There’s a mental health crisis in America. If we want to turn that around, we need to start from the very beginning of a person’s life. Gloria speaks to Terri Chebot, an infant mental health consultant, about the huge role that childcare providers play in children’s emotional and social growth. With so much on the line from the ages of 0-5, how caregivers handle a child’s emotions is everything. Then, we hear from Grace Blanco, the director of an early learning center in Newark, N.J.. Grace saw firsthand how the pandemic delayed children’s development. But through patience and a lot of individual attention, she also saw them bounce back. 

Special thanks to our partners who have made this season possible! 

This series is produced with Neighborhood Villages. Neighborhood Villages is a Massachusetts-based systems change nonprofit. It envisions a transformed, equitable early childhood education system that lifts up educators and sets every child and family up to thrive. In pursuit of this vision, Neighborhood Villages designs, evaluates, and scales innovative solutions to the biggest challenges faced by early childhood education providers and the children and families who rely on them, and drives policy reform through advocacy, education, and research. Visit www.neighborhoodvillages.org to learn more. 

This season was made possible with generous support from Imaginable Futures, a global philanthropic investment firm working with partners to build more healthy and equitable systems, so that everyone has the opportunity to learn and realize the future they imagine. Learn more at www.imaginablefutures.com.

 This series is presented by The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation.

This series is presented by the Bainum Family Foundation. Through their WeVision EarlyEd initiative, they are elevating the voices of families and early childhood professionals, their “proximity experts,” to generate equitable and practical solutions to make the ideal vision of child care in America real. You can learn more at wevisionearlyed.org. 

This season is presented by The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, an organization working to improve the lives of individuals living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage throughout the world. Learn more at hiltonfoundation.org. 

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