“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
CS3 Updates
Save The Date! 2026 Partner Plan Act Conference – April 28-30, 2026
The 2026 Partner Plan Act Conference will be held virtually from April 28-30, 2026! Registration details are coming soon!
Our conference theme this year is Equity from the Start: Centering Community Well-being in Early Childhood Systems. Join us for engaging discussions, insightful sessions, and networking opportunities.
Visit the Partner Plan Act website for the latest information about registration and stay tuned for exciting conference updates!
Strengthen Your Facilitation Skills with On-Demand Consultation
Do you need help designing a meeting, facilitating a sticky situation or developing your facilitation skills? Chris Foster, co-author of Facilitating Effective Community System Development Meetings: A Handbook for Collaboration Leaders can provide you with custom, on-demand consultation support. Request a single call or up to 20 hours of support. Take the steps to enhance your facilitation skills today!
Request On-Demand Consultation
Upcoming CS3 Trainings and Events
Community Engagement as Collective Healing
Location: Naperville, Illinois
Date: Tuesday, March 10
Time: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Community engagement in early childhood is essential for children’s well-being and thriving families. This interactive session helps early childhood collaboration members understand how trauma, racialized stress, and system barriers affect trust, participation, and power in early childhood work.
Using healing-centered and trauma-informed approaches, participants will explore ways to build stronger relationships, support shared leadership, and create spaces where communities feel valued and included.
Participants will:
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Learn how trauma and inequities impact engagement
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Build trust and stronger relationships with communities
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Move from rule-focused engagement to relationship-focused practices
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Center community voices and support shared leadership
This training will be facilitated by Dr. Alexandra Escobar.
This series is eligible for Gateways credits and certificates issued in collaboration with The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning.
This event will not be recorded.
Fiscal Sustainability in Southern Illinois Communities
Location: Mt. Vernon, Illinois
Date: Thursday, March 19
Time: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Sustaining collaborative work in rural communities requires creativity, persistence, and the right tools. This interactive workshop focuses on developing fiscal strategies that fit the realities of smaller communities that may face limited access to funding.
Participants will explore innovative approaches like shared resources, diversified funding, and community-based fundraising that build long-term stability.
This training will be facilitated by Jaclyn Vasquez and Dr. Rebecca Halperin.
This series is eligible for Gateways credits and certificates issued in collaboration with The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning.
Please note,this training will not be recorded.
Measuring Impact: Understanding and Capturing Family Impact
Date(s): Tuesday, February 12, 2026, and Tuesday, February 19, 2026
Time: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Join us for high-level training designed to help early childhood collaborations build the skills to use data meaningfully to understand, communicate, and demonstrate their impact for long-term sustainability.
This training will be facilitated by Hannah Miro and Jaclyn Vasquez.
This series is eligible for Gateways credits and certificates issued in collaboration with The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning.
This event will not be recorded.
Other Events & Updates
Register For Childhood Advocacy Day: May 13, 2026
Calling all advocates! Join us in Springfield, Illinois on May 13 for Early Childhood Advocacy Day! Use your collective voice to express the importance of early childhood programs to lawmakers, and boost your knowledge with key information on legislative and budget issues that will affect the futures of children throughout the state.
Join Illinois Action for Children, alongside Start Early, Child Care For All, COFI / POWER-PAC IL, Latino Policy Forum, Raising Illinois, SEIU HCII, United Palatine Coalition, Evanston Early Childhood Council, We, The Village Coalition, and partner Illinois AEYC. Together, we’ll call on the Illinois General Assembly to lend their support and urge them to prioritize investments in our youngest learners and their families as they finalize the Fiscal Year 2027 budget!
Join We, the Village at our Next Coalition Meeting: Thursday, March 5 at 12 p.m.
Join the We, the Village Coalition’s upcoming virtual meeting for the latest updates, trends, and opportunities shaping early childhood care and education in Illinois. This is a great resource for providers, advocates, and community members to stay connected, informed, and ready to engage in the policies and initiatives impacting our field.
Training Opportunities in Collaboration with The Center: Early Childhood Professional Learning
Wednesday, February 18
Monday, February 23
Visit The Center’s Training Calendar for more opportunities.
View The Center Training Calendar
weconnect
WeConnect brings together members who are dedicated to advancing community systems development in early childhood education and care.
You can also find and access our on-demand courses on WeConnect. Be sure to check out our latest course: Fiscal Sustainability 201!
Fiscal Sustainability 201 is designed for early childhood collaborations ready to deepen and apply their knowledge of sustainable funding strategies to meet long-term goals. Building on the foundational concepts from Fiscal Sustainability 101, this course will help you strengthen your funding practices with a focus on strategy, alignment, and implementation.
WeConnect gives you access to:
- Online Communities: Connect with your collaboration, get early childhood and community systems development news, and meet other collaborations members online.
- Discussions: Ask questions and share your knowledge and ideas.
- Resource Libraries: Share and find the resources you need.
- Member Directory: Get in touch with other collaboration members.
Check your spam folder if you have not received a confirmation email.
CS3 Resources
Access Printing Support
The CS3 team is continuing to offer support in partnership with American Color Labs for printing services. If your local early childhood collaboration has marketing materials that you’d like to print, please complete this Request for Support form.
Printing support can include flyers, annual reports, marketing collateral, stickers, banners, posters, and more. Please reach out to the CS3 team if you have questions about this support.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a service provided specifically to early childhood education and care (ECEC) collaborations. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate requests for individual programs.