Empowering Families to Ask Questions
Searching for child care can be a difficult process. There are so many factors to consider, and we know from research that cost is utmost in parents’ minds. However, we also want parents to be empowered to ask important questions before they select a child care program. Our publication Finding Child Care: A Guide for…
Recent Posts
Expanding Child Care Aware’s Public Policy Leadership
In August, Nikki Graf started a new position as Child Care Aware of Minnesota’s (CCAoMN) Public Policy Specialist. In this role, Nikki supports the CARE Fellows program and will provide help tracking legislation, organizing testimony, and networking with advocates during legislative sessions. Our Communications Director, Diane Benjamin, recently spoke with Nikki about her new role.…
How I Grew My Career through T.E.A.C.H.
T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® MINNESOTA is a scholarship program that helps early childhood and school-age care providers increase their levels of education, compensation, and commitment to the field by earning college credits and degrees. T.E.A.C.H. program recipient Lynn Barten recently shared the following story with us: “I had the goal of obtaining my early childhood education degree…
More Financial Help for Families with Children: The Child Tax Credit
In the child care world, we usually focus on the economic policies that directly affect families’ ability to pay for the cost of child care – programs like the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), Early Learning Scholarships, and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. However, this summer’s temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit…
A Vision for the Future of Child Care Funding
The pandemic has revealed a lot of the underlying problems with how we structure and fund child care in this country. However, it’s easy to get so busy responding to daily challenges that we forget to stop and boldly imagine a better system. A new paper from University of Minnesota professors Liz Davis and Aaron Sojourner,…
The Role of Parent Aware Recruiters
Parent Aware, Minnesota’s Quality Rating and Improvement System, has a mission to help families find the quality care and education their children need to succeed in school and life. The five Parent Aware Recruiters are a crucial part of building the program throughout the state. Amber English is the recruiter for southeast Minnesota, based at…
Child Care Aware of Minnesota Launches New Mission, Values, and Vision
Child Care Aware of Minnesota is pleased to announce our new mission, values, and vision. Developed from a collaborative strategic planning process over the past year, these new statements more clearly express who we are and how we view our work. Mission: We are a statewide early childhood leader driving change through partnerships to build…
Articles Address Low Wages in Early Education and Introduce a New Wage Scale
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development has now published two in-depth articles documenting both the very low wages in the early childhood profession, particularly in family child care, and analyzing a proposed equitable wage scale for the field, developed by the Transforming Minnesota’s Early Childhood Workforce project. Child Care Aware of Minnesota participates…
Child Care Aware of Minnesota Receives Grant to Support the CARE Fellowship
Child Care Aware of Minnesota is pleased to announce receipt of a multi-year grant from the Hopkins Early Learning Center for $200,000 in support of the Katie Williams CARE Public Policy Fellowship. The CARE (Child Care Advocates Ready to Emerge) Fellowship provides early childhood and school-age care professionals an opportunity to connect their daily work…
Essential Supplies Keep Child Care Working
Beginning last April, Child Care Aware of Minnesota began collaborating with a sub-group of the Governor’s COVID Education and Child Care Workgroup to distribute critical supplies to child care programs around the state. While it feels like 100 years ago that this all started, I know it has only been a year. Perhaps you can…