Climate Change is Essential to the Work of Child Health & Early Childhood Leaders
“Early childhood leaders have already done so much to promote early relational health. Now more than ever, families need our help in building resilience.”
By Joe Waters
I am the CEO of Capita. I am also the father of a young son. Professionally and personally, I am acutely aware of the importance of early relational health to my child’s–and all children’s–ability to flourish. We are now well and truly in an era of Climate Change. And one that threatens to disrupt early relational health, even as it makes strong and nurturing bonds–and the resilience they create–more important than ever.
Over the last few months, I’ve experienced some pushback on my climate concerns from colleagues working in early childhood, and maternal and child health. It’s not that they discount the threats of climate change. They fully understand the gravity of the crisis. Instead, these colleagues say that fighting climate change does not align with their priorities. Or that this fight is best left to advocates or funders specifically focused on climate as an issue.
I undestand where they are coming from. We are faced with so many challenges in our work, but now it’s my turn to push back. I believe that climate change is a natural and necessary focus for early childhood philanthropists, policy and systems leaders, providers, and advocates. It is already threatening children and families through disasters and displacement, and we know these problems are only likely to increase with time. To help families build the stable and caring relationships that foster resilience to this crisis, leaders must make climate central to our efforts. If we do not, climate change could unravel the decades of hard work that the early years sectors have put into building brighter futures for our children and absorb the attention of policymakers at all levels.
Climate change requires resilience–exactly what early relational health promotes
As the American Academy of Pediatrics stated in 2021, safe, stable, nurturing relationships “not only buffer childhood adversity when it occurs but also promote the capacities” for future resilience.
Climate change is already a huge source of adversity for children and families across the globe. Extreme heat, floods, wildfires, and other impacts are causing direct harm to kids right now. Children desperately need to build resilience to these impacts–exactly what safe, stable, nurturing relationships can provide. We know that the future will be increasingly marked by climate-related disasters, so it is increasingly urgent to help families and communities develop relational capacities.
“In short: climate change increases the urgency of promoting safe, stable, nurturing relationships, identifying the barriers to these relationships, and repairing strained relationships. ”
Healthcare providers, early learning practitioners, philanthropic funders, and government policymakers must ensure that children and parents, families, and communities have the support they need to survive and flourish in the climate change era.
What can we do?
As Joni Pegram has written, “urgent action to limit warming to a maximum of 1.5°C can no longer be treated as a technical environmental challenge, but rather as one of the most basic and essential child rights interventions that is available to us.”
We must do everything in our power to slow global warming while adapting to the impacts of climate change. And for early childhood advocates this means making climate central to their advocacy. Anything we can do to ensure sustainability for our planet while lessening the projected impacts of extreme heat, the frequency of hurricanes, and the prevalence of wildfires and drought should be done.
Second, and just as urgent, we must press for an agenda to support families in building safe, stable, nurturing relationships. These relationships are foundational to the resilience families need to flourish in the climate change era. Policies like paid family leave, child allowances, and universal health care coverage are essential to building the resilience our children require for what lies ahead.
And just as we need strong policies, we also need interventions and community-level practices to promote safe, stable, and nurturing relationships. For example, the Burke Foundation in New Jersey is investing to expand the state’s community doula workforce by 1,000 doulas. While this investment will undoubtedly improve maternal and child health today, it is an approach that will also build the resilience that families already need and will continue to need as they face climate driven adversity. Doulas in Louisiana are already doing this by ensuring that parents can feed their children when sheltering away from home during hurricane evacuations. Is investing in our doula workforce a maternal and child health intervention or is it a climate related intervention? The answer is both.
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Early childhood leaders have already done so much to promote early relational health. Now more than ever, families need our help in building resilience. We are living in a new era marked by the influence of human activity on our climate. The impacts of climate change are among the greatest threats to human flourishing in the centuries ahead. We must redouble our efforts for investments, policies, and practices to ensure that families surround their children with positive and nurturing care as they face the planetary emergency that lies ahead.