In this episode, we take you inside the 2025 ECLA Summit, where early childhood leaders gathered to confront the troubling rise in Black youth suicidality. Featuring powerful insights from advocate Tandra Rutledge, along with reflections from Erikson’s Policy & Leadership staff and ECLA fellows, this episode explores how early childhood professionals can “find the baby” in urgent community issues and lead lasting, transformative change across sectors.

Show Notes: 

• ECLA Webpage
• Tandra Rutledge 
  • LinkdeIn
  • Board of Directors
• Supportive Mental Health Resources 
  • Suicide Among Illinois Youth 
  • Issue Brief: Black Youth Suicide Prevention 
  • Suicidal Behavior Among Illinois Youth LGBTQ 
• Black Caucus’ Sounding the Alarm Report
• Birth to Five Regional Reports 
• Food Security Episode 
  • Finding the Baby: Food Justice, Part 1 
  • Finding the Baby: Food Justice, Part 2 

Erikson’s Policy and Leadership staff, Atena Danner and Penny Smith, continue unpacking a conversation with Chef Greg Christian of Beyond Green Partners, an organization making fresh food for preschool students in Chicago and its suburbs. Families often do not have access to healthy, fresh foods in their communities, leaving them fewer choices for their dinner table. Examining the flaws of food distribution systems and the policies of food supplement programs is needed to increase access.

Show Notes:
Erikson’s Food Security Call to Action contains opportunities to advocate for policies on food security issues as well as funding opportunities to introduce health foods to children: Food Security Call to Action.pdf.

Learn more about Chef Greg's organization, Beyond Green Partners.

Erikson’s Policy and Leadership staff, Atena Danner and Penny Smith, talk about food security and ensuring children get quality and fresh foods, but also food that connects with their different cultures. They respond to an interview with Chef Greg Christian of Beyond Green Partners, an organization making fresh food for preschool students in Chicago and its suburbs, who explains the need to teach children the relationship between food and health.

Show Notes:
Learn more about Chef Greg's organization, Beyond Green Partners, and watch the "Grow Food" video created by youth from Appetite For Change's Summer 2016 Youth Employment & Training Program.

Who suffers the consequences as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? Erikson Institute’s  Atena Danner and Verónica Cortez break down the racial inequities, the policy implications, and other domino effects of how babies and their families are impacted.

For more information on how Roe v Wade affects laws in your state, visit https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/.

To view data on maternal morbidity rates in Illinois, visit https://riskandreach.erikson.edu/.

Illinois State Representative Sonya Harper and early childhood advocate and specialist at Chicago Public Schools, Jennifer Alexander talk about an incident where it appears Englewood, a Black community in Chicago, was the intended target for a mass shooting. The two alum from Erikson’s Early Childhood Leadership Academy talk about addressing trauma and gun violence in communities.

For more details on the incident, please visit these news story links on the Chicago Sun-Times and Fox 32 Chicago websites.

We continue our journey by looking at a system where we rarely consider our children, the criminal legal system. When parents enter this system and are waiting in jail, how do we support their children and the unexpected caregiver now responsible for taking care of them? In this episode we gain the worldview of Debra Vines, Founder and CEO of The Answer Inc. who helps us explore this issue as she shares her story on how coming in contact with the criminal justice system impacted her family.

Email us your ideas and thoughts on this topic at [email protected] 

We talked with President and CEO of Illinois Action for Children, April Janney, on the new Maria Whelan Leadership Institute and Early Childhood Emerging Leaders Fellowship launching this summer. This new fellowship builds leadership capacity at the mid-career level, which is key in nurturing and increasing the pool of new and diverse leaders in the field. Together with this new initiative and our programs at Erikson Institute that focus on established leaders, the pipeline of early childhood leaders and people of color at decision-making tables will grow in numbers.

Learn more about the fellowship: https://bit.ly/3tkdMkT

We continue our discussion on Health, Racial Equity and Early Childhood from Episode 1, but now from a legislative perspective as Illinois State Senator Omar Aquino discusses legislation that can improve health outcomes for children and families throughout the state.

Discussion on the intersection of Health, Racial Equity and Early Childhood with Dr. Diana Derige, vice president of Health Equity Strategy at American Medical Association and Dr. Tina Sacks, associate professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare and author of the book “Invisible Visits: Black Middle Class Women in the American Healthcare System.”