Starting Early – Starting Early is a Burke Foundation newsletter that examines key issues affecting children and families. Our goal is to increase understanding of root causes and to highlight proven solutions and tools.

February 27, 2026March 2, 2026

Designing the future families deserve 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

👋 “Public policy is the letter we write to our children.”

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia spoke those words at the Aspen Forum on Children and Families I attended last month. The occasion was the launch of Ascend at the Aspen Institute’s Forward With Families vision of how policy can better support health, stability, and economic opportunity.

The Senator’s observation is a powerful reminder that the choices we make as a society — what we prioritize, what we fund, the challenges we decide to take on — shape not just what happens today, but the futures of families for generations.

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026

Maternal Health Awareness Day — a time to reflect

👋 Happy New Year!

Today — January 23 — is Maternal Health Awareness Day. It’s an occasion that invites reflection on whether we’re doing enough to care for mothers, babies, and families.

In New Jersey, we’ve come a long way. Eight years ago, our state was experiencing some of the nation’s worst maternal health, amid stark and widening racial disparities. Since then, New Jersey has made sustained progress on many fronts. Among them: expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage, supporting doula services, and launching the groundbreaking Family Connects NJ free home nurse visits to the homes of newborns.

We’re grateful to the Murphy Administration — especially First Lady Tammy Murphy — for elevating maternal health as a statewide priority through the Nurture NJ initiative and grounding that work in listening to families, community leaders, and health workers.

December 19, 2025December 19, 2025

Meet Burke’s 2025 Community Champions ⭐

👋 Happy Holidays!

The Maasai community of Kenya and Tanzania greet each another by asking, “And how are the children?” It’s a reminder that the well-being of children reflects the well-being of the whole community — and that every decision we make should be measured by its impact on the youngest among us.

That question is at the core of the Burke Foundation’s work: How are New Jersey’s children? And what more can we do for them to be healthy, supported, and able to thrive? Families want the very best for their children, yet too often face financial strain and systemic barriers that limit the availability of care and resources they deserve.

November 14, 2025November 14, 2025

HealthySteps — meeting families where they are

As the mom of 2 boys, I vividly remember those early pediatric visits — full of questions and worries amid moments of wonder. Is my baby growing as expected? Sleeping enough? Should I be doing more to support his development?

Those visits are for most families the first and most consistent touchpoint with the healthcare system after a child is born. Too often, though, we seemed rushed and I didn’t get to bring up everything on my mind. The physical exam, which of course is important, was about all we’d accomplish in a 15-minute visit.

That’s what makes HealthySteps unique. Pairing medical care with practical, compassionate guidance from a child development specialist, this innovative approach turns routine pediatric checkups into opportunities for prevention, connection, and lifelong impact for parents and children.

October 24, 2025November 14, 2025

Child care — infrastructure we can’t afford to ignore

As a mom who juggles board meetings and bedtime stories, policy memos and playground runs — like so many working parents — I’ve struggled to balance career and caregiving. And I know how precarious that balance can be without reliable child care.

At the Burke Foundation, we’ve spent years supporting the health of families in their children’s earliest years — piloting and scaling such innovations as Family Connects NJ, HealthySteps, and Centering, reaching thousands of New Jersey families. Our grantees’ accomplishments confirm what decades of research already tell us: Invest early, and the returns — for children, parents, and society — are extraordinary.

September 19, 2025September 19, 2025

Rx for play 🏃‍♀️👟⚽

Starting Early is back from our summer break!

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I didn’t grow up with much exposure to sports, so it still surprises me that I’m now a soccer mom who spends weekends crisscrossing New Jersey to watch my sons play. From the sidelines, I see kids of all backgrounds running, high-fiving, and building friendships that stretch far beyond the field.

A few years ago, I met Denny Boyle, fellow soccer parent and passionate champion of Soccer Without Borders. His love for sports and belief in its power to bring people together was contagious. Denny’s story — about how playing sports shaped his life and opened doors to connection, community, and leadership — reminded me that play is so much more than a game.

June 27, 2025July 15, 2025

What we learned at the First 1,000 Days Summit 💡

👋 For 8 years, the Burke Foundation has worked with community leaders and experts in early child development and maternal-infant health from New Jersey and across the nation. These efforts came together for 2 days last month at our inaugural First 1,000 Days Summit, co-hosted with the New Jersey Academy of American Pediatrics. The time was right to demand more for families.

The Summit started with the interactive Brain Architecture Game designed by Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child. The team exercise showed how even a single strong relationship can help buffer the harmful impact of early adversity. It drove home the point that, without relationships, the foundation for lifelong health and well-being can falter.

May 30, 2025June 2, 2025

The Doula Difference

👋 The first time I came across the concept of weathering — how the cumulative stress of racism ages the bodies and endangers the health of mothers and babies of color — I was stunned. It was a 2018 article in the New York Times Magazine by Linda Villarosa explaining something no medical chart could: why Black women, regardless of income or education, face some of the worst maternal health outcomes in the country.

At the Burke Foundation, one of our responses was to invest in community doulas who compassionately guide birthing families through a complex and often unwelcoming system. What we’ve seen from partnerships with community doulas is nothing short of extraordinary.

April 25, 2025April 26, 2025

Paid leave works for families

👋 Especially in the earliest days, parenthood is a rollercoaster. There’s learning, bonding, worrying, feeding, changing — all while trying to grab a few precious hours of sleep.

During those early weeks with my newborn son, I had a moment of clarity: The health of a parent, especially a mother, is deeply connected to the support systems around her. I was fortunate to have 12 weeks of paid leave through my employer. But not everyone is so lucky — 1 in 4 women in the U.S. return to work within just 2 weeks of giving birth, often because they can’t afford to stay home longer.

March 21, 2025March 21, 2025

🛡️ Protecting Medicaid – A lifeline for families

👋 The news from Washington is disheartening: Nearly 2 million New Jerseyans stand to lose essential medical services if cuts to Medicaid federal funding being discussed take place.

Among those whose health and well-being would be severely threatened are the mothers and babies who the Burke Foundation and our many partners in the nonprofit community, government, and elsewhere support through efforts aimed at making sure all families can provide the nurturing and care needed to promote lifelong well-being.

Medicaid enables families that struggle to make ends meet — including new mothers, children, seniors, and people with disabilities — to obtain critical medical care.