Pierce County Early Childhood Network is striving to cultivate an impact network for the early childhood community in Pierce County, from individuals and families to schools and organizations.

“By embracing a living-systems approach to organizing, impact networks bring people together to build relationships across boundaries; leverage the existing work, skills, and motivations of the group; and make progress amid unpredictable and ever-changing conditions. As a powerful and flexible organizing system that can span regions, organizations, and silos of all kinds, impact networks underlie some of the most impressive and large-scale efforts to create change across the globe.” Click here to learn more about Impact Networks.

Our team is working towards integrating philosophies, concepts, and strategies from the Impact Networks book and toolkit.

Applying Liberatory Design

Pierce County Early Childhood Network seeks to incorporate the National Equity Project’s Liberatory Design framework into our work. Integrating this framework requires slowing down and engaging in thoughtful and intentional practices. You can download the Liberatory Design card decks here in English and Spanish.

The National Equity Project explains:

“Liberatory Design is an approach to addressing equity challenges and change efforts in complex systems. It is grounded in an integrated part of NEP’s Leading for Equity Framework, which meshes human-centered design (aka design thinking) with complex systems theory, and deep equity practice. It is a process and practice to:

• Create designs that help interrupt inequity and increase opportunity for those most impacted by oppression

• Transform power by shifting the relationships between those who hold power to design and those impacted by these designs

• Generate critical learning and increased agency for those involved in the design work  

At the core of Liberatory Design are a set of beliefs:

• Racism and inequity have been designed into systems and thus can be redesigned;

• Designing for equity requires the meaningful participation of those impacted by inequity; and

• Equity-driven designs require equity and complexity informed processes.

A BIT OF HISTORY

Since 2008, community partners have come together to achieve a vision that all children thrive in nurturing relationships and environments. Today, we proudly cultivate community action with over 400 partners. Our partnership base is intentionally broad and includes parents, licensed child care providers, health care providers, school districts, business leaders, and family/youth-serving community organizations, to name a few.

PCECN is a space for partners to come together and share resources, ideas, and data; co-design projects and programs; and advocate for policies that support children and families in our community.