As we head into 2025 and an uncertain and unprecedented climate, Neighborhood Villages is as committed as ever to taking care of those who take care of young children. We recognize that families are confronting a future that feels unpredictable and, for many, deeply unsettling. Amidst this, too many families continue to grapple with challenges around affording and accessing, high quality early education and child care. And early educators continue to provide critical care and education to young children amidst their own mental health challenges, low wages, and lack of infrastructure and support. Thus, we are stronger than ever in our resolve to create a future where all educators, children and families have access to the high-quality early education environments they both need and deserve.

In 2025, with our partners and supporters, we continue to invest in innovative, collaborative, and ambitious Direct Service Pilots to lift up educators and ensure that every child can thrive and work to drive Sustainable Policy Solutions that achieve lasting change.

Here’s what to expect from Neighborhood Village this year:

Building Innovative, Scalable Early Education Models to Meet the Needs of Children, Families, and Educators

In 2025, Neighborhood Villages will continue to expand and refine direct service pilots that demonstrate what a truly effective early childhood education system can deliver. With a deep commitment to supporting children, families, and educators, we are focusing on four critical areas:

Career Advancement Support for Early Educators:

At Neighborhood Villages, we know that quality begins with educators. That’s why, in 2025, we will enhance our efforts to help early educators begin or advance their careers through our nationally recognized Registered Early Childhood Education Apprenticeship programs and through providing degree assistance and leadership training to educators and providers. In February, we will launch our third class of apprentices and, later this year, we will graduate our second class of almost 90 apprentices and host a celebration that recognizes their accomplishments and value.

In 2025, we will also expand opportunities to deliver mentorship and professional development to empower educators with the skills and confidence they need to thrive. We are hosting multiple day-long Professional Development Conferences this spring. For the first time, we are able to open our Conference to the public. In May, our “Playtopia!” conference will welcome 350 educators and stakeholders from across Greater Boston.

Teaching and Learning:

Our evidence-based, play-centered curriculum, Learning Through Exploration, will continue to evolve, offering children joyful and meaningful learning experiences. Less than a year after releasing this free resource to the public, the Toddler component of the curriculum has been downloaded 900 times across the U.S. and 6 continents! In 2025, we’re turning toward the development, implementation, and evaluation of the Infant component of Learning Through Exploration, which will be designed for children ages 0 to 14 months. 

Our team of Neighborhood Villages coaches will continue to support partner early childhood education programs across Boston and the Commonwealth through providing educators with hands-on guidance, goal setting, bi-weekly observation, and debriefing sessions to ensure the highest quality teaching practices in early education settings. 

Also in 2025, we are proud to collaborate with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) as the state-designated vendor for the Commonwealth’s Playful Learning Initiative (PLI). Through this partnership, Neighborhood Villages provides coaching support to educators in select school districts across the Commonwealth, helping them implement playful learning practices in classrooms from Pre-K through Grade 3.

Early Relational Health:

We recognize that strong relationships between children and caregivers are foundational to healthy development. In 2025, we will expand our initiatives to promote these connections.

Early relational health refers to the ability of young children and their caregivers to form strong, stable relationships that support healthy brain development and reduce the impact of early stress. This is especially important for children facing adverse experiences, as it helps improve long-term emotional, physical, and mental health. Early education programs are key in building these relationships, but many lack the resources and staff training to fully support children's relational and social-emotional development.

This year, we are taking on an ambitious pilot to address these challenges in partnership with multiple early education programs and in collaboration with infant and early childhood mental health experts across Massachusetts. Our goal? To create scalable solutions that improve child and family well-being now and in the future.

Operations and Family Support:

Early education plays an essential role in creating an ecosystem of support for children and families. At Neighborhood Villages, we are proud to partner with early education and child care programs serving vulnerable children and families to demonstrate the staffing and resources needed to help families access the health services, wraparound supports, and material goods they need to thrive.

In 2025, to ensure that child care providers are well-equipped, we are excited to expand our operational support services, to help providers manage logistics and sustain high-quality programs. Additionally, this year, we plan to deliver over 1 million diapers to families across the Commonwealth.

Advancing Sustainable Policy Solutions to Drive Systemic Change

Lasting and widespread impact are achieved through legislative and regulatory change. 2025 is the moment to push for sustainable policy solutions in Massachusetts that can serve as a model for national reform. At Neighborhood Villages, our efforts center around three key strategies:

Policy Solutions and Research:

Developing actionable research and policy solutions is at the heart of Neighborhood Villages’ work. Our research portfolio directly informs policymaking and helps drive evidence-based systemic change that centers educators and families. Through primary research, analysis of existing initiatives data from our own direct service programs, and insights from the educators and families most directly connected to early education and child care, we provide key information on the current state of early education and child care as well as evidence-based, actionable policy solutions that promote workforce support, program funding, and quality improvements. Our research focuses on the pillars of a transformed early education and child care sector: efficient and effective funding, sustainable careers for educators, and an equitable system that meets families’ needs. 

Forthcoming projects in 2025 include: the impact and potential of operational funding, effective recruitment and retention efforts for early educators, effective models for increasing operational and instructional capacity for child care providers, and more.

Advocacy:

Through public education and opportunities for direct advocacy, we focus on helping those closest to the realities of early education and child care make their voices heard. In 2025 we are focused on funding for early education at the state and federal level including opportunities for individuals to better understand and raise their voices regarding the funding imperatives for early education. In 2025, we are focusing on opportunities to impact the funding and implementation of the 2024 Massachusetts legislative reforms and the impact of a new federal landscape and its potential impacts on early education and care. 

Narrative Change:

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the fifth season of our nationally acclaimed podcast, No One Is Coming to Save Us. This season will continue to amplify the urgent need for change in early education. Through storytelling and media engagement, we will drive awareness, mobilize support, and reshape the national conversation on early childhood education.

Neighborhood Villages is committed to driving meaningful change in 2025 and beyond. We know that a world in which all children and families have access to affordable, high-quality early education is not just a dream—it is a necessity. Together, we will continue our work to ensure every child receives the care and education they deserve, every educator is valued, and every family feels secure about their child's future.

Join us as we work toward a brighter, more equitable future for early education.