by Ileen Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces As I learned during my short visit to McAllen, Texas, at the Humanitarian Respite Center, the trauma of our immigration crisis is seriously affecting the mental health and lifelong physical well-being of the children who have traveled through unknown and unimaginable traumatic situations to cross the border.  Many …Read More

By Ileen Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces Flying home from Texas after a week in McAllen creating an amazing Bright Space, my mind is full of images, my heart is full of emotion, and my resolve is strong. The Humanitarian Respite Center (HRC) where we created the Bright Space is a wonderful place. I …Read More

by Ileen Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces When Bright Horizons CEO Stephen Kramer committed to making a difference for the migrant families in McAllen, Texas, through creating a special Bright Space, I was honored to be charged with determining how best to utilize our resources and generosity to have an impact on these children. …Read More

by Ileen Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces McAllen, TX is a place very few Americans had heard of till a few months ago, and now the hotels swell with immigration lawyers, advocates, and caring and concerned volunteers signing up in droves to drop everything in their lives and travel to this small American border …Read More

“Tonight, more than 22,000 children will be trying to fall asleep in the (New York) City’s family shelters. While other children are playing with friends, learning math and reading, and developing social skills, children in City shelters are being damaged daily in ways that harm their brain development, plague their lives with poor physical and …Read More

by Ileen Schwartz-Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces ACEs  are defined as Adverse Childhood Experiences such as exposure to physical abuse, neglect, violence, substance abuse, and/or incarceration.  According to article  Traumatic Experiences Widespread Among U.S. Youth, New Data Show, more than 46 percent of children under 18 have had at least one ACE. ACEs contribute to …Read More

by Ileen Schwartz-Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces I recently returned from a thought-provoking, highly informative and engaging trip to Haiti to visit a home and school for children in Port-au-Prince sponsored by the nonprofit, Hope for the Children of Haiti (HFC) . The school, which has very high standards of education, provides education to the children in …Read More

by Ileen Schwartz-Henderson, National Director of Bright Spaces As the Bright Space program has evolved over its 15 + years of creating safe play spaces for children in crisis, we have learned the importance and impact of trauma on the children and families we serve. The global term ‘trauma’ has evolved to become a spectrum of …Read More

by Joe Willard, Vice President for Policy at People’s Emergency Center Philadelphia’s homeless advocates, early childhood educators, and developmental scientists created a project to support young children experiencing homelessness to access early learning programs. Called Building Early Links for Learning (BELL), the project aimed at two main goals: (1) to enhance the developmental friendliness of emergency …Read More

Free Resources to Promote Children’s Early Brain & Language Development through Bright Spaces By Jane Park Woo, Deputy Director, Too Small to Fail Too Small to Fail is proud to partner with the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children® to promote children’s early brain and language development in Bright Spaces across the country. Decades of research reveal …Read More