Talking Early Years: June O’Sullivan and Sarah Ronan

Sarah Ronan is the director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition (EECC) – an organisation made up of 35 members which represent children, parents, providers, the Early Years workforce and the wider business community.

Like many others in the Early Years sector, Sarah's journey is deeply personal. Her own experiences with inaccessible childcare, combined with her passion for women’s issues, led her to work with organisations like the Women’s Budget Group and Pregnant Then Screwed. She firmly believes that access to childcare is a core feminist issue – not only for women as parents but also for the predominantly female workforce in the sector. It also shines a light on the broader politics of care and its critical importance in society.

Building a coalition in the Early Years sector is no small feat. It requires both time and resources, especially in a field as diverse and market driven as this. The first year of the coalition's work focused on laying the groundwork behind the scenes –aligning priorities and getting everything in place before officially launching its efforts.

Key to this is producing robust research evidence and effective policy solutions, both of which require significant energy to drive the movement forward and, according to Sarah, this has been lacking in Early Years for some time.

Her long-term ambition is for a movement that is not just a formal group of people but one that weaves together all the informal structures, dynamics and mechanisms that exist into a powerful catalyst that can become a force for change and therefore a force for good.

Sarah raises the challenges of a coalition which are not just keeping the energy powered but also securing funds to create the communication content and lead the advocacy to get in front of the right people. It is these individuals who can help drive the change needed to create a fair and accessible service for all children and their families.

So, have a listen to a master class on developing networks and coalitions in an Early Years that must do much more to share our powerful message with politicians, policy makes and the public.