Dania Nuno-Carrillo (she/they), Pathwaves Fellow at Washington STEM, stepped away from the policy advocacy sector a few years ago after experiencing burnout. The Pathwaves Fellowship seemed like the perfect opportunity to return to the sector, where their passion for early childhood education would meet their experience with policy in an environment designed to nurture leaders of color. The cohort model would ensure that she would be doing this work with a built-in network of support to prevent burnout. When Dania first met her placement site supervisor, Soleil Boyd (she/her), during the interview process, she felt like she’d found her place. “The rest is history! But wait, we still have a lot of work to do together,” she jokes.
The first six months of the Fellowship have solidified for Dania that this is exactly where she wants to be. They explain, “A big part of why I am having a fulfilling experience is the team that Soleil has built. I feel supported and encouraged to take risks toward growth and take up space in my role. Each piece of our puzzle holds a responsibility to each other and to ourselves to give our best.” Dania sees these same values within her Pathwaves cohort and the community they are building amongst their placement sites. “I think one of the biggest strengths of the program is the variety of organizations that have chosen to invest in Pathwaves and the Fellows. Because of this model, we are able to see how there are different ways of approaching the various challenges our communities face.” The deep connections she is building within the Fellowship Cohort have fed her growth as an advocate in ways she didn’t anticipate, “Because of the sisterhood we have established within the cohort, we are able to work through the tensions of being BIPOC leaders in the policy sector in real time, allowing us to more meaningfully learn and grow and have an impact together.”
For Soleil, the community Pathwaves is building is directly aligned with her vision for the early childhood policy sector, and Olympia as a whole. “A lot happens in Olympia, and it is important to have early learning advocates from communities of color. My hope is that these Fellows grow beyond the Fellowship to move within the sector with skills and confidence. And that placement site organizations continue to build a racially just environment for leaders of color and the communities they serve.” Reflecting on her work with Dania so far, Soleil is already seeing the impacts of having a Fellow at Washington STEM, “Dania is not just learning and growing their own skills as an advocate, but is shaping the spaces where they are working, advocating for themself in ways that have immediate and long-term impacts on how we engage with our partners.”
This can be seen in a collaboration between Washington STEM and the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to increase the accessibility and equity of the Early Learning Data Dashboards. Dania explains, “I have interacted with DCYF in different contexts before, but this is my first time working closely with them on a project.” Data collection practices throughout history have not been conducted in racially just ways, and have led to harmful outcomes for families of color. Dania is encouraged to be a part of this collaborative project that is committed to making data systems more racially just and inclusive by working with community members as well as subject area experts to ensure their findings accurately reflect the needs of children and families. Dania explains, “I now have a stronger understanding of how child care is funded and how decisions are made at the state level that I am excited to share with my colleagues and utilize in my future work.”
Beyond the DCYF project, Dania is focused on her role as Co-Chair of the Communications Committee with Child Care for Washington. In this capacity, Dania is providing support for the campaign by participating in advocacy activities, creating and distributing resources, and more. “I felt pretty new in the space,” Dania explains, “not just to the coalition, but to some of the specific bodies of work that I would be completing as Co-Chair. Soleil really encouraged me to do it and it has been exciting to see how much I have grown in my role during this first legislative session.”
Looking ahead, Dania is excited to see how her relationships can be leveraged to ensure better outcomes for children and families. “I hope to have a deeper understanding of how the system works so I can contribute to building partnerships and coalitions that streamline solutions.” One of Dania’s strengths is recognizing that there are often multiple solutions to any given problem, and they have an opportunity as an advocate to be a vehicle for collaboration. This is the vision Dania shares with Soleil for herself and for her Cohort, that they continue to build relationships as a collective and facilitate collaboration between their organizations now and in the future.
