Dear Partners and Friends,
As we have stepped into 2025, we want to reflect on the progress we made together in the past year and express our deepest gratitude for your unwavering support of the Mississippi Forum For the Future. 2024 was a year of increased awareness about the need for state-of-the-art, affordable, and accessible early childhood system for families and the growth of cross sector partnerships for babies. It is your dedication and collaboration that made these achievements possible. Together, we are creating a stronger foundation for children across Mississippi.
Looking back at the last half of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025
Strengthening Partnerships
In June 2024, Forum members met with new Mississippi prenatal-to-three colleagues at the National Coalition for Infants and Toddlers (NCIT) five-state convening in Little Rock, Ark. This event led to new partnerships and connections between economic justice, maternal health, and early education leaders in Mississippi.
The State of Mississippi Babies: A Deeper Look
Forum members came together in August 2024 to review the State of Babies in Mississippi report. We also heard from the Systems Change Lab of the Social Sciences Research Center at MSU and The Center for Mississippi Health Policy. This event launched the Forum’s Steering Committee on a journey to explore and prioritize economic security and family stability issues. We will share our draft policy priorities on child and maternal health for coalition-wide discussion in early 2025.
Advancing Child Care Policy in Mississippi
In November 2024, we took significant steps in advocating for improved child care policies at the Joint Senate Study Group for Women and Children and the Senate Workforce Committee hearing. We presented a report on child care’s impact on workforce participation, drawing on research from the Forum members.
Lesia Daniel-Hollingshead, owner of FunTime Preschool of Clinton and other child care programs and Matt Williams of the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative joined us in highlighting the urgent need for increased funding and support for child care programs.
A few days later, Dr. Buttross, chair of the Early Intervention Task Force (which included Forum members), presented findings on Mississippi’s need for greater early childhood investments and system improvements.
Matt Williams, Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative
Lesia Daniel-Hollingshead, FunTime Preschool
2025 Legislative Session and Prenatal-to-5 Policy
The Forum For the Future Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council officially launched in late 2024, after an open-call to parents of young children and child care providers interested to learn more about how to raise their voices and educate decision makers about early care and education issues. Two parents (Tahnashia Green and Sarah Rice) and three child care providers (Cantrell Keyes, Lesia Daniel-Hollingshead, and ReGina Harvey) joined staff from Excel by 5, MELA, the Graduate Center for the Study of Early Learning, Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative, and Tamara Smith Consulting to grow and work together for babies.
After several initial meetings, members met with local legislators and supported the planning and execution of the 6th annual Early Childhood Capitol Day. They will be working to host decision makers at child care programs in the coming weeks and will recruit additional members for the council to grow our numbers and voices.
Together with the Forum For the Future Mississippi Early Childhood Advocacy Council, we coordinated and hosted the 6th annual Early Childhood Capitol Day on February 12th. It was a FULL day of learning and connecting, and we had the opportunity to to be introduced in the Senate and House Capitol Galleries and to meet with legislators.
What’s Been Happening at the Capitol: As you have likely seen, we have been keeping tabs on all of the bills that may impact infants, toddlers, and their families in the legislature this session. If you would like to see the most recent two-minute video update visit this link, or if you would like to review the entire policy tracker including a tab with dead bills, you can find that information here.
ELEVATE Mississippi Launch
The Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) Division of Early Childhood Care and Development (DECCD) introduced ELEVATE: A Quality Support System to the public on March 6, 2025. The press release described the program as a “first-of-its-kind in the nation quality support system designed to enhance early childhood education programs in Mississippi. ELEVATE is an innovative and holistic support and badging system that enables child care providers to improve their educational offerings.”
20 to 25 child care provider members of the MS Forum For the Future supported the early design of this system through the first Forum working group that was coordinated by the MSU Social Sciences Research Center Systems Change Lab, Excel by 5, Tamara Smith, MELA, Mississippi First, the BUILD Initiative, and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This working group developed the report “Recommendations from Child Care Providers for a New Mississippi Child Care Quality Support System” that helped shape the newly announced QSS, so we are interested to see the newest iteration of this work in action.
Where Are we now: building momentum & Expanding our vision
Forum For the Future is a coalition of coalitions and is made of:
- 15 organizational members
- 115 Individual Members
Representing at least
- 38 Mississippi towns
- 4 other states
As we move forward, we are filled with optimism and determination. Our goals remain ambitious, and with your continued partnership, we are confident that we can reach even greater milestones.
- The MS Forum For the Future Steering Committee prioritizes strategies to strengthen families through economic security policies and ensuring healthy moms and babies through targeted physical, mental, and developmental health initiatives.
- The Built for Babies Committee has developed a powerful communication toolkit with messaging we can all use to raise awareness about infant and toddler issues. We launched the Child Care Message Wheel at Capitol Day, and our friends at the Early Childhood Development Council used the Early Intervention Talking Points at their Child Health Awareness Day. We are still working to complete a full complement of these talking points for all related issues, and if you are interested in learning more or having us train you or your colleagues on these talking points, please reach out to Biz@msearlylearning.org.
- We remain committed to deepening our impact, expanding our advocacy efforts, and prioritizing policies that support our state’s youngest citizens.
Thank you for being an integral part of this journey.
We are working toward a Mississippi where every baby is set up for success.
Progress Update: Strong Families Agenda
The MS Forum For the Future Steering Committee has collaboratively drafted key agenda items under the Strong Families pillar.
These DRAFT priorities, highlighted in yellow and in italics, reflect our collective vision for strengthening family support systems in Mississippi.
These items await final approval from the full Forum coalition and will be voted on by the members in the coming months.
Key Drafted Agenda Items:
✅ Families have equitable access to paid family and medical leave.
✅ There is a functioning, connected ecosystem of family support programs.
✅ Child welfare decisions meet infants’ and toddlers’ developmental and social-emotional needs.
✅ Families and practitioners are meaningfully engaged in policy and decision-making.
✅ Families are economically secure.
These agenda points represent our commitment to fostering stronger, more resilient families. Once the MS Forum For the Future coalition members approve them via virtual vote (coming soon), we will begin to implement strategies to bring these priorities to life.
We appreciate the dedication of our Steering Committee and all stakeholders in shaping this critical work. And, as we speak the Steering Committee is developing additional priorities aligned to child and maternal health to ensure that the Forum is TRULY a cross-disciplinary prenatal-to-five coalition, advancing policies so that Mississippi has a state-of-the-art early childhood system.
not a forum member yet? join us today!
Why Become a Member?
- Align with organizations working on early childhood issues in Mississippi
- Gain access to advocacy workshops, communications resources, and collaboration tools.
- Utilize our online hub to engage with partners and access key supports.
What are the Commitments?
We welcome anyone passionate about supporting infants, toddlers, and families to join. Your involvement is flexible and based on your capacity. Commitments include:
✅ Encouraging your staff and contacts to sign up for updates
✅ Attend annual meetings
✅ Sharing engagement opportunities relevant to your network
💡 Membership is FREE! Learn more and sign up here:
Stay Connected
Want to stay updated on news and opportunities for babies in Mississippi?
Join the Mississippi Early Childhood News listserv!
📩 Email MississippiEarlyChildhoodNews+subscribe@groups.io to connect with over 115 early childhood leaders, sharing funding opportunities, events, updates, and more.
Together, we are building a brighter future for Mississippi’s children.
Thank you for being part of this important work!