In the Arena with NOW
26 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 8 ratingsIn the Arena with NOW lifts up the voices of community leaders who are “in the arena” -- in classrooms, playgrounds, Congressional halls, hospitals, and neighborhood streets -- working to make sure that all children and families can live healthy, thriving lives. Each episode will delve into the experiences of local coalitions, residents, and experts who are working to create equitable systems of care and education. We’ll learn about what they are doing and why, challenges and successes faced, and advice for others seeking to build, grow, and sustain momentum for the long haul. Learn more at: https://www.networksofopportunity.org
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Episodes
Liberating Our Joy with Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts
December 21, 2023 13:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBWe’re excited to share with you a special bonus episode as we reflect on the year and look ahead to 2024. We return again to Vital Village Networks’ annual National Community Leadership Summit, and tune in this time to our 2022 keynote conversation with writer, storyteller, and educator, Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts. She is the award-winning author of Black Joy and shares with us a powerful reflection of what it means to make room for joy -- in all of its forms -- and what it looks like fo...
Know Your Power: Camille Bennett on Coalition Building, Advocacy and Partnership
December 07, 2023 13:00 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBIn our final episode of the season, we return to Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit and tune into the dynamic closing keynote conversation with Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director of Project Say Something. Connecting the personal and political, Camille speaks to her and her family’s multi-generational work advocating for racial justice in Alabama. She shares the efforts that she and coalitions are leading to dismantle white supremacist cultur...
Writing Our Story: Kiese Laymon on Joy, Justice, and Healing
November 30, 2023 14:00 - 39 minutes - 27.4 MBIn this special episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit, where hundreds of grassroots community leaders gathered in Boston in October. Hear opening remarks from Founding Director, Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, followed by an intimate conversation with best-selling author and educator Kiese Laymon and Ronda Alexander, Vital Village’s Director of Partnerships. Delving into the summit theme, Writing Our Story, Kiese reflects on his personal...
Local Leaders Have the Solutions: Shared Power and Lifelong Learning
October 05, 2023 16:00 - 20 minutes - 14.3 MBWe continue our conversation with Inés Palmarin, a long-time Boston community builder, coalition co-founder, and Vital Village National Advisory Board member dedicated to holding and creating space for mothers to connect and create solutions together. Inés unpacks what collaborative and shared leadership looks like, and shares more about her work with community economic development and other collaborative efforts that seek to ensure local resident leaders and young people not only have a voi...
Finding Hope in Each Other: Centering Trust and “Heart Work” through Collaborative Action
September 21, 2023 12:00 - 17 minutes - 12.4 MBHow can we practice collaborative relationships differently? For Inés Palmarin, long-time Boston community builder, coalition leader and Vital Village National Advisory Board member, this starts with building trust and creating intentional spaces to connect around our shared “why” and hopes for our communities. Ines reflects on her own personal journey, the creation of the Boston Mothers Care coalition, and the evolution of collaborative practices that seek to center racial equity. We explor...
Community Ownership of Change: Supporting Co-Design in Research
August 24, 2023 12:00 - 19 minutes - 13.4 MBTune into the next part of our conversation with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and social justice advocate in Boston and beyond. Reann delves further into her experiences with facilitating community-based participatory research and coalition building efforts, asking the critical question, “What does it mean to create spaces with community ownership of change?” particularly in the realm of health and wellbeing research. We explore what it looks like to cre...
Inclusive Leadership and Healing through Collaborative Action
August 10, 2023 12:00 - 18 minutes - 13 MBHow can collaborative action support joy and community healing? And what does this mean for how we define and understand leadership? In our next episode, we speak with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and an advocate for social justice in the fields of health equity, food systems, community development and more. Reann reflects on her decades-long work to support food access, transformation justice and community-based participatory research in the Boston area...
Powerful Pathways Part 2: Collective Imagination to Build a Just Future
July 27, 2023 12:00 - 18 minutes - 12.8 MBIn our second episode of the season, we continue the conversation with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Pathways, who reflects on the evolution of creative placemaking and community-led design work and her hopes for the future. We unpack the challenges faced in advancing systems change and navigating the fear of change in transforming oppressive systems. Allentza discusses the critical role of imagination, and how Powerful Pathways is creating spaces and opportunities to bring people together ac...
Powerful Pathways through Creative Placemaking and Community-Led Design
July 13, 2023 12:00 - 21 minutes - 14.6 MBWelcome to Season 2 of In the Arena with NOW! As organizers, advocates, and communities continue to work towards systems transformation, what does it look like to make cities more equitable and sustainable? And, what can we learn from leaders who are centering anti-racism and anti-classism through creative placemaking and equitable community design? In our first episode of the season, we speak with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Pathways, who has long been leading efforts to elevate community ...
The LIFE Project: Building on The Strengths Of Immigrant Families To Promote Quality Early Care And Education Access
May 26, 2021 13:00 - 28 minutes - 20 MBBased in New York City, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), in partnership with Fifth Avenue Committee, LSA Family Health Service, BACDYS (Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services), and Masa, launched the Linking Immigrant Families to Quality Early Care and Education (LIFE) Project to connect quality early education to immigrant families including the city's Pre-K and 3K programs. Their work builds on the passion that immigrant families have for educational oppor...
Austin Neighborhood Network: The Value of Collaboration & Community Driven Vision
April 23, 2021 13:00 - 26 minutes - 18.1 MBWhat does it look like to engage with community stakeholders to co-design a community plan for revitalization that authentically centers the needs of the local neighborhood? In our 14th episode we feature Austin Neighborhood Network, located in the largest geographic neighborhood of Chicago, to learn more about their participatory efforts to collectively transform their community. Listen in to learn more from Jose Abonce, Ruth Kimble, and Sandra Diaz, as they share the successes, challenges,...
Essex County Council for Young Children: Centering Parent Leadership to Foster a Trauma Informed Newark
December 16, 2020 18:00 - 25 minutes - 17.3 MBWhat does it look like to create a trauma-informed early care and education community? Why is centering parent leaders critical to achieving this vision? In our 13th episode, we learn about the innovative work that the Essex County Council for Young Children (ECCYC) is leading to foster meaningful cross-sector partnerships between agencies and parents to create healthy, thriving, and resilient communities. Based in Newark, New Jersey, ECCYC is made up of a coalition of parents and families, ...
Brazelton Touchpoints Center: Honoring the Strengths and Expertise of Children and Caregivers
September 29, 2020 14:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBHow can providers honor the children and caregivers they work with as the experts of their own lives? In our 12th episode we feature Brazelton Touchpoints Center, located in Boston, Massachusetts, to learn about shifting to mental models that honor the dignity of children and their caregivers, a key strategy for creating a sustainable world where children grow up to be thriving adults in their local community. Listen along as we hear from Josh Sparrow and Mindy May share the story of Brazelt...
Brazelton Touchpoints Center: Honoring the Strengths and Expertise of Children and Caregivers
September 29, 2020 14:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBHow can providers honor the children and caregivers they work with as the experts of their own lives? In our 12th episode we feature Brazelton Touchpoints Center, located in Boston, Massachusetts, to learn about shifting to mental models that honor the dignity of children and their caregivers, a key strategy for creating a sustainable world where children grow up to be thriving adults in their local community. Listen along as we hear from Josh Sparrow and Mindy May share the story of Brazelt...
Family Engagement Network: Supporting Families is the Key to Successful Workforce Development
August 31, 2020 16:00 - 22 minutes - 15.4 MBWhat are the critical components of a successful workforce development program? The Family Engagement Network (FEN), located in Pima County Arizona, is leading the way in a holistic and family-centered approach to supporting caregivers and their families to empower themselves through the opportunity to build critical workforce skills. In our 11th episode, we hear from Lorena, a parent champion in the workforce program, who shares her experience in the program. We then learn from FEN members,...
Adelante, Adelante: El movimiento hacia la justicia del idioma y la equidad/Adelante, Adelante: The Movement Towards Language Justice and Equity
July 28, 2020 01:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBEpisodio 10: Adelante, Adelante: El movimiento hacia la justicia del idioma y la equidad Con sede en el condado de Jefferson, Colorado, la coalición Adelante es una red de familias, agencias y organizaciones que toma en cuenta la voz de la comunidad LatinX y hace decisiones con respecto a la salud y la educación. En nuestro décimo episodio, presentamos nuestro primer podcast bilingüe en el que practicamos la justicia del idioma hablando con tres líderes en el centro de Adelante: Cynthia Zap...
From Data to Action: Community Stories Lead to Policy Change
May 28, 2020 14:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBHow can we use data to tell community stories and create actionable change? What is the role of narrative in advancing equitable policies that improve the health and wellbeing of children and their families? In our ninth episode, we explore these questions with Allison Bovell-Ammon and Dr. Megan Sandel of Children’s HealthWatch (CHW). Headquartered at Boston Medical Center, CHW is a nonpartisan network of pediatricians, public health researchers, and children’s health and policy experts work...
Residents Driving Change: The Community Solutions Grant Program
April 06, 2020 19:00 - 31 minutes - 21.4 MBWhat would it look like if every community had the resources and support to be in charge of their own change and transformation? The Voices and Choices for Children coalition has been working to drive equitable processes for improving childhood health, educational, and economic outcomes, as well as improving the representation and leadership of communities of color and American Indian communities across the state of Minnesota by partnering with parents, state agencies, non-profits and commun...
Community Data into Action: An African American Breastfeeding Blueprint
February 24, 2020 16:00 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBHeadquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE) works with a diverse network of communities and partners to reduce breastfeeding disparities among African American women and to strengthen the health and wellbeing of babies and families, particularly in communities of color. In our seventh episode, we speak with Andrea Serano of ROSE and learn about their multi-pronged approach to transforming the breastfeeding landscape to be more accessible, inclusive, culturally r...
Building Beloved Community for Children and Families in South Carolina
December 13, 2019 16:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBBased in Berkeley County, South Carolina, the Berkeley Early Education and Care Collective (BEE Collective) and its network of partners are working to create a system of care for social and emotional development that can support the wellbeing of families and communities at large. In our sixth episode, we speak with members of the BEE Collective and learn about the powerful efforts they are leading to advance equity, align systems, and build Beloved Community, including their work to address ...
Honoring Culture, Language, and Family: Stories from the Navajo Nation
October 28, 2019 04:00 - 29 minutes - 20.5 MBBased in Navajo Nation, New Mexico, the McKinley County Early Childhood Coalition (MCECC) seeks to eliminate health disparities and improve the wellbeing of American Indians and Alaska Natives in their community. In our fifth episode, we learn from members of MCECC about the transformative efforts they are leading to promote healthy, prosperous, and empowered Native children and families, grounded in honoring their indigenous culture, language, and traditions. Guests reflect on their ongoing...
The Power of Peer Learning and Capacity Building: Improving Access to Quality Early Care and Education in Philadelphia
September 09, 2019 15:00 - 30 minutes - 21 MBWhat does it take to tackle intergenerational poverty and ensure that all children have the best start in life to thrive? The West Philadelphia Action for Early Learning & Partners (AFEL) have been working to bring together critical partners, caregivers, and community stakeholders to ensure that families in Philadelphia have equitable access to quality early care and education opportunities. Led by Action for Early Learning at Drexel University, AFEL & Partners builds upon the West Philadel...
Cultivating Leaders of Color in Early Care and Education
August 05, 2019 14:00 - 27 minutes - 18.8 MBWhy are leaders of color imperative for improving early care and education systems? Based in Alameda County, California, the California Consortium for Equity in Early Childhood Education is taking on the critical challenge of interrupting inequities and systemic racism in early care and education by cultivating a new generation of leaders that are representative of the children and families they serve. In our third episode, we learn from Consortium co-directors about their innovative fellows...
Cultivating Leaders of Color in Early Care and Education
August 05, 2019 14:00 - 27 minutes - 18.8 MBWhy are leaders of color imperative for improving early care and education systems? Based in Alameda County, California, the California Consortium for Equity in Early Childhood Education is taking on the critical challenge of interrupting inequities and systemic racism in early care and education by cultivating a new generation of leaders that are representative of the children and families they serve. In our third episode, we learn from Consortium co-directors about their innovative fellows...
Letting Communities Lead: Relationship Building and Listening for Systems Change
June 24, 2019 18:00 - 30 minutes - 20.7 MBHow can focusing on listening and relationship building with families strengthen early childhood system of care? In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the Young Child Wellness Council (YCWC) has undertaken the critical work of shifting paradigms and processes to more fully center the voices, experiences, and wisdom of families in shaping efforts that promote the physical, as well as social and emotional, health and well being of infants, young children, and their families. In our second episode, we learn ...
Centering Stories through Community Mediation
March 14, 2019 12:00 - 27 minutes - 12.6 MBHow can learning about each others’ stories foster healthier communities? In our inaugural episode, we explore the history of the Vital Village Network (VVN) in Boston and one of its central community-led initiatives, the Social Justice Mediation Program (SJMP). Entering its 6th year, SJMP has trained hundreds of community members in conflict resolution skills that can be used at home, in the workplace, in schools, and beyond. We spoke with VVN staff and SJMP co-leaders to learn about their ...