InFocus featuring Community Action Pioneer Valley (Lev BenEzra & Marianne Bouthilette)

From the 22 News Plus Studio, this is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of In Focus. I am your host Patrick Berry. Today we are talking about community action of Pioneer Valley. I've got two of their executives with me today. On your left, Lev Ben Ezra. She is the newest executive director. Lev, always good to see you. Thanks for joining me today. And Marianne Boothlett is also the CAPB acting director of Head Start and the Early Learning Program. So thank you both for joining me today. Lev, I want to start with you because you're new to the role at CAPB. You and I met through your time at the Amherst Survival Center. But in early 2026, you made the change over to CAPB. Tell me about it. Tell me about the change, what you love about it. It has been amazing to join and really to rejoin the Community Action Pioneer Valley team. I actually had the incredible opportunity of working there for about 11 years prior to my time at the Amherst Survival Center. So it's been a bit of coming home. And for me, the passion that I have that I bring to my professional work is really that I deeply believe that everybody has the right to access to the resources that they need to meet their basic needs. I think this is a fundamental human right. And I think this is something that we have the capacity to provide for in our communities and our society. And working with Community Action Pioneer Valley, I get to work with incredible colleagues like Mary Ann and everyone across our organization to work with members of our community who are living with low income to help them meet their needs that they have that are essential needs right now, like accessing food or making sure that the heat is on in their homes, and also helping to build that foundation and stability and their opportunities for moving forward. And that long, that combination of the short-term immediate needs and that long-term investment in people and families and in communities is such an incredible thing to be a part of. So CAPV works with, they have a number of different programs working with families in what geographical catchment area, I guess? Community Action Pioneer Valley works across all of Hampshire County, all of Franklin County, and then also Western Hampton County. We are the federally designated anti-poverty agency. And through our array of programs, we are keeping 25,000 of our neighbors every year fed, warm, supported, and connected. And so really both meeting their needs today, whether that's accessing food or fuel assistance to keep the heat on, or supporting someone to access benefits that they may need to make ends meet, and then really working with people around what are those next steps for their family's economic stability, whether that's job training or ensuring that young children have high quality early education and care that both allows the parents to go to work and also makes sure that those young people are well prepared, both for entrance into school and kindergarten and really for the rest of their life. So Community Action Pioneer Valley works with all ages. It's not, I know, because Marianne, I want to talk to you a little bit more about the early education aspect, but CAPV is not just that. You've got programs that cover no matter your age. Absolutely. From babies, actually, before they are born, we start working with families and parents while they're pregnant, and then babies and children throughout their lifespan up to adults of all ages and seniors. We have, we work with a lot of seniors in our communities. There are many seniors who are living on fixed incomes and where it just really isn't enough. Absolutely. And so whether it's food programs or heat programs or things like home modifications that can help a low-income senior to make the adjustments, like grab bars and a shower or a ramp for their house so that they can stay in their home with their friends in their communities, in their neighborhoods that they know and age in place. So we are working with our neighbors all across that lifespan, really building stronger communities and neighborhoods across the Valley. Fantastic. And one of those programs, Marianne, is the Head Start program. So explain to me your role within Community Action Pioneer Valley. Well, I've been working for Head Start and early learning programs through Community Action Pioneer Valley for 20 years now. Wow. They have a good, solid knowledge base. And I love it. And I've held many roles during my time there in the Education Department, and now the Director of Child and Family Support Services is a role that I currently had up until just this week being the Acting Program Director. Congratulations. Thank you. Very exciting. And so what I really love about our Head Start program is that we serve young children and families in our program, expecting parents through children age five getting ready to go to kindergarten. So explain to me and to our viewers who are unfamiliar with Head Start, what is it? Okay. So thinking of our program here in Western Massachusetts, we serve 311 children. Yeah, that's what we're funded for in our slots. So think about this in a very vast way, large. Across the United States, Head Start serves over 750,000 children. Wow. And there are multiple Head Starts across Massachusetts, right? Yes. As Lev said, Franklin, Hampshire, and Western Hamden. And so there are others in the Pioneer Valley, right? Yep, in the Pioneer Valley and also through Cape Cod. Fantastic. So from Berkshires to Cape Cod. And like I said, across the United States and District of Columbia and Hawaii and Alaska. And we also serve migrant programs. That's the vast, big picture of it. But really looking at our local program, Head Start is designed, it's federally funded to local community. So we can design our program to meet the needs of the local community and the participants that we have. So for example, our program has eight sites located within our catchment area of Franklin, Hampshire, and Western Hamden counties. And we also have a program that's called our Home Visiting Program, Head Start at Home, where home visitors go out into family's home and actually do curriculum and supports for families. For those families that can't get to the facility. That's right. And what our program looks at is really thinking about the child and the family. So for children, we do educational services, but it doesn't stop there. That's where Head Start programs are unique. We also think about the health and wellness of children. We serve healthy, nutritious meals. And we also give health recommendations to family. Like if someone needs insurance. Just advice on life. Advice, right. And, and so someone, a child may be experiencing something. We had this child that came into our program and we do health screens at the beginning of all school years. And the child we found out was almost legally blind. Wow. And the parent was so gracious to find that out and was able to seek support through, you know, eye care and to be able to get glasses for the child and the child is able to see. So that's where our program goes above and beyond just the regular educational curriculum along with social emotional. So we have mental health staff on site. We have disabilities, a specialist on site. We have family advocates that partner with the families, the parents of the children to help support them in reaching goals that they want to reach. And so we, and I could go on and on about all the services that And we're going to get into more of those because we are up on our first commercial break. Stay with us. We've got plenty more to talk about. This is 22 news in focus with Patrick Berry. This is 22 news in focus with Patrick Berry. Hello everyone. And welcome back to this edition of in focus. Lev and Marianne are sitting across the desk from me today because we were talking about community action, Pioneer Valley and a number of their programs. One more specifically, the Head Start program. Lev, I want to switch back to you for a moment. You had said you were with CAPV for more than a decade and now you're back. Between your first stint with CAPV and now has the need, has the demand risen? Has it remained pretty flat? Has it dropped? And depending on what your answer is, what's been the reaction to meet the community? Yeah. Thanks so much for that question. So yeah, unfortunately we are seeing needs rise across our community. And I don't think that this comes as a big surprise to just a lot of us living our lives because we see the impact of what it means to go to the grocery store and just what costs are or costs at the pump. And we know that wages have not kept pace with rising costs over the last number of years. And that's even more exaggerated for our lower wage workers, folks that are working hard oftentimes in two or sometimes three jobs and still are really struggling to make ends meet. And particularly in Western Mass, looking at wages versus the cost of housing, access to healthcare, cost of transportation, all of those kinds of things. So need unfortunately really has continued to rise. And I think that it's both in terms of those sheer numbers of people that are needing various supports, but also the complexity of the kinds of issues that people are facing that really make the work of an organization like Community Action Pioneer Valley so important. Because at this most fundamental level, what we want is to meet someone where they're at, say hello, we're really glad to see you, and how can we help? And then wherever somebody starts within Community Action, we have the ability to connect and support them and connect them to so many different programs. So a central clearinghouse of somebody comes in with a question, you know exactly where to point them. Yeah. And it's interesting. I had mentioned when I was at Community Action previously, I ran the youth and workforce development department and did workforce development programming with teenagers, young adults and adults of all ages. And that was one of the ways that I really first got a good education into the Head Start and early learning programs, because we had people that we were working with towards their job training and greater economic stability. But in order to do that, they needed a really trusted, safe place to support their child. And so that's just one example of all of these different ways that when someone first gets connected. Yeah, absolutely. That when someone gets connected into Community Action, we really are focusing on how do we meet the need is that brought you in today? How do we look at a bigger picture of your economic stability and benefits that you may be eligible for or other supports? And then what are all the next steps to help move towards a long term path? So, Mary, I want to ask you the same question, because you've been involved for more than two decades. What's been the demand for Head Start? I mean, have you seen, as Lev pointed out, more and more every year, an increasing need for programs like Head Start? Yeah, we have waitlists in our program for children to get into Head Start. We see an increasing need. People need child care to help them to be able to go to work. Families need to work. So we're there to help support them in that. We also have program options from four hours, six hours and 10 hour days to help meet those needs for families. So you mentioned child care. So is there a difference between traditional child care and Head Start? Or does a family look at the Head Start program as a child care to start, which morphs into a more learning environment? Yeah, sometimes that happens. So sometimes parents come in thinking that, you know, we want child care. We want our child to be in a safe, nurturing place while we go to work. So we are there for them. But then they sometimes realize soon after, this is not an ordinary child care center. We do offer high quality curriculum, like many other child care centers around, you know, our service area. However, like I said before, we offer the health, nutrition, family advocacy. But then we even go a step further into that parent leadership, leadership in our program where parents can become part of our Head Start community and take on active roles in making decisions for our programs. And the way that they do that is they attend our family meetings right on site, or they can become part of our governing body, which is our policy council. So do you guys find because it's CAPV is sort of the whole family support system that families come in, maybe they're young families. It could be anybody, I guess. I shouldn't say young families. It could be anybody that comes through your doors. And then after a certain period of time, you kind of, and you're smiling, you kind of have that graduation moment. I use that as a, you know, kind of a loose term, but they become a more successful family, a more successful individual, a more successful or better off older adult. Do you have that moment where you just kind of like, wow, I look at you when you first walked in here and look at you today? I have to say Head Start works because I mean, I can, I have a million stories and I really think about families who walk in and I can even talk, you know, more about an individual family walks in the door and gives us their most precious gift, their child to take care of. Right. And then we start working with that family and thinking about what that family may want. Like if you had a magic wand, what would you want in five years from now? Thinking about goals. So we goal set with our families and some may say, I want to buy a house. Okay. That is my goal someday to own my own house. But what our family advocates do is they think about that with the parent and start breaking down the goals and formulating a plan, right? Like, okay, right now you don't have a job. So what we're going to do is we're going to work to support you. Let's think about what you're interested in and thinking about how you could get a job, or maybe you don't have a license to maybe get to the job. So let's think about getting a license or some form of transportation to get to that job. And then as we see time go on with our feelings, because some of our families are with us for five years. Now, one particular family, she was not able to buy her home in the five years that she was with us. It did take 10 years. She came back and she came to us and showed us pictures of her children and how they're grown up. And she said, I got my house and how happy they are in the home. Yes. And she is, she is part of the medical community, um, in a field in medical. Fantastic. We are up on our next commercial break. Plenty more to talk about. Stay with us. This is 22 news in focus with Patrick Berry. This is 22 news in focus with Patrick Berry. Hello again, everyone. And welcome back to this edition of in focus. I'm your host, Patrick Berry sitting across the desk from me today are Lev Ben Ezra and Marianne Bouthillette. They are from Community Action Pioneer Valley, uh, talking about the whole host of programs that they offer families in our community. Thank you both so much for joining me. Lev, you mentioned early, early on in this conversation about the way CAPB helps set families up. I don't want to use the right path, but sets them up for success. I guess that's a better, that's a better phrase sets them up for success. One of those paths to success is, is, is poverty. It's having enough food on the table. So how do you, how do you sort of break that cycle of poverty or that cycle of, um, of, of, of hungriness, you know, you and you working with the Amherst Survival Center, that was your day to day. Yeah, absolutely. Um, thanks so much for posing that. And I think that really ties to what I was speaking earlier that it's about both meeting people's needs right now, where they're at someone who is hungry, somebody who is cold in their home, somebody who is worried that they don't have the money to make next month's rent and are going to lose their housing, cannot, cannot succeed and thrive in the bigger picture. And, um, you know, we're here today talking about the Head Start and early learning programs. And one of the things that we know, um, around child development and childhood brain development is the impacts that a family living in poverty can really have on that child during those incredibly important early years. Let me ask you a question. They're kids. They're five years old, four years old. Do they really know what's happening in, in the house that, that, and it affects them. I remember when I was four or five years old, I was just out there playing with my trucks. So, um, I think what you're getting at is actually a beautiful point to make, which is that, you know, what we see is parents want many of the same things for their kids. They want their kids to be happy. They want their kids to be safe. They want their kids to have opportunities moving forward. Um, and there isn't the amount of resilience and creativity and love that we see among families that are kind of getting at what you're saying, helping to make their childhood experience as stable and steady as possible, regardless of all the challenges that they feel is it's incredible. But when families are living with housing insecurity or losing housing and having to move to other spaces they're living with, or they don't have enough food on the table consistently, or an ability to have nutritious and healthy food, they are, don't have reliable access to medical care, maybe just because they can't get there. All of these things really do have an impact on families. Um, and they have an impact on the stress that parents are experiencing if they're working so hard just to cover their kids' most basic needs. And so, um, a program like Head Start and Early Learning Programs is so critical in terms of helping to level that playing field and provide that baseline foundation of opportunity to move forward by really caring for the child, um, really like wrapping that family in this web of supports. Um, and it really all starts with, with trust and relationships. Um, and I think that's one of the places that our Head Start and Early Learning Programs really excels. So do you have like specific programs that you've instituted that help those families? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so, I mean, in terms of programs to meet people's needs and their economic supports, that is, that's community actions, bread and butter, so to speak, that is really the core of what we're doing. And when a family is involved with, uh, Head Start and Early Learning Programs, the family advocates that Marianne have been talking about, that's one of the things that they're doing is really helping to map that out. And then I think while we're working with families to meet those needs, the other part is just really helping to build this foundation of stability and trust through those relationships, uh, which is something that, uh, we do in a lot of different ways through all of the relationships in the classroom. And the, the Brazelton Touchpoints approach is another one that we, that we use really embedded throughout our program to support, uh, to support kids. And Marianne, you can talk more about that, right? Yes, I can. So the Brazelton Touchpoints approach was developed by Dr. T. Barry Brazelton. And in our program, we have over 90% educators, family service staff, and other front facing staff that are trained in that approach. And we also have seven trainers to be able to continue training staff coming into our program. Not only that, we also run parent groups through the Brazelton Touchpoints approach using that curriculum for our parents. So how does that, how does that system, how does it help families? Yes, it is a strength-based approach that we use with families. So when families are coming into our door, we are building relationships with them, trusting relationships, and really thinking about the child, the parent, and the whole support system. Like, you know, a mobile that sits on top of a child's crib. Oh, yeah. And we think about those, uh, pieces that are dangling down. So the child is at the center of that mobile. And then you have the parents, you have the grandparents, you have the providers, like the teachers that are in our classroom, and the advocate. We have all those people in that system supporting and helping that child grow through development, because we know that children develop in stages as they grow, and they also regress. And then they have, you know, those, those pause and burst in development. And sometimes families can get confused about why their children are doing something. So being trained in the approach, we, it's not about telling families what to do. It's about joining the families and where they're at and understanding and asking them, what, what do you think? How do you think your child is doing? How are you doing? So we use that approach, very strength-based way with them to understand them and their families and the relationship that they have with their child, and then also us with them. Perfect. I cannot thank you both enough for joining me today. I want to look down and read communityaction.us is the website. If, if folks and viewers, if you want to learn more about the myriad of programs that are offered there, um, thank you both for giving me some of your time today. It was, it was fascinating. Great seeing you again, Lev. Um, but hearing more about your new role and cause I, like I said, I know a little about CAPB or Head Start. So I really do appreciate you chatting with me. Good seeing you. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you.