Each fall, Building Bright Futures publishes Policy Recommendations from Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council Network for the coming year. These annual recommendations represent the most pressing and actionable priorities for early childhood stakeholders throughout the Building Bright Futures Network.
2026 Policy Recommendations of Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council Network
In November 2025, Building Bright Futures finalized the Policy Recommendations of Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council Network for 2026. These recommendations represent the most pressing and actionable priorities for early childhood stakeholders throughout the Building Bright Futures Network.
This year’s Policy Recommendations focus on ensuring children and families can meet their basic needs, protecting access to health and mental health care, strengthening safe and healing environments, and sustaining the progress Vermont has made in early childhood education. These recommendations reflect emerging needs across the state and the most pressing issues raised by partners this year. Priorities include:
- Protecting food security programs and strengthening stable, family-centered housing
- Maintaining access to essential health, mental health, and trauma-informed supports
- Improving system capacity through modernized background checks, sustaining Act 76 child care investments, and advancing pre-K access
- Elevating family voice and strengthening data, privacy, and coordination across systems
Each year, the Building Bright Futures Network brings together partners from across Vermont, including the Early Childhood Strategic Plan Committees, Regional Councils, families, program leaders, and state agencies, to identify the most urgent needs facing children and families. The annual Policy Recommendations reflect the themes, concerns, and priorities elevated throughout this shared process. Grounded in the Strategic Plan and informed by the best available data, the recommendations highlight gaps, emerging challenges, and opportunities for coordinated action to strengthen Vermont’s early childhood system.
Goals of the Policy Recommendations
While the Policy Recommendations can be leveraged in a variety of ways, their foundational goal is to provide a common agenda and unifying vision for the state’s early childhood system and its partners. The annual Policy Recommendations are a tool that requires both championing and monitoring in order to be successful.
- Elevate urgent, statewide issues and priorities that need to be addressed from across the Network and Vermont’s early childhood partners more broadly
- Provide common language to inform decision-making and support advocacy efforts
- Communicate about cross-sector early childhood needs and priorities to decision-makers
- Create accountability for policy change toward the vision outlined in Vermont’s Early Childhood Strategic Plan