What is Making Space Matter?
Space matters! The physical characteristics of an early learning program shape the daily lives of children, staff, parents, caregivers and the broader community. Quality space supports children’s physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development – not only keeping them safe, but giving them the room to discover and relate to the world, which is critical for healthy growth. These early positive experiences take deep root in young kids and create the foundation for resilient, healthy adults who have a symbiotic relationship with their community and surroundings. Conversely, negative experiences with space can exacerbate existing trauma or can even be traumatic themselves. This is an equity issue: children in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities or from families with lower incomes are likely to face greater barriers to accessing quality facilities and stand to benefit most from across-the-board standards that create healthy, safe, stimulating and nurturing environments.
The body of research on how space affects children’s development and wellbeing is robust. For more than 40 years architects, educators, community developers and children’s champions have culled the research, written books, articles and guides. Comprehensive space assessment tools have been developed by government agencies and private entities. Looking at all this, the path forward is very clear. We know what children need. We know what teachers need. We know what communities need. There are pockets of promise and examples of excellence across the nation in providing the kind of facilities that kids deserve. We have been trapped by a culture of low expectations for our spaces and thus for our children. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Report
LISC has worked to gather copious resources on facility development and related strategies to develop a resource report and create a new toolkit that local champions across the nation can use to actively plan for an interconnected system of supports needed to finally get kids – and teachers – into the spaces they deserve. This work is complied into the report, Making Space Matter: The Path to the Child Care and Early Learning Facilities Our Kids Deserve.
The Toolkit
The Making Space Matter toolkit is a concrete, interactive, step-by-step guide to help craft child care and early learning facilities policies of the future. Our innovative toolkit walks users through assessing their existing state system of supports for child care facilities, covering all of the interconnected pieces that are needed to create meaningful and sustainable change. By the end of the module, leaders will have the information and tools they need to develop a detailed, actionable plans, using the categories of data/information, funding, policy, regulation, partnership and technical supports.
Who is the toolkit for?
Anyone who is interested is welcome to use the toolkit, but it was designed with the following audience in mind:
- State administrators overseeing child care early learning policies and funding streams
- State regulators
- Governor’s offices
- Local jurisdictions
- State & Regional Economic Development Authorities
- Advocates
- Funders and other market leaders
How does the toolkit work?
The toolkit walks users through a series of interrelated questions that form the foundation of a robust child care facilities support strategy. Implementing these interconnected pieces will help set your jurisdiction on a strong path for improved child care access and quality. Each question provides background and context and a series of prompts to help you honestly reflect on your response. Each question also launches you to a resource section filled with helpful tools and information to guide the implementation of any missing pieces.
You should anticipate that it will take you a total of 45 minutes to make your way through all of the questions. At the beginning you will be asked to set up a user name and password so that your answers will be saved. This allows you to complete the checklist in stages, coming back as often as you’d like to pick back up where you left off. Once you have reached the end of the checklist you can return to sections you may want to revisit or dig in further on resources available. At the end, will be able to print out a checklist of your responses that in turn can be turned into an action plan for your location. At any time if you need help navigating you can reach us at childcare@lisc.org.
This project was made possible thanks to funding and support from the Buffett Early Childhood Fund (special thanks to Eric Buchanan) and the Heising-Simons Foundation (special thanks to September Jarrett).
Content developed and produced by the National Child Care Team at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, 2022. Lead Staff on Project: Cecille de Laurentis, Assistant Program Officer, Cindy Larson, Senior Director and Bevin Parker-Cerkez, Senior Program Officer.
Supporting consultants on project: Maggie-Leigh O’Neill, Studio MLA Associates, Amy Friedlander, Clarion Research, LISC Rhode Island Child Care and Early Learning Facilities Fund Team, LISC Policy Team.
Design by CrossTrainer eLearning.
The framework of this toolkit pulls from decades of direct experience and expertise on this subject matter combined with a year’s long research study to validate assumptions. The content and direction represent the opinions of LISC based on this collective information.