FCF Announces Two New States Joining The ECE Business Collaboratory
For Immediate Release, August 4, 2022
Contact: Media@firstchildrensfinance.org
Minneapolis, Minnesota— First Children’s Finance is proud to announce the addition of two new states to the ECE Business Collaboratory: Hawaii and Maine.
The Collaboratory’s roster of states includes Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C., along with our most recent additions to the programs, the states of Hawaii and Maine.
“We’re thrilled to partner with state teams from all corners of the country. FCF is proud to provide opportunities for states to examine their child care landscape to create meaningful change for child care entrepreneurs, children, families, and communities. We’re honored to be in this work with them,” said Heidi Hagel Braid, Chief Program Officer of First Children's Finance.
The Collaboratory will provide opportunities for teams from each state to analyze their states’ child care business system, share best practices and ideas with their counterparts across the country, and implement effective, sustainable strategies to meet the unique needs of child care businesses.
Over the next year, First Children’s Finance will lead cross-sector state teams to assess, plan, fund, and implement business improvements to ensure a sustainable and robust child care system. State teams will have the opportunity to think beyond the national crisis to create a blueprint for a strong, sustainable, sufficient child care supply.
The Collaboratory is built around FCF’s State Child Care Business Ecosystem, which identifies the essential elements of a strong, sufficient, and sustainable system of high-quality child care. Such a system:
· Meets the practical, educational, and cultural needs of local children and families.
· Provides child care business owners and staff with a viable business model, career pathways, livable wages, and valuation of their skills.
· Enhances the local economy, community vitality, and civic life.
The teams in both Maine and Hawaii are ready to take on the challenge of improving child care in their respective states with new innovative programs created within the Collaboratory.
“In the great state of Maine, we are ready to start understanding the barriers and gaps in the system.” Crystal Arbour, Program Manager with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services within the Office of Child and Family Services. “Maine is interested in creating a plan to address the business side of ECE by looking at gaps in our current system and the policies that may be barriers to the partnerships created. By identifying the gaps and barriers, Maine hopes to achieve needed changes and in turn, create stronger more sustainable partnerships.”
Carol Wear, the Executive Director for PATCH Hawaii, a community service organization supporting child care needs in the state of Hawaii, expressed her excitement to participate in the ECE Collaboratory. “The Collaboratory offers an opportunity to create cohesion across interested parties. Hawaii is at a critical juncture to move forward with this technical assistance as the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of child care as an industry and the recognition that there needs to be more supports in place in order for it to grow and flourish. Public and private as well as political investments will help to leverage this opportunity and support implementation of a strategic fiscal plan for child care and all the key players are invested and represented on this team.”
First Children’s Finance is honored to partner with each of its 16 state partners and will welcome each team to Minneapolis in September 2022 for a three-day convening.
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ECE Business Collaboratory: The ECE Business Collaboratory is an innovative national collaboration to support state efforts to coordinate their local child care systems.
National Collaboration Effort Announced to Address Issues Confronting America’s Child Care Industry
Project supports states’ efforts to strengthen their abilities to ensure accessible, sustainable child care businesses
For Immediate Release, November 10, 2020
Contact:
Doug Stone, 651-336-9907 | stone7586@gmail.com
Heidi Hagel-Braid, 612-279-6504 | HeidiHB@firstchildrensfinance.org
Minneapolis, Minnesota—Child care in America is a $47 billion industry comprised of small, independent businesses, franchises, and nonprofits and employing more than two million people. Approximately 12 million children under age five are in some form of child care in the U.S., but the country faces a severe child care shortage. The dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism have further exposed and exacerbated this crisis.
To confront those issues head on, a Minneapolis-based national nonprofit, First Children’s Finance, has created an innovative national collaboration to strengthen states’ efforts to coordinate their local child care systems. First Children’s Finance today officially announced the formation of the ECE Business Collaboratory. (ECE is Early Care and Education.)
Over the next three to five years, the ECE Business Collaboratory (the Collaboratory) will work with cross-sector teams in a dozen states – Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, and Texas – which were selected through a competitive application process. More state teams will apply for participation in future cohorts.
The Collaboratory will provide learning and convening opportunities, investment, and technical support for state teams of public officials, nonprofits, employers, funders, and child care businesses to work together. This support will allow them to address their states’ child care business issues, share best practices and ideas with their counterparts across the country, and implement effective, sustainable strategies to meet unique local needs of child care businesses.
“The ECE Business Collaboratory is a multi-pronged strategy to bring together smart people, big ideas and innovative thinking to improve the child care system,” said Heidi Hagel Braid, Chief Program Officer of First Children’s Finance. “By meeting states where they are in the process of comprehensively funding their child care systems, we’re able to encourage innovation and new thinking at every level of state policy.”
The Collaboratory is built around the “State Child Care Business Ecosystem,” which identifies the essential elements of a strong, sufficient, and sustainable system of high-quality child care. Such a system:
· Meets the practical, educational, and cultural needs of local children and families.
· Provides child care business owners and staff with a viable business model, career pathways, livable wages and valuation of their skills.
· Enhances the local economy, community vitality, and civic life.
The State Child Care Business Ecosystem serves as both an assessment and a planning tool for states, promoting innovation and flexibility to meet local needs. It was developed by First Children’s Finance through its 29 years of providing financial and technical assistance to child care businesses of all types and sizes across the country.
“States have a pivotal role to play in coordinating child care so there’s a sustainable supply,” Hagel Braid explained. “The Collaboratory is making that possible: offering resources, connections, and expertise to help states solve a shared problem in a way that respects each state’s unique needs and approach. There’s never been a more urgent need to address child care in the country. We’re grateful for this opportunity to work together.”
“Learning from other states and national experts about the best options for support and investment in the child care and education industry is vital to our state's future economic and societal well-being,” said Stephanni Renn, Vice President, Early Childhood Programs, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation.
More than half of Americans (51 percent) live in child care deserts. And in one in 12 families with a child under five, someone was forced to quit, forgo, or change a job the previous year because of child care problems. Meanwhile, the past decade saw a 20 percent decline in the number of family child care businesses -- often the least expensive and most flexible care option. Progress has been made to increase affordability and quality, but less attention has been paid to shoring up the child care supply.
The Collaboratory responds to the reality that significant increases in the supply and sustainability of child care and early education aren’t possible without planned, coordinated, sustained and supported efforts for child care businesses at the state and federal levels that result in a dramatic increase in financial resources over time to help families. It also makes economic sense: investment in child care generates a $16-to-$1 return and every dollar of federal child care funding creates an additional $3.80 in state-level economic output.
“There is not another opportunity anywhere in the country that allows states to examine the child care system from a high level, with a focus on innovation that can dramatically impact the sustainability and supply of quality care.” Hagel Braid said. “The Collaboratory is an opportunity for collaboration and experimentation designed to drive real results for state child care systems.”
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ECE Business Collaboratory: The ECE Business Collaboratory is an innovative national collaboration to support efforts to coordinate local child care systems.