Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/intentional-and-culturally-responsive-leadership-the-story-of-j3-solutions/5025464/
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
—Michael Jordan
As three women of color that operate with integrity and who are respected in our community, we build powerful relationships. While we entered the field differently, our purpose is the same. We established J3 Solutions to provide professional development, training, coaching, and mentoring opportunities for early care and education practitioners, in order to create a pipeline of intentional, developmentally appropriate, and culturally responsive leaders who make decisions based on what’s best for young children.
Our name, J3 Solutions, came from our last names. We are all Johnsons, but we are not related by family. Instead, we are related through our passion and intentions for the early care and education field.
In 2005, we attended an Embracing Diversity conference as presenters and/or participants. To our surprise, we each received an emerging leadership award. The purpose of the award was to celebrate emerging leaders in the Milwaukee early childhood community. At this time, we didn’t know each other but we left connected and wondering why we received the award and what it meant.
From 2005 to 2014, we would frequently be in the same meetings, conferences, award ceremonies and other venues. We also found ourselves embarking on small ...