Dr. Starsky Wilson’s leadership. As we observe the evolving landscape of child advocacy, we particularly appreciate CDF’s commitment to organizing and power-building alongside its policy activities. A crucial goal of both our organizations is elevating the voices of those most impacted by systemic inequality, and we look forward to learning alongside CDF as it positions children and youth more firmly at the center of policy advocacy.
Because young children’s well-being is intimately tied to that of their parents, child advocacy should be more attuned to the racial and economic realities faced by their families. Parents’ expertise on their children’s lives and their policy priorities deserves greater amplification in advocacy agendas. As we learn our way into a social justice frame that includes immigrants at the center, we’re proud to support the Center for Law and Social Policy, United Parent Leaders Action Network, and Children Thrive Action Network (CTAN) in developing a parent leadership program to inform policy advocacy agendas. They are building on their prior work to identify parents’ immigration policy priorities and incorporate them into CTAN’s strategic advocacy plans.
I am heartened by the dedication and collective wisdom that serve as guideposts for the Foundation’s continued evolution. Organizations are — at their heart — people, and I wish to end by expressing my gratitude to our committed staff, wonderful Board of Directors, and the terrific consultants who have been instrumental in our work this past year.
Vivian Tseng, Ph.D.
President and CEO
This President and CEO letter is a highlight from FCD’s 2022-2023 Annual Report: Continuity & Change.