Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet Shares Model at National StriveTogether Convening
- Staff
- Sep 25
- 2 min read
September 26, 2025 - The Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet Executive Director Jill Roche Gomez joined education and community leaders from across the country at the 2025 StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network Convening to share how local government partnerships are creating sustainable change for children and families.
As part of a panel discussion titled "Creating Children's Cabinets with Local Government for Sustainable Civic Infrastructure," Gomez highlighted the
Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet's innovative approach to cross-sector collaboration. The session, which also featured leaders from Boston, Tulsa, and Stanislaus County, California, explored how communities are leveraging Children's Cabinets to maximize resources and advance economic mobility for young people from cradle to career.
Gomez shared details about the organization's NorthStar goal: by 2033, over 5,000 City of Poughkeepsie young people and their families will be connected annually to transformative cradle-to-career opportunities that place them on pathways to postsecondary completion and socioeconomic mobility. With a focus on the city's 32,000 residents and 3,700 students in the school district, particularly in the Northside community, the Children's Cabinet serves as a backbone organization bringing together leaders from agencies and organizations that serve children and youth.
The presentation emphasized how Children's Cabinets create civic ecosystems where superintendents, library leaders, health commissioners, and after-school providers collaborate at one table to meet the holistic needs of children as they grow and develop. By seamlessly coordinating community supports and services, this model addresses young people's needs in a comprehensive way.
The session was facilitated by Rob Watson, Executive Director of EdRedesign Lab, Lecturer on Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and Co-Founder of the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, and attended by communities at various stages of developing their own Children's Cabinets.
As communities nationwide recognize that optimizing the role of local government is the next frontier of the cradle to career movement, the Poughkeepsie Children's Cabinet continues to lead by example, showing what's possible when a community comes together with a shared vision for every child's success.