Impact Stories

The National Partnership for Women and Families encouraged their coalition of 200 organizations to use the series with their respective constituencies around paid parental and family leave. They created a paid leave toolkit to support these efforts, helped arrange several screenings of The Raising of America for federal and Washington, DC lawmakers, and organized a “tweet storm” of more than 500 tweets sent during the course of an hour encouraging people to stream the series.

The Early Childhood Colorado Partnership of state and local agencies, nonprofits, early childhood councils, foundations and universities committed to improving child and family well-being and systems in Colorado has convened more than 80 screenings, funded 15 communities with mini-grants, hosted two webinars, partnered with Rocky Mountain PBS to broadcast multiple episodes, and created a Colorado-specific toolkit around The Raising of America. The Partnership engaged The Civic Canopy, an organization that facilitates thoughtful public dialogues and action plans, to manage the process.

The Santa Cruz County of Education hosted a screening of The Raising of America: Signature Episode to an audience of 200 business, community and education leaders at the Cabrillo Community College campus. The event was designed to galvanize interest and momentum to address early childhood not just a single family issue, but as a community issue and our country's issue. The conversation that followed the screening was a call to action. As David Brody, Executive Director of First 5 Santa Cruz County, reminded the audience, "We need to work together to put an initiative on the 2018 ballot that will once and for all raise the revenue necessary to truly serve all young children in California."​ Read more here.

Smart Start of Mecklenburg County and ZFive (NC) educated business, political, and community leaders on the role each can play in supporting young children to thrive. They followed up their The Raising of America launch event, which drew more than 150 civic leaders, with 13 community café screenings where they asked parents across socioeconomic, racial and cultural lines to discuss the challenges they face. Feedback gathered at these cafés was used to leverage change in business practices, community focus and policy.

They created a guidebook to streamline the community café process, a Demographics handout and a Take Action activity highlighting ways to get involved.

WNIT and Beacon Health System (IN) teamed up with area childhood development organizations to air all five episodes of The Raising of America with live, in-studio discussions and neighborhood viewing parties to continue the conversation. A specially produced “Locally What’s Next?” episode examined how the “Michiana” region (Southwest Michigan, Northwest Indiana) can improve conditions for young children and their families.

Colorado Shines, the state's quality rating and improvement system, teamed up with Rocky Mountain PBS to provide Colorado’s early childhood professionals with online e-learning courses in the state’s Professional Development Information System (PDIS) that link directly to all five episodes of The Raising of America.

The New Jersey Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NJACCRRA), in collaboration with local CCRRAs, secured funding to host screenings of The Raising of America in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties. The screenings were part of a statewide effort to spark conversations not only with parents and caregivers, but also elected officials, business leaders and the public about the need for increased investments to ensure all children in New Jersey have access to high quality and affordable early learning programs. Each county screening was followed by a community conversation, featuring a panel of early childhood experts, to discuss how these issues play out locally and what is needed to support families and children in NJ.

The State Library of California and First 5 California sponsored a work-in-progress screening for 440 at the First 5 Annual Forum in Sacramento. The State Library, in collaboration with the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, also rolled out an initiative using The Raising of America to train children’s librarians across the state to become child development resources and advocate for the children and young families who use their libraries.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services) screened each episode across its national and all 9 regional offices to spark internal conversations about how the agency can build on current efforts to improve conditions for families with young children. The series was then rolled out to their grantees.

SpoKids, a project of the Spokane Regional Health District’s Community and Family Services Division (WA), screened The Raising of America to spark community conversations which asked parents what Spokane’s young children need to thrive. They’ve formed a Parent Leadership Group and created a Child Policy Document which parents will urge local officials to adopt. Their three top policy priorities so far? 1) Affordable, accessible and high-quality childcare and early learning, 2) safe and stable housing and neighborhoods, and 3) resources and supports for new parents.