New Program Brings Early Education to Kids Living in Shelters in Massachusetts
In 2024, Neighborhood Villages partnered with Amal Alliance, Horizons for Homeless Children, and the Healey-Driscoll Administration to launch Colori Express, an innovative mobile early learning initiative that provides developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed care to young children living in shelter and respite centers across Massachusetts. Through retrofitting school buses to become nurturing, mobile early learning spaces, the Colori Express brings child-centered programming directly to children experiencing homelessness.
Sarah Muncey, Co-Founder of Neighborhood Villages
We sat down with Sarah Muncey, co-founder of Neighborhood Villages, to hear more about the Colori Express and why they have been so successful.
Your efforts to develop the Colori Express are part of Neighborhood Villages’ family navigation and operations management work. Can you explain this work and why it’s so important?
Sarah: Neighborhood Villages supports the people who support children, and our family navigation and operations work is a huge part of our mission. We specialize in helping caregivers access whole-child, whole-family wraparound supports - from housing, to health care - and in procuring and distributing core material goods such as diapers and winter clothing. Supporting families and educators in accessing full scope, wraparound supports allows children to have more than just their basic needs met - it sets them up to thrive. With the Colori Express, we were able to think about operations and family navigation in new ways. Reaching families in shelter - many of whom have experienced significant trauma - required a whole lot of creativity, but designing mobile solutions to service delivery was essentially flexing the same muscles we’ve used since our founding. Neighborhood Villages has, for years, been partnering with child care centers on school operations and family navigation support.
How did it come to your attention that this kind of early education support was needed in shelters across the state?
Sarah: As the Commonwealth set up emergency housing for the influx of new residents facing homelessness in Massachusetts, it became clear that children 5 and above were being enrolled in school quickly, helping the whole family to start their life in the US. For families with children under 5, however, no such services arrived. We don’t have a child care system in the United States; no one was knocking on those families’ doors to provide an opportunity for children to play or to offer any child care respite for the parents. These families were on their own, in their hotel rooms, processing the trauma of their journeys here, and it was incredibly lonely and difficult. The Commonwealth knew it could do better by these families, and Neighborhood Villages, having proven ourselves during the COVID-19 pandemic as capable of designing and operating elegant solutions to complicated emergencies, was a part of that conversation. The Healey Administration saw this as a priority, and we were proud to join them, Amal Alliance, and Horizons for Homeless Children, as partners.
How did the partnership with Amal Alliance and Horizons for Homeless Children form to create this pilot?
Sarah: Horizons is a well-respected organization specializing in families experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts, and the Amal Alliance is an international organization that serves children experiencing displacement worldwide. They were the perfect partners to come up with a solution that not only met the moment, but could withstand the constantly changing landscape of the shelter crisis. The creation of affordable, mobile, beautiful spaces for children to play and learn seemed doable, and we were confident that wherever children are, we could find a way to get them the resources they need. All three organizations leaned into their areas of expertise, learning from one another along the way, to serve an unprecedented influx of families with an innovative and efficient approach.
The buses are so fun and beautiful! Tell us a little bit about the creative and logistical processes of creating the Colori Express.
Sarah: Once we started looking into different mobile options, it quickly became clear that buses were the way to go. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a huge increase in mobile services, so we were able to learn from mobile medical initiatives about how to turn a vehicle into a room that could be used for specific purposes. Once the buses were purchased, we were able to work with a contractor to find low-cost materials and create innovative space-use plans. Every inch is thoughtfully designed to meet the learning and social-emotional needs of the children as well as the operational needs of the Colori Express team. We turned these old buses into the most beautiful spaces! Fortunately, buses are inherently bright and sunny because the walls are windows, and we were able to use trauma-informed design principles to create soothing, simple spaces that invite children to play and explore.
Did you face any challenges along the way?
Sarah: There were so many challenges! We had to think about things that were totally new to us - such as power sources to charge the buses or how to handle both unprecedented heat (at one point, it was so hot that the asphalt in the parking lots was melting) and snow removable from the tops of very tall vehicles!
We also needed to find creative approaches to child enrollment for a more transient population with diverse language needs, and we needed to develop staffing models that reflected this population, and more. We had to figure out how to all work together to best serve the families who needed us, and we had to work with many different shelter providers on logistics and operations. The work was challenging, but it was joyful, and we always felt driven by the idea that there was no excuse for not getting children and families the things they needed to get through this period of displacement.
What has been the impact of this resource, and how do you see it operating in the future?
Sarah: The impact has been huge. First and foremost, over 300 children have been served on the buses with play-based, social-emotional experiences through Amal’s Colors of Kindness Curriculum. They are singing, dancing, crafting, imagining, and more. They have access to books and blocks, glue and crayons, puppets and toys, paper and markers and all of the things that kids should get to play with. While we typically take these kinds of activities for granted - remember, children in shelters and respite centers otherwise are not getting opportunities to play and socialize with each other. And this play-based learning is critical for children’s brain development, their confidence, and their future. With displacement comes trauma, and these kinds of play-based experiences help children to process this trauma and retain their resilience.
And while the children are with the Colori team, their parents have rare and precious time to themselves. This means that parents have time to work on employment paperwork, find permanent housing, or take a shower – whatever they need to do! It’s so rare for parents of young children living in shelters to have a moment of respite, but as any caregiver of a young child knows, it’s critical for caregivers’ mental health - and for the child’s early relational health - to take time for themselves.