Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 26, 2024
CONTACT
Julia Sclafani
Public Relations Specialist
Email: julia.sclafani@ececd.nm.gov
Mobile: (505) 699–5937
1120 Paseo De Peralta
Santa Fe, NM 87501
SANTA FE, NM – Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham this week hosted an early childhood summit with a diverse group of 200 participants resulting in new strategies to achieve a universal, accessible, high-quality early childhood system serving New Mexico families.
Participants in Wednesday’s summit included early childhood education professionals from state and Tribal programs, K–12, and higher education, as well as legislators, parents and caregivers, funders, advocates, healthcare providers, and national early childhood experts.
“New Mexico now has one of the model early childhood education and care systems in the nation,” said Gov. Lujan Grisham. “We are extremely proud of that, but there is more we can do to realize our vision of a fully universal, affordable, and high-quality prenatal-to-five system. This summit helped focus and clarify our plan to achieve our goal of building a comprehensive early childhood system that works for families and meets their needs.”
Elizabeth Groginsky, Secretary of the Early Childhood Education and Care Department moderated a discussion with Dr. Jack Shonkoff and Dr. Cynthia Osborn. Shonkoff is Founding Director of the Center of the Developing Child at Harvard University and Chair of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. He chaired the committee that produced the groundbreaking 2000 report, “From Neurons to Neighborhoods,” which continues to inform how researchers, policymakers, scholars, and practitioners understand child development. Dr. Cynthia Osborne is Founder and Executive Director of Peabody College’s Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt University.
“New Mexico has done more than just about any other state in the nation, to improve early childhood development,” Osborne said, lauding the state’s holistic approach. “The state has the funding mechanism to allow all the policies that you’ve enacted to be implemented and sustained.”
“A family centered system is a system in which…the politics and everything else is basically thinking about: How do we create an environment in which families are set up to raise healthy children? What do the adults who care for children need to kind of meet issues in their own lives?” Shonkoff said.
The Governor’s Early Childhood Summit included panels that explored:
- Strategies for businesses to support their workforce through partnerships with community child care providers.
- The state of early childhood workforce compensation and aligning pay with the value and importance of educators’ work.
- Perspectives from national child development experts on building a family-centered early childhood system.
- Insights from families on how New Mexico can create an early childhood system that is easier to access and navigate.
Summit participants engaged in action planning focused on policies and strategies that will advance a universal, high-quality early childhood system that is accessible and family-centered. Issues addressed included educator compensation; destigmatizing intervention services; designing integrated, holistic approaches to serving children with special needs; increasing the availability and quality of early education programs; and other topics vital to the future of early childhood education and care in New Mexico.
Since the beginning of the Lujan Grisham administration, New Mexico has made significant progress on early childhood development initiatives, including:
- Expanded income eligibility for child care assistance and waived parent copays to make child care free for thousands of New Mexico families.
- Added 10,000 additional slots to the state’s child care capacity.
- Achieved universal, free PreK for 4-year-olds and expanded PreK access to 53 percent of 3-year-olds.
- Expanded home visiting to all counties in New Mexico.
- Increased wages for child care professionals through pay parity initiatives and enhanced child care rates informed by sophisticated cost-modeling.
- Rank first in the nation in identifying children from birth to age 2 with developmental delays and disabilities.
The action plans from the Early Childhood Summit will build on the above achievements with added focus and momentum to continue building a family-centered early childhood system that families and children want and deserve.
Funding for the Early Childhood Summit was provided through a private-sector Early Childhood Governance and Financing grant.
GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM’S EARLY CHILDHOOD SUMMIT PHOTOS:
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Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham launched the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) in 2020, making New Mexico among the first states to consolidate all early childhood programs and services under a single cabinet-level agency. Under this administration, ECECD has led the nation by expanding access to free New Mexico PreK, overseeing the largest investment in early childhood infrastructure in state history, and implementing cost-free child care for a majority of New Mexico families. Learn more about how ECECD supports children, families, and the early childhood professionals that serve our communities at nmececd.org. On Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @NewMexicoECECD.