Impact Highlight Ep.1: Dr. Teresa Granillo on the AVANCE Way
In this interview with Dr. Teresa Granillo, CEO of AVANCE, we discuss the AVANCE way and their unique approach to Two Generation models in early childhood.
Dr. Granillo explores how walking alongside families has made AVANCE a leading organization in the field, their strengths-based approach to accelerating economic mobility for Latinx families, and the partners most critical to their efforts to advance equity and justice for children, parents, and the early childhood workforce.
“Are we just serving the problem rather than solving the problem? When I got the opportunity to explore a career with AVANCE, I realized AVANCE is solving the problem because we’re starting at birth. And there is no better time to start supporting a child and their educational journey. That’s what brings me here.” — Dr. Teresa Granillo
See the questions below in italics and Dr. Teresa Granillo’s responses with associated timestamps (responses edited slightly for readability). Thanks for listening in!
— Grant Richardson, Program Manager, Promise Venture Studio
Hello, and welcome. I am super excited to kick off today’s interview. Dr. Granillo, would you start by introducing yourself? Sharing your name, your organization, and your role?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 0:21
Absolutely. Thank you, Grant, for inviting me to be here. I’m Teresa Granillo. I am the CEO of AVANCE. And we are located in San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Teresa Granillo 0:39
AVANCE is an early childhood organization that focuses on a Two-Generation model (Two Gen), we were doing Two Gen before Two Gen was even a thing.
We work with both parents and their children, simultaneously, focusing on education as a pathway to economic mobility, and really focusing on the early years. We work with parents who have children, ages zero to five.
Why Do You Do What You Do?
I would love to hear about why you do what you do. Because this work, centering impact, and centering community in your career is not for the faint of heart. So from your perspective, why do you do what you do?
If we start as early as my own childhood, that’s what really motivates this. I was raised by a single mom. And as a Latina, she raised three children. We went in and out of systems, we lived with grandparents, and we had all of those different experiences.
One of the things that my mom would say, and I was an honoree teenager as most of us were, was when I used to complain about having to wear my brother’s hand-me-downs. I was the only girl and the youngest. So there’s that dynamic. My Mom would always just tell me, “if you don’t want this life, get an education.” She knew for herself, that that was what she was missing in order for her own economic mobility and for the economic mobility of our family. She didn’t really know what that meant outside of “get an education.” But she knew. She knew that’s what she wanted for her children.
So I took it a little too far. I was a good Latina, I listened to my mother and I ended up going to school and getting a dual Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology. The entire time I was going through my educational journey, my motivation was, how can I get back to my community? I wanted to get this education and go back into the field to help support other families, so they wouldn’t have to go through the situations that our family went through. That vision is what kept me going to do the work.
I was a clinician for a while, but I ended up as a professor at UT Austin, doing research, and teaching social work students. The opportunity came to walk alongside my community. I took that opportunity and dove headfirst.
I didn’t take a leave of absence from academia too, “dabble in nonprofits”. I left a tenure track position immediately and jumped headfirst into the work and have not looked back.
“I’ve focused my entire career on Two Gen models, because I know the power having a parent engaged and involved in a very proactive way has on a child’s education.”
— Dr. Teresa Granillo
I’ve focused my entire career on Two Gen models, because I know the power having a parent engaged and involved in a very proactive way has on a child’s education. My mom didn’t know exactly how to navigate higher education or postsecondary degrees or anything like that. But she was my biggest cheerleader, and she was there every time pushing me forward. I think that that was so critical to the success of our future and seeing it firsthand in my life. I’ve seen it through all the work that I’ve done and that’s what brings me to AVANCE.
I will say one more thing about that. And that is the work that I was doing before, in the Two Gen space was working with young Latinas and their mothers helping these young girls to stay in school to pursue their college education. Sound familiar? While that work is so important, one of the things that I started to percolate on was, are we just serving the problem rather than solving the problem?
When I got the opportunity to explore a career with AVANCE, I realized AVANCE is solving the problem because we’re starting at birth. And there is no better time to start supporting a child and their educational journey. So that’s also what brought me here.
Why A Two-Generation Approach Is Essential in Early Childhood
Thank you for sharing your passion and your background with us, I would love to learn a little bit more about the why behind Two Gen approaches, as you’ve already mentioned some of the power within them.
As you shared, you have dedicated much of your career as an executive leading these different social ventures focused on Two Gen approaches. Tell me a bit more about why that is. And with AVANCE, what’s the unique approach that you are taking with Two Gen models?
If you take it down to the bare bones, no child exists outside the context of their family. So whether that be their birth parents, whether that be their foster parents, or legal guardians, whether their Abuelita or Tia, no child exists without that context.
In many circumstances, and in many programs and organizations, there’s a lot of focus on the child. Head Start, Early Head Start, it’s about children. Any of the programs that we see around middle school interventions, or high school interventions, or post-secondary programs, it’s really focused on the child.
What we have to understand is something I learned as a clinician. I used to tell parents this because they would drop their children off with me and be like, “bye”. And I was like, “No, no, no, come in.” This is a family system. I can sit here and do all this wonderful work with your child, one on one. But, if I do that work, and I put them right back in the same system, nothing we do here matters. Nothing will stick. We have to also work with the family system in order for all this great work that we’re doing to actually take effect and create the foundation that we need for these children and the environments.
I think this does two things. One is it creates a great success model for children. It also communicates to parents and caregivers that they are important. They are valuable. And they are critical to their children’s education, well-being, environment, and the way that their child develops. Parents are their child’s first teachers at home.
So often, particularly in our black and brown communities, there’s such a power dynamic. And many times our parents feel like “Oh, no, the teacher is the expert, the doctor is the expert, the social worker is the expert.” No.
This is something that is unique to AVANCE, we say, “Parents, you’re the expert on your own child.” You know. You’re coming to us because you know you need something more or your child needs special services. Or that you just want your child to have a better opportunity. You know, and you’re the expert.
Our job is really to support that parent in that role and to provide them with the resources and support that they need. We are their cheerleader as they continue on with their children.
That’s the other thing about Two Gen models that is really critical.
No organization should really walk alongside these families in perpetuity. Our job is to come in and to provide some kind of support and some kind of resource, again, that cheerleading aspect, and then say, “Okay, go and flourish and thrive.” Do all the things and accomplish all of your goals. If you ever hit a roadblock, come back to us because we’re here for you. But you got this. I think that’s what’s so critical about the Two Gen model.
That’s what we at AVANCE were founded upon. It’s this whole idea that parents are their children’s first and most important teachers at home, and home is the very first classroom.
We can empower parents to feel that way and to take on that ownership, that responsibility, but not in a pressured way. You don’t have to sit there with a curriculum, whiteboard, and chalk. No, the kitchen is a classroom. When you’re cooking and your child is sitting there, talk to them about the vegetables, help identify colors, talk about shapes, and talk about smells. Right there, right then, a parent is a teacher.
At AVANCE we really try to support parents in seeing all the places in their life, that they’re naturally a teacher. We help them see that they’re doing it and how important this role is to their child’s brain development and future success.
It goes right back to what you shared at the beginning, right, there’s a difference between serving the problem and solving the problem. And that leads to very, very different approaches.
How Does Equity Show Up in Your Work
It’s very clear that you all lead with equity and lead with the lens of serving those who are most in need of additional support to get to a place where injustice is not impacting their ability to thrive.
Can you share more about how equity shows up in your work and how you think about impact?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 10:41
It’s a really big difference between: a) walking alongside and in the community, with our parents and our families, and b) saying, here are some programs and supports that you should enroll in. I think that is the critical thing about AVANCE is that our perspective is a strengths-based approach. We come in and say, “Oh, my gosh, these parents come with so much knowledge and experience,” and we just can’t wait to help them see that and lift it up.
Our equity approach is really around understanding that each parent and family has different needs and comes with different strengths. And we meet them where they’re at. Then we build individualized plans to support them and walk alongside them in their journey. One of the things that we are very, very intentional about at AVANCE is proximate leadership and proximity. We believe wholeheartedly that those from the community are best suited to serve that community. Close to 50% of our staff who deliver our program are alumni of our program. That’s intentional. Think about the power of that.
“Close to 50% of our staff who deliver our program are alumni of our program. That’s intentional. Think about the power of that.” — Dr. Teresa Granillo
This parent and many of our parents are Spanish speaking. Think about a group of parents who maybe don’t speak the dominant language, who maybe they might be new to the country. Maybe not, maybe they’ve been here for a long time. They have an infant or toddler so we know that if they’re caring for infants and toddlers at home, that leads to a lot of isolation. All of these factors can lead to an intense amount of isolation.
So then they sign up for our parent-child education program. They walk in that door the first day scared, nervous, and not sure what they’re about to encounter. They walk into a room full of other parents, who are going through very similar experiences. And then an educator in the room, who was in their seat and in their shoes not long ago. Imagine the amount of trust that is created.
What we have learned and what we have seen over time is that this is really big for us. Leaning into proximity, and ensuring that we create these safe environments that foster trust and foster community. A lot of times our parents come in and they’re not as talkative or they’re reserved, or they’re trying to just figure things out. They’re asking themselves “what am I doing here?”
By the end, you can’t get them to stop talking. They’ve learned how to advocate for themselves and their children. They’re ready to go back to school. They’re going to go back into the workforce. They’re going to start a business. Or, they’re going to come back and work for us. It’s just this transformation.
It starts because of our approach of saying, “No, you are an expert on your child. You are your child’s first teacher. You have tons of knowledge that nothing in the classroom could ever teach you, that lived experience.” And here, at AVANCE, we’re just going to support you in whatever goals you want to achieve. We’re going to walk alongside you, and we’re going to provide you with any resources that we can provide to support you in that journey.
It’s not about this approach of you need to be a better parent and that’s what we are here to teach you to do. No, they’re fantastic parents. That is what drives our program: their inherent love for their children, that they would show up to a strange room, a strange location with a bunch of strangers and commit to that every single day. It’s amazing. And it’s amazing to see what they end up accomplishing after and what their children end up accomplishing.
But it’s really having them walk into an environment that meets them with love and honor. An environment that sees them for all the complexity and different experiences that they’ve had. And an environment that sees that as a positive thing, not a negative thing.
Deepening Impact: Where’s Your Focus with AVANCE?
I just love the way that you lead with that asset base, that strength-based approach. There are always assets that we can look to within communities and within the folks that we’re working with. I really appreciate the intentionality that you and your team bring to this work. I’m curious to hear about some of the initiatives that you all are moving into to deepen impact as you think about better positioning AVANCE to result in the outcomes you all are striving for.
Dr. Teresa Granillo 15:46
I’ve mentioned the parent-child education program, and we have several other curricula that we operate.
Our Two Gen models have evolved to not just focus on parents and caregivers of children, ages zero to five, but also on providers. We have an arm of our work that’s focused specifically on home-based, or you’ll sometimes hear, family-based childcare providers. This program, this initiative, was a direct result of our parents.
Our parents were graduating from our parent-child’s education program and wanting to go back to school or go back into the workforce. What do they all have in common? They have a child under the age of five. They need childcare in order to do all these things that they want to do.
Naturally, what was happening was that the moms, after creating this really close bond as they go through this nine-month program together. By the way, that’s one of the outcomes that we see in our impact. Even during COVID, we saw upwards to 60% increases in the parents’ self-reports of social connectedness and belonging because of participating in our program. After COVID, it’s up to more than an 80% increase. So naturally what was happening was that one of the moms would say, “Oh, I’ll take your kids, I’m going to be at home with my baby, I’ll take your child and care for them while you go back to school or you go to work.”
What was happening was the co-madres were creating home-based childcare. And the great thing was, they had the foundation of Early Childhood Education and Development because they had just graduated from our parent-child education program. What they didn’t have was safety for how to operate a home child care situation, licensing, or how do I set up a room so that children have centers and dedicated space to do science and math. They didn’t have that.
We partnered with Annie E. Casey Foundation and we decided to create a curriculum so that while these other parents were moving on to pursue their economic mobility and their pathway, the parent who was going to stay at home with all the other children was also going to be able to develop a business and have this pathway to economic mobility.
We had used it internally for years. And in 2019, we then piloted the program, which we now call Quality Childcare Matters. We piloted it with 10 home-based providers in Hidalgo County. And it’s been incredibly successful.
And so, we have the Parent-Child Education Program, we have Quality Childcare Matters, and we also have a curriculum called Families Building Communities.
We tend to see it as step two in the Parent-Child Education Program (PCEP) journey because PCEP is all about foundations. Foundation in early childhood development, the foundation of parenting, and the foundation of school readiness. The Families Building Communities program is more about leadership and advocacy. How do I get involved in my community? How do I participate in my child’s school? How do I understand the type of committees I can contribute to and let my voice be heard and let my child’s and my community’s voice be heard?
With these programs and these curricula, we’re really looking to continue our intention of those from the community are best suited to serve their community. We have these tools. These curricula are tools to utilize with one’s community. We’re really looking to partner. We’re looking to partner with other organizations, within their communities, and to offer our curriculum as a resource and tool for them to do the work with their own community.
I just had a call a couple of days ago with someone from New Mexico. We don’t have an actual center, site, or office space in New Mexico. We want to empower this particular organization that works with family childcare providers.
If our curriculum can be of use to you, and you’re already on the ground, engaging, and walking alongside and in the community with family childcare providers, we are all in. If we can be a resource to support you to strengthen that work, we are all in. So that’s really where we’re going with our growth model and our impact model.
We are actually going through a randomized control trial right now, as I speak, on our parent-child education program. In 2019–2020, we partnered with Harvard Center on the Developing Child to revamp that curriculum. We had a test year where we had bumps and bruises and we utilized that information to make sure that the curriculum was meeting the needs of the parents and the children in our communities. Now it’s time to test it out. So we’re doing that right now.
Ultimately, we have five areas that we really look at in terms of the impact of our parent-child education program:
- Parent empowerment;
- Social connectedness;
- Parent-child interactions;
- School readiness knowledge;
- Their child’s actual school readiness development over the time in which we’re working with them.
This is what we are going to be focusing on in the randomized control trial. So we’re excited to see what comes of that.
And then, with Quality Childcare Matters, we not only look at some of those same factors in terms of provider empowerment and social connectedness, but we look at direct economic mobility. What is the impact of the work that we’re doing on their businesses?
There are some examples of the work we’ve been doing with some of the providers and through our business coaching program. Some of these providers have never paid themselves. 20 years they’ve been operating, and they’ve never paid themselves. Through the work that we were able to do with them on looking at spending, building a budget, and thinking about how they can utilize this money in other places. Some of them, they’re paying themselves for the very first time. Or they are taking a vacation for the very first time. There are a lot of great impacts, particularly for these communities that we’re serving and working in that are often overlooked. The communities that are furthest from justice, and that we know have so much to offer the rest of the world.
We’re just excited about partnering with other organizations that have similar values and approaches that we have. And that if our programming and curriculum and training can help them better serve their community. That’s where we want to be.
I would be really curious to hear what you find most unique about your work because as I’m hearing it I’m excited about all of it. But from your perspective, what do you find most unique about what you do?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 23:45
Honestly, it’s our approach. Internally, we term it “The AVANCE Way”, but it really is this asset-based approach. That is so intentional. This is so critical to the work that we do.
When new staff comes on board, and right now we have around 230 staff, one of their first training sessions is with me. I get on a Zoom call with them because they’re all over the United States. And I talk about the AVANCE way. I emphasize the importance of this model of meeting families and providers, children, and each other, where we’re at. The importance of having that strengths-based approach and addressing root causes of inequities.
In our organization, if you see something, you say something and we do something about it, and we really encourage it, and we not only encourage it for our staff and our families in the community, but we also encourage it for them to tell us like “Hey, that training that you did triggered me because X, Y, and Z,” “Hey, have you looked at your employee handbook from a gender neutral position?” We want all of our staff to push on that kind of stuff, both internally and externally.
Making sure that everything that we do is culturally and linguistically responsive. Our programming and most of our staff are bilingual, English, Spanish. Some of them are Vietnamese because we have a group of family child care providers that we found in Texas that are Vietnamese, and instead of getting a translator, because then you have this third person in the room, we hired a business coach whose native language is Vietnamese. Again, another example of equity and meeting people where they’re at.
And then, really emphasizing the proximate leadership. We value lived experience, and we want our staff, our children, and our families to know that their experiences matter, and that those experiences shaped them to be the leaders that they are and that they’re growing to be. That is actually the unique factor because anybody can have a curriculum. But you have to have a certain mindset and a certain way of walking alongside. I say it a lot “alongside and in community with the people that you’re supporting or working with” and it’s that mindset, and that approach, that really makes a difference.
“You have to have a certain mindset and a certain way of walking alongside. I say it a lot “alongside and in community with the people that you’re supporting or working with” and it’s that mindset, and that approach, that really makes a difference.” — Dr. Teresa Granillo
Partnering with AVANCE
To wrap up, share a bit more about how folks in our community can support your work. I know you mentioned partnership, and you shared some of the things that you are looking for in terms of ideal partners, would you share a little bit more there, and then any needs for the community to plug in?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 26:59
One of the areas that we’ve identified that we really want to grow our reach, and our impact is through Head Start/Early Head Start operations. Head Start and Early Head Starts are incredible. They have this strong focus on supporting children and have a family component. But there are not many evidence-based parent curricula out there that have this asset-based approach and have cultural responsivity. That’s something that AVANCE has been doing for over 50 years now.
We really feel like we’ve got an opportunity to further support Head Start/Early Head Start operators by helping them with answering key questions: What do we do with our parents? How do we engage with them? What are the different activities we can do? We’ve got a whole curriculum with 26 lessons and a multitude of resources.
We’re in that space where we don’t want people to have to try to recreate the wheel or figure that out. If they can benefit from what we’ve done over the last 50 years, we want to be able to provide that. So really looking at how we can partner with Head Start/Early Head Start operators to implement our parent-child education program with the parents of the children. We also work with school districts. Sometimes we do the standalone implementation of parent-child education programs with school districts.
I would say the other entities that we want to partner with are community-based organizations or any type of organization that has a focus on supporting childcare providers.
Right now, many entities that we see, whether they be workforce boards or nonprofits, tend to focus on center-based providers. And there are very few resources for family home-based childcare providers in all communities. Again, we’ve been doing this for years. We want to make sure that we bring family childcare providers closer to justice, and that they’re not out there by themselves trying to figure this all out and not paying themselves for the incredible work that they’re doing. We have this resource and we want to make sure that folks are considering family childcare providers.
If you’re already working with centers, what would it take for them to expand their work with family childcare providers, and they don’t have to figure it out? We’ve got the curriculum that we can provide them to support that journey for them and within their own communities.
Those are the two or three arms of the work that we want to continue to expand and we’ve identified some of the partners that we want to work with. So if anybody has any recommendations, or you’re reading this and you’re like, we would love to hear more about your Parent-Child Education Program, or the Quality Childcare Matters program. Or, if there’s a funder out there that says “We believe in your work and your model, how can we invest in helping you to reach all of these different partners to get the work into their hands?” We’re all for it.
How can folks connect with you?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 30:32
The best way would be to just directly email me at tgranillo[at]avance.org. There’s info[at]avance.org. You can also visit our revamped website at avance.org as well.
Closing Thoughts
Teresa, this has been a pleasure, I have learned so much, just having this conversation with you. I would love to invite you to just provide any closing thoughts for those in our community. As you know, we are really committed to social impact in this early childhood space, creating a better, more equitable reality for all children and families. Any closing thoughts?
Dr. Teresa Granillo 31:23
I would just say that I know it’s hard work because I’m in the work with you and with all of our fellow ECE providers. But you know, as they say, just because it’s hard, doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.
The other thing I’ll say is just that it’s important that people understand, early childhood educators are so devalued. They’re often thought of as babysitters, and people devalue the type of learning that happens for a six-month-old in a classroom. It is so incredible.
I would urge anybody who is not familiar with early childhood education, to go to your nearest Head Start or early childhood center, and just spend some time in the classroom and watch these educators, as they literally transform the brains of the children that they’re working with. And how the impact of one class time, just one hour, has on that child’s brain development which will change their life. It’s incredible.
So we need funders, in particular. We need to put our dollars into the value of early childhood educators. And particularly with an equity lens. Because guess what, most early childhood educators are women and women of color. And so we really need to work on lifting up the Early Childhood Ecosystem so that people see the incredible value and the value add.
Learn more about AVANCE at avance.org
This recording was created, edited, and published by Promise Venture Studio. Our mission is Supporting Innovators and Accelerating Innovations for Equity in Early Childhood Development.
Learn more about Promise Venture Studio at promisestudio.org
