EDC Builds Foundation to Improve Wellness from Preschool through Higher Education

This spring, EDC was chosen by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education to lead a landscape analysis to inform the development of a new statewide Birth Through Higher Education Mental and Behavioral Health Framework (Framework). The Framework will meet an urgent need to create a unified vision and road map to guide state agencies in improving mental health and behavioral health support across Massachusetts early childhood, K–12, and higher education sectors.

EDC’s landscape analysis included input from a steering committee composed of key state agencies; listening sessions with thought leaders; an extensive review of reports and frameworks; and a survey of professionals across education, mental health, and behavioral health sectors. Based on these inputs, EDC is providing recommendations to shape the development of the Framework, which will advance state efforts to accomplish the following:

• Accelerate the spread of effective mental and behavioral supports across public education and licensed childcare systems to transform wellness from early childhood through adulthood
• Identify challenges and successes in services, and determine the scale, scope, and impact of services on children, youth, and adults
• Connect and coordinate efforts across education settings, families, community-based service providers, and state agencies to improve support across systems
• Improve the methodologies that the field uses to collect and apply data to improve mental and behavioral health supports
• Address the needs of underserved populations by identifying gaps in services and employing asset-based approaches to enhance wellness

“We are honored to work with the Executive Office of Education to realize their vision for this timely new tool,” says EDC project director Ellyson Stout. “The Framework will provide shared principles, language, and metrics that will allow education leaders to work toward a common vision for mental and behavioral health of learners across education settings.”

“The data show that people of all ages and stages are struggling—negatively impacting learning, wellness, and workforce success,” adds EDC senior research scientist Shai Fuxman. “This initiative has the potential to have extremely wide-reaching and positive impacts in every childcare, school, and public higher education campus in the Commonwealth.”

EDC’s new work on the Framework builds on a decades-long and strong partnership to improve pre-K–Gray education and wellness outcomes throughout Massachusetts. For example, EDC leads the Massachusetts Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Academy, which builds educators’ capacity to improve students’ well-being, positive behavior, and school success, and which has supported 206,600 students in 170 schools in over 90 districts in the past six years. EDC also leads two statewide centers that support adult educators in meeting the needs of adult learners throughout the Commonwealth: SABES PD Communication Center and the ESOL PD Center.

Recently, EDC kicked off a new initiative to develop a statewide professional development package for early childhood educators. This initiative will create job-embedded, credential-aligned courses and train-the-trainer materials designed to serve over 45,000 educators in multiple languages starting in 2026 as well as strengthen the foundational adult capacity to support child development and well-being in pre‑K settings.

We invite you to learn more about EDC’s Education & Wellbeing, Child Health & Safety, Early Childhood Development & Learning, and Mental Health & Wellbeing work.