Child Care Aware® of America has launched a new project to pilot Vroom® as a tool to drive narrative change and build the capacity of families as child care advocates, as part of a three-year grant from the Bezos Family Foundation.
The Family Advocacy Subgrant and Community of Practice leverages Vroom as a family engagement tool to equip families with information on early brain development and strengthen families’ support for children’s learning and development. Vroom is a global program that provides free, science-based tips and resources that empowers families to play a proactive role in their children’s early brain development.
The program will equip community-based child care partners to support families as strong advocates capable of driving policy action. Subgrants have been awarded so far to Futures First (Kansas), thread (Alaska), Child Care Choices (Ohio), Child & Family Resources, Inc. (Arizona), and PATCH (Hawaii), to further advocacy efforts in their communities. Family advocates recruited and trained by the participating organizations will engage in various advocacy activities, such as storytelling, digital connections, meeting with decisionmakers in person, and even leading their own advocacy efforts with other parents.
CCAoA has worked for over 10 years with Vroom, and has successfully utilized and supported the implementation of Vroom in CCR&R organizations across the nation, bringing the science of early brain development and executive function-based skills to families and child care through everyday moments. This project will build upon CCAoA’s successful history of Vroom outreach coupled with proven advocacy capacity building strategies.
We look forward to continuing to expand our work with Vroom and the Bezos Family Foundation.