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.…
Recent Posts
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,…
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…
Family Child Care Task Force Report Released
After two years of hard work, the Minnesota Family Child Care Task Force has released their final report. This task force included family child care providers from both Greater Minnesota and the metro area, representatives from family child care associations, county licensors, the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the Children’s Cabinet, parents, legislators, other stakeholders,…
Building a Better Child Care System
“If you could build it, what would a better child care system look like?” This question was posed to a study group at the Coordinating Office as we were discussing the Child Care Aware of America Picking Up the Pieces report. The report points out that the current system falls far short of meeting the…
Legislative Update
Child Care Aware of Minnesota helps you stay informed about the latest child care and early education policy news. Each week during the legislative session, our Legislative Update provides a brief overview of bills that have been introduced, action that has been taken at the committee level or on the floor, and any other pertinent…
Emergency Grants Helped Programs Stay Open
As the pandemic descended in March, the Minnesota Legislature funded $30 million in emergency grants to help child care programs respond to the child care needs of essential workers. An additional $10 million was added to the program in June. The Minnesota Department of Human Services, Governor’s Children’s Cabinet, and Child Care Aware of Minnesota…