Cyrena Spafford's Contact Details

Cyrena Spafford's Company Details

Neighborhood Villages

Boston, MA, US • 20 - 49 Employees
Education/Training

More than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, education and child care solutions for families remain scarce. A high-stakes problem typically confined to parents with children younger than five, lack of child care has now become a near-universal challenge, with the transition to remote K-12 learning upending care infrastructure for families with school-aged children, as well.That's why Neighborhood Villages' is partnering with AmeriCorps: to tackle this crisis head-on. Neighborhood Villages is placing AmeriCorps members with the early education and after-school organizations working overtime to ensure that children have a safe place to learn while their parents work.Through the Boston Children's Relief Initiative (BCRI), Neighborhood Villages is creating a workforce pipeline for Boston-based early education and after-school organizations. Without an immediate infusion of workforce reinforcements into the child care and after-school sectors, it's clear that we will see the education and care needs of children go unmet. Achievement gaps will widen and health disparities will worsen.Through the BCRI, Neighborhood Villages will also be piloting a layered COVID-19 testing protocol for early education and care providers. Designed by a team of experts in public health, medicine, economics, and biotechnology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California, Berkeley, the 12-week pilot is intended to provide a roadmap for scaling a coordinated approach to COVID-19 testing for the field of early education and after-school care. Implementing a comprehensive testing system is imperative for achieving education and health equity and economic recovery. The BCRI is an emergency endeavor designed to support families for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. Demand is high and our intent is to expand this initiative across the Commonwealth as quickly as possible.Protecting equal access to education and care is vital – and we need your help.