Black Child Development Institute - Atlanta

Early care and education (ece)bcdi-atlantas 3rd annual culturally responsive early education & care summit welcomed 120 stakeholders and included two days of professional Development focused on the theme: diversifying leadership - an in-person summit on wednesday, february 23, 2022, @ 8:30 am-4:00 pm at the loudermilk conference center in Atlanta, ga and a virtual summit on thursday, february 24, 2022. Session topics related to five tracks: early learning, family engagement, health & wellness, leadership & advocacy, and school transition.

Health & wellnessbcdi-atlanta joined forces with the national choose healthy life initiative as the organizational lead for the Atlanta choose healthy life local project. This collective effort with 14 local Black churches impacted over two million people through education outreach on culturally relevant health and preventive care practices, including 10,745 covid-19 vaccinations and 7,234 covid-19 tests.

Family engagementthe bcdi-atlanta powerful families program (pfp) works to improve connections for low-income families in greater Atlanta. The program focuses on creating opportunities for and addressing the needs of both children and their families together, to create improved family economic stability. In partnership with our national office, nbcdi, fulton county family connection, ymca of metro Atlanta, fulton county public schools, and sheltering arms, pfp 2022 served 40 early educators and families with education and career goal-setting, professional Development opportunities, and over 250 early literacy toolkits containing educational resources to build classroom or home libraries totaling over 2,500 childrens picture books.

Policy & advocacylifted voices is a multi-tiered approach designed to systematically address the programmatic needs of diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice. In 2022, 15 expand ece (early care & education) fellows received a year-long intensive training, coaching and mentoring program, which informed their completion of an independent diversity, equity and inclusion (dei) project/campaign, education and career plan, and leadership & advocacy profile. In partnership with Georgia budget & policy Institute and fund georgias future, 5 fellows were enrolled in our 6-month lifted voices fellowship, which included the Development of policy campaigns, planning our annual policy briefing, and participating in advocacy day at the capitol.