Boston University faculty, staff, and students participated in the first Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Summit in April 2025 at Wellesley College. Photo courtesy of Kyle DeMeo Cook

Early Childhood

Shaping the Future of Early Childhood Research Policy

Researchers attending an inaugural summit laid the groundwork for a statewide collaborative

What is possible if early childhood policy researchers across Massachusetts work together to create a coordinated and aligned research collaborative? This is a question that participants discussed during the first day-long Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Summit, held on April 2, 2025, at Wellesley College.

Co-hosted by Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and Wellesley Centers for Women, the summit brought together over 120 researchers, policymakers, funders, and friends from across the state. Our purpose for the day was to talk about how to increase support for growing and sustaining a statewide early childhood system that will be effective for all young children and their families.

We gathered to learn about current research agenda opportunities, share our work, and co-create a roadmap for the future. I had the honor of participating in the planning team for the event with Kimberly Lucas (Northeastern) and Wendy Robeson (Wellesley). Our team’s goal was to create an environment that seeded new collaborative opportunities and fostered innovative projects. We asked participants to come with an open mind, plan to meet new people, and bring their best ideas for future collaboration—and they did!

We heard from different statewide research and data opportunities including the research priorities and data opportunities from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), the Early Childhood Agenda developed by the field itself and organized by Strategies for Children, and the Massachusetts Education-to-Career Research and Data Hub (E2C). The day also included a poster session with 26 posters, and an afternoon of facilitated discussion on how we would like to envision a future for collaborative research, data, and design projects that support young children, families, and early educators.

Collaborating across disciplines

To truly support young children and their families in the Commonwealth, we know that we need to think holistically about their needs, making it important to collaborate both within the early childhood education field and across fields.  Therefore, another goal of the event was to bring together researchers across disciplines (e.g., education, social work, data science, child welfare, public health, medicine, and housing) whose work focuses on policies that support the development and well-being of young children in Massachusetts.  

Boston University participants spanned multiple schools, centers and institutes across the university, with 25 participants affiliated with BU.  Many BU participants shared their important research during the lunchtime poster session. BU Wheelock participants included: Stephanie Curenton, Johanna Chaparro-Moreno, Nicole Kingdon, and Ariel Dyche (Center on the Ecology of Early Development); Dina Castro and Jelonid Fuentes (Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being); Pia Caronongan, Meagan Comb, and Sidrah Baloch (Wheelock Educational Policy Center); and part-time instructor Amy O’Leary. Felicia Billy, director of BU’s Children’s Center, also participated.

BU School of Social Work participants included Yoonsook Ha, Pam Joshi, Nancy McArdle, Leah Shafer, Keyi Liu, Kate Giapponi Schneider, Julianna Nicolson, and kate warren barnes. Participants from BU’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, School of Public Health and/or Boston Medical Center participants included Gen Guyol; Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, Ana Poblacion, and Rich Sheward. 

BU Wheelock’s Shavon Drayton and Amanda Jenkins, students in the master’s in Leadership, Policy & Advocacy for Early Childhood Well-Being program, volunteered at the event helping poster presenters prepare for the day. They were an integral part of making the day a success and had the opportunity to network and participate in conversations about the future collaborative.

A hope for the future

The feedback from the day has been positive with many participants expressing that the creation of a collaborative is long overdue, and that the Summit provided great hope for the future.  Volunteers will participate in working groups this summer to further develop the new Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Collaborative, including a 2026 summit. So, what is possible if early childhood policy researchers across Massachusetts work together to create a coordinated and aligned research collaborative? We are excited to find out.

To learn more about efforts to develop the Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Collaborative and how to get involved, contact Kyle Cook at kdcook@bu.edu.