A Collaborative Effort

NH ChILD is a cross-sector community initiative working to ensure that all New Haven children birth to 8 have access to Ideal Learning opportunities 

NH ChILD is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the early landscape in New Haven with the goal of providing quality care and education to all children aged birth to 8. Our work is focused on expanding access to early care and improving the quality of care provided with a particular focus on our poor and marginalized communities – most especially our black and brown children and their families. We do this work collectively as we build on the strength of the existing early childhood community in New Haven, including dedicated leadership from the New Haven Early Childhood Council, the City of New Haven, and New Haven Public Schools among others.

Central to our mission is the concept of ideal learning, which emphasizes learning activities grounded in children’s interests, abilities, and talents. To ensure all children are able to experience an ideal learning environment, we aim to increase access by increasing the number of early childhood spaces available, increasing public funding to early care, and establishing a comprehensive online system so that families can easily find resources to meet their early care needs. Additionally, we strive to improve quality through creating strong partnerships with parents, creating opportunities for ongoing professional development for early childhood educators, and strengthening access to high quality local early childhood education degree granting programs.

 

Our vision:

New Haven Children’s Learning District (NH ChILD) envisions a city where all 15,000 children ages birth to age 8 living in New Haven have access to high-quality early learning experiences.

 

Our Guiding Principles:

A commitment to equity; just and fair inclusion into a society in which all participate, prosper, and reach their full potential.

Our work is anchored in world-renowned, developmentally-appropriate, place-based, culturally-relevant, early childhood approaches.

Parents, caregivers, educators, and community stakeholders influence, inform, and shape our collective work.

 

Our Core Values:

  • Integrity
  • Honesty
  • Accountability
  • Continuous Learning

 

Our Approach:

  • Place-based
  • Bold, ambitious, and charts new ground in early childhood education in New Haven
  • Adaptive, anchored in continuous learning, and committed to innovation and experimentation
  • Inclusive
  • Action-oriented
  • Responsive, instructive, and gracious

Executive Director

Wendy Waithe Simmons, Ph.D.

Executive Director
New Haven Children’s Ideal Learning District

Dr. Wendy Waithe Simmons is the Executive Director New Haven ChILD. She is also a licensed psychologist with more than 25 years of experience working with children and families. Throughout her career, she has been involved in the lives of children and families through teaching, direct clinical service, consultation, program development, and research in both educational and clinical settings. She believes that all children deserve to have the opportunity to…
  • Board of Directors

    The NH ChILD Board of Directors meets regularly to provide fiduciary governance for the organization. Members support NH ChILD’s strategic vision and missions while providing sound stewardship. Activities includes adopting sound ethical and legal policies, oversight of the fiscal management policies and practices, organizational advocacy, as well as the hiring and supervision of the Executive Director.

    Founding
    Advisory Council

    The New Haven Founding Advisory Council is the community of stakeholders responsible for the initial vision and strategic direction of NH ChILD. They will continue to advise the Executive Director and support the programmatic efforts the organization.

    Stakeholders
    Advisory Council

    This group of dedicated individuals represent those who are directly impacted by the work of NH ChILD. They are the parents of children ages birth to 8 and/or direct service providers to that age group. Every day they interact with children, either their own or those that they serve, and are uniquely able to inform NH ChILD’s programmatic goals and strategies.

Advisory Council

Sarah Arnold

Public Policy and Outreach Coordinator, Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN)
Doctoral Student, Wheelock School of Education, Boston University

Erik Clemons

CEO, ConnCAT
Leader, Community Leadership Program
Member, State Board of Education

James Comer, MD, MPH

Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center
Associate Dean, Yale School of Medicine

Camille Cooper

Lecturer in the Child Study Center
Director of Teaching and Learning for the School Development Program

Karen DuBois-Walton Ph.D.

Executive Director, Elm City Communities
Housing Authority of the City of New Haven
Leader, Community Leadership Program

Sarah Fabish

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
New Haven Early Childhood Council

Chrisanne Gayl

Senior Director, Policy and Programs

Eliza Halsey

Executive Director, Elm City Montessori School

Jennifer Heath

President and CEO
United Way of Greater New Haven

Peg Oliveira Ph.D.

Executive Director, Gesell Program in Early Childhood at the Yale Child Study Center

Jessica Powell, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Education
Early Childhood Education Programs Coordinator
Co-Director, Educational Justice Collective (Formerly Urban Ed Fellows)
School of Education
Southern Connecticut State University

Ellen Roche

Executive Director, Trust for Learning

Helen Rosenberg

Economic Development Officer
City of New Haven Office of Economic Development

Allyx Schiavone

Executive Director,
Friends Center for Children
Fellow, Community Leadership Program Member,
New Haven Early Childhood Council
Member, School Readiness Provider

Emily Sharrock

Associate Vice President, Strategy & New Program Design, Bank Street College

Fahd Vahidy

Philanthropic Advisor,
Graustein Family Office

Janna Wagner

Co-Founder/Chief Learning Officer, All Our Kin

Local Capacity For an Ideal Learning District

New Haven is well poised to serve as a national model for a place-based pilot around Ideal Learning given its size, diversity, capacity, and commitment to early childhood. Given the close parallel between the demographics of New Haven and other urban areas in the U.S., there is tremendous potential to create a program that can be replicated across the country.

New Haven is a diverse urban center with a population of 130,418, which is 33% African American, 30% Caucasian, 30% Hispanic, 5% Asian, and 3% two or more races

New Haven Race/Ethnicity

“Investing in our children in their early years enhances their development and leads to success in later years. We have to make sure that every child is safe, fed, supported, educated and loved. EVERY CHILD!!!” – U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro

New Haven Children’s Ideal Learning District (NH ChILD) stands with Black and Brown communities against systemic oppression. A commitment to equity is one of our core principles to change the early care and education system. We are aware that too many of our structures and systems are rooted in racist and sexist policies and that early care and education is just one of those systems. The unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only the most recent examples. Our children are watching. Black and Brown children and their families do not have the luxury of ignoring these injustices, and it hurts them. It is traumatizing. As anti-racist leaders, we at NH ChILD call for our city’s leaders to provide equitable access to everything children need to grow up healthy and resilient in our city, including the right to walk our streets unharmed.

Read “Towards Equity and Justice: Reimagining a Strong, Holistic, and Integrated Early Care and Education System in 2020″

NH ChILD was conceptualized by Bank Street College of Education and the Friends Center for Children with support from the Trust for Learning (TFL) and the TFL’s Ideal Learning Roundtable. NH ChILD incorporates the principles of Ideal Learning, as defined by the Trust for Learning’s Ideal Learning Roundtable1, as the foundational approach to quality. With initial funding from the Trust for Learning, NH ChILD was launched in 2017 with the release of the Making the Case document and incorporated in 2019.

The Trust for Learning convenes and supports the Ideal Learning Roundtable (ILR) as part of its mission to expand ideal learning approaches to serve all children. At the time, the ILR consisted of the following approaches: Reggio Emilio, Friends Center for Children, Bank Street College of Education, and Montessori.