Introduction

This toolkit was created to help advocates, practitioners, researchers, and other communicators apply the framing recommendations laid out in the Place Matters Strategic Brief. While the brief lays out a set of evidence-based communications strategies for deepening public understanding of how structural racism shapes the environments that affect young children, this toolkit brings those strategies to life. It is designed to support communicators who are talking about the relationship between place, racism, and early childhood development—whether they are writing op-eds, developing policy briefs, speaking with media, or creating community engagement materials.

The toolkit provides concrete examples, message templates, and a story bank for communicators to incorporating into their own work. By equipping communicators to effectively implement these framing recommendations around place, racism, and early childhood development, the toolkit can support broad efforts to shift dominant narratives and mobilize support for systems-level solutions.

Building upon the full Place Matters brief, this resource complements the core story of early childhood development that has successfully advanced public understanding of early brain development and caregiver-child relationships, and offers new ways to connect those concepts to broader environmental and systemic influences, particularly the impacts of systemic racism. Whether you are new to framing or already working to change the conversation around early childhood, this toolkit offers practical guidance to help you contribute to a more complete narrative that centers fairness of place—one that supports every child’s opportunity to thrive, no matter where they live.