First Steps: Reflections on Progress
The Sandbox: Thoughts from the Executive Director (March 2025)
I stepped into the Executive Director role of the Children’s Opportunity Alliance in 2022 with a clear vision: to ensure that every child in Montgomery County had access to high-quality early care and education. As a parent, social worker, and advocate, I have studied, lived, and breathed the values of service to others and fighting for social justice, especially in our own community. And as a mom of three children, I understand firsthand the challenges that come with finding quality child care. I’ve experienced the financial strain and the stress of searching for reliable care, and, most importantly, I’ve witnessed how critical the early years of a child’s development are for their future success.
The effects of America’s rapidly shifting political and economic landscape are being acutely felt here in the DMV region — many families are struggling to stay afloat. This trying time has strengthened the Alliance’s resolve that high-quality early care and education is not only a critical public good for all in Montgomery County, but that the creation and growth of a robust system is a responsibility we all share. It takes a village to raise a child, and we are stronger as a community when we have systems in place to support children and families. Today, we’ve reached a pivotal moment: the groundwork for our shared agenda is set, and we are shifting our focus to the practices and strategies that will rapidly expand access and affordability to meet the needs of our children, our families, and our community at large.
Meeting the Moment
The child care crisis is not new. The U.S. system has been massively underfunded for generations, and the pandemic laid bare the importance of child care, both to the growth and well-being of our youngest community members and the stability and success of our economy. The well-documented child care challenges are nationwide, opportunity gaps continue to grow, and they can only be addressed through collective effort and creative solutions. Now is the time for systems-level change.
Our work toward this goal is rooted in national best practices around collective impact, systems-building, and equity. The well-known “The Water of Systems Change” report (from Kania, Kramer, and Senge) provides a framework for our efforts:
1. Systems change is about advancing equity by shifting the conditions that hold a problem in place.
2. To fully embrace systems change, leaders should be prepared to see how their own ways of thinking and acting must also change.
3. Shifts in system conditions are more likely to be sustained when working on three different levels of change together: structural, relational, and transformative.
The creation of the Children’s Opportunity Alliance was a critical first step toward transformative change – in which all our children, ages 0-5, have access to high-quality early care and education opportunities. Over the past two years, we have built our Foundational Action Plan, learning the nuances of our system of early care and education through time spent in child care centers, speaking with families, and studying the data, and piloting new ideas to strengthen our system and improve outcomes for the youngest members of our community. We’ve also spent time building relationships and connections with families, providers, and decision-makers at every level, ensuring that our work is informed by a wide array of perspectives and experiences.
A Map for Progress
One example of how the conditions of systems change have shaped our work is seen in our Common Agenda process. Over the past six months, we have prioritized engaging the perspectives of those who are closest to the issues we’re aiming to address – parents, caregivers, early childhood educators, child care center directors, and local business owners. Through community conversations and listening sessions, we’ve forged relationships and connections that have allowed us to gather valuable insights and better understand the needs in the community – and how to best address them. This process has resulted in our Common Agenda, presented to the County Council in February. This spring, we are kicking off work groups to advance this ambitious agenda.
Each month, I’ll be sharing more about our work, our progress, and the issues that matter most to the community. I’d love for you to follow along as we work together to build a stronger early care and education system for our entire County.
By Kimberly Rusnak