Building community capacity to promote child wellbeing and achieve equity.
What would it look like if every child, parent, and family had equitable access to critical resources and opportunities needed to lead healthy, thriving lives — and had a seat at the table to drive the solutions?
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Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) is a national initiative to improve the capacity of local communities and coalitions to advance equity. The NOW Innovation Forum is a national network of peer communities working to promote child wellbeing and prevent early childhood adversities.
Launched in 2016, Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW) aims to build the capacity of local communities and coalitions working to promote child wellbeing and align early childhood systems of care and education by using a trauma-informed lens to advance equity.
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The NOW Innovation Forum brings together resources, stories, discussions, and other interactive tools in a central hub, to promote shared learning and networking among communities across the country that are working ensure all children and their families achieve optimal health and wellbeing. Learn more about the history of NOW, our vision and approach, and partners.
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View the recording and slides from our virtual tour of the NOW Innovation Forum.
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The NOW Innovation Forum is an initiative of the Vital Village Network at Boston Medical Center.
FEATURED STORIES
2019 National Community Leadership Summit
October 30 @ Boston, MA
Thank you to everyone who joined in and made the National Community Leadership Summit -- "Belong. Engage. Learn. Transform" -- possible. On October 30, we had over 400 committed and diverse leaders actively engage, learn, and build their skills in order to maximize child, family, and community wellbeing across the United States. Wisdom and expertise from over twenty states, multiple cultures, and traditions were harnessed to build our own capacities and engagement strategies to ensure all children and families have equitable access to the tools and resources needed to thrive.
Coalition Development
& Governance
Webinar Archive: "Strategies for Centering Equity in Early Care and Education"
Check out the archive from our November 7 webinar, featuring two peer mentor coalitions from the Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing (NOW). Learn from members of the California Consortium for Equity in Early Care and Education and Opportunity Knocks for Middletown's Young Children Community Collaborative around challenges, successes, and lessons learned as they work to address equity for children and families in their communities.
BECOME A MEMBER
NOW Innovation Forum members can network with peer communities, share best practices, contribute resources to the repository, and access learning tools, webinars, podcasts, and monthly communications. Check out the Member FAQ Guide for more information about member benefits.
Learn more about NOW's levers of community change — components we believe are critical to ensure the equitable transformation and alignment of community systems to move those most impacted by inequity from margin to center. Read more to find resources and tools designed to build capacity around these fundamental areas.
LEVERS OF COMMUNITY CHANGE
New Podcast Episode 5 Released!
We're excited to announce the release of a brand new episode of In the Arena with NOW, our new podcast series! In our fifth episode, Honoring Culture, Language, and Family: Stories from the Navajo Nation, we speak with members of McKinley County Early Childhood Coalition (MCECC) about the transformative efforts they are leading to promote healthy, prosperous, and empowered Native children and families. Based in Navajo Nation, New Mexico, MCECC seeks to eliminate health disparities and improve the wellbeing of American Indians and Alaska Natives in their community.
FEATURED RESOURCE
Urban Institute's new report, Segregated from the Start, describes racial and ethnic segregation across early childhood education settings in the U.S. serving five or more children, including home-based and unregulated providers. In addition to experiences in the home and in the community, early childhood education is a key place for addressing—or exacerbating—issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Most research has focused on the benefits of integration in elementary and secondary schools, even though schools have become more segregated. But segregation in early childhood programs is even more pronounced than in K–12 classrooms, and that separation can lead to missed opportunities for contact and kinship during a critical point in child development.
NOW LEARNING COMMUNITY
NOW is working with 10 community coalitions to the essential knowledge, skills, and tools to scale and sustain equitable transformation of early childhood, education, and health systems in their regions through the NOW Learning Community. Learning Community members can access a separate portal with information and resources to support their work over the next 18 months.