The child care field is experiencing a historic moment. After years of being chronically underfunded, the child care sector has received over $50 billion in dedicated funding from the federal government, thanks to the passage of three COVID-19 relief packages. It is the largest public investment in child care in our nation’s history and gives states a crucial opportunity to implement policies that will have long-lasting impacts to stabilize and transform the industry.  With the recent receipt of significant federal dollars, states are searching for effective and sustainable uses for these funds that have the power to transform the future of child care. The good news is that there are already success stories from policies implemented in the last year that states can learn from and replicate.

StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to record, preserve and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds, and Child Care Aware^® of America recently partnered on a project to interview child care providers. The providers were asked about their personal journey in the child care field and the impact of COVID-19 on their work and life. 

Family child care providers work hard to maintain their businesses. Aside from caring for children, they also must track billing and attendance, maintain the cleanliness of their facilities, market their businesses, find supplies, seek out professional development opportunities and much more. Providers – particularly in home-based settings – often perform these additional tasks outside of the normal hours of operation, sacrificing precious personal and family time.

The Office of Child Care (OCC) has released guidance on the $24 billion Child Care Stabilization grants made available through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. The purpose of the guidance is to help states quickly distribute the stabilizations funds to protect and support the existing child care market. As the guidance emphasizes, this funding represents an important opportunity for states to stabilize and rebuild a stronger child care system that meets the diverse needs of all children and families, and of the child care workforce.  

High-quality child care data are essential to informed decision-making. Accurate data are needed to answer questions such as: how many children are being served in programs nationwide? What areas are experiencing gaps in the supply of child care? Where should we target more resources and supports? Currently, a lot of child care data are collected by multiple sources in the nonprofit and state government arenas. But there is no consistency in how these entities gather and report data. Instead, the data are siloed and often inaccessible.  

Child care is a two-generation workforce issue — with access to high-quality child care being crucial to supporting a highly skilled workforce and vital to developing our workforce of tomorrow. Child Care Aware^® of America explored the child care landscape in their report, The U.S. and the High Price of Child Care: An Examination of a Broken System. They discovered our current system is:

• Fragmented: Each state has its own set of child care policies and funding operations.
• Inequitable: Children of color and children from low-income families are less likely to attend high-quality child care programs.
• Inaccessible: For many families, high-quality child care is not an option. There are not enough child care providers to meet the demand, and providers are leaving the field in record numbers. This particularly affects families of color, families living in rural areas and children with special needs.
• Underfunded: The U.S. spends less than 0.5% of its gross domestic product on child care — far less than most industrialized countries.