Every child enters the world as an acorn—full of promise, potential, and purpose.
Top-Notch Villages™ are mission-aligned ecosystems made up of adults who understand that childhood is a critical window of time. During this window, intentional guidance, aligned values, and shared responsibility create the conditions that allow potential to be realized.
In a Top-Notch Village, adults work together with clarity and purpose to shape environments where children are supported in growing into the fullness of who they are capable of becoming. This work recognizes that today’s acorns are tomorrow’s oak trees—the future leaders of our families, communities, and world.
Investing in children during childhood is an investment in our collective future.
Every acorn deserves the opportunity to grow into a Mighty Mighty Oak Tree.
Top Notch Villages™
Ensuring Every Acorn Has the Opportunity to Become a Mighty Mighty Oak Tree
Meet Dr. El
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Dr. El Brown is a proud Daughter of Head Start and the voice behind the Top Notch Villages™ philosophy.
She entered the world as an acorn—full of promise, potential, and purpose. Along her path, there were individuals who understood the mission and chose to act with intention. Those moments of recognition and care created protective factors that stayed with her and shaped her identity and trajectory over time in environments that were not designed to protect her potential.
When Dr. El became a mother and stood on the other side of her childhood experiences—she knew she needed a Top-Notch Village of support for her own acorn.
Drawing from lived experience and professional insight, she brought mission-aligned adults together to ensure her child received timely, intentional support during the critical window of childhood. That Top Notch Village resulted in a child who was nonverbal until nearly five years old growing into a thriving college student—earning straight A’s in his first semester and performing as a member of a world renowned university marching band.
That generational throughline is the foundation of her work. As an Engagement Strategist, Dr. El partners with organizations to strengthen teams within systems—because when the adults in a child's ecosystem understand the mission's assignment, acorns are positioned to grow into Mighty Mighty Oak Trees.
Raising Superman is the lived case study behind the work, written from the shared perspectives of a mother and her son.
As a single mother raising a son on the autism spectrum—and without a strong family ecosystem to lean on—Dr. El had to build the village her child needed. Through their journey together, she documented the outcomes that emerge when a child is supported by mission-aligned adults across home, school, and community settings.
The book traces how timely decisions, shared responsibility, and mission-aligned support shape a child’s developmental trajectory over time during the critical window of childhood.
From this journey emerged the Village Engagement Matrix™ and the foundation for Top-Notch Villages™—a framework rooted in lived experience that helps organizations align people, purpose, and practice so every acorn has the opportunity to realize their full potential.
Raising Superman™
The Case Study That Shaped the TopNotch Villages™ Philosophy
Top Notch Villages™ align families and village members so every acorn can grow into a Mighty Mighty Oak Tree.
