Child Care Aware is in the house!
CCA staff deliver professional, personalized assistance to child care providers
There’s a big, new addition to our team: Child Care Aware of Minnesota Northeast-Region 3 staff members are now under the Northland Foundation roof!
In recent months, we finalized an agreement with the State of Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families to bring Child Care Aware (CCA) into the fold. CCA fits well with our continued, and deepening, focus on child care (read “Celebrating wins, spelling out challenges for child care” in the Summer 2025 Notes).
Child Care Aware of Minnesota is a statewide early childhood leader that promotes high-quality, affordable, and accessible child care for Minnesota families. CCA supports providers with business training and development, assists families in finding and affording child care, and works on policy and system-level improvements.
“Child Care Aware has been our close collaborator for many years in improving child care access and quality,” stated Northland Foundation’s Jan Amys, “so it’s exciting to be able to work with and learn from them every single day.”
Altogether, five Child Care Aware staff serve Minnesota Northeast Region 3, which covers the foundation’s same seven-county footprint. Three are CCA veterans while two are fresh hires. All bring a wealth of early care and education experience with them. Jan Amys, our Senior Program Officer, has added Child Care Aware Regional Director to her title and supervises the team.
Here’s a little more about our newest employees and what they do to support early care and education professionals across our region.
Parent Aware Quality & CLASS Coaches
Jessica Faast has been with Child Care Aware of Minnesota since 2019. She has a bachelor’s in Elementary Education and a minor in Early Childhood education. Prior to coaching, she taught children of all ages in child care centers for more than 12 years. She has also done administrative-level work as a site and assistant director. Jessica has taken the Director’s Credential, RBPD Credential, and is CLASS certified.
Meralee Rosasco has 6 years working in childcare and joined Child Care Aware as a Parent Aware and CLASS Coach in February 2025. Meralee is a Relationship Based Professional Development (RBPD) Specialist with a Parent Aware Quality Coach Endorsement and is CLASS certified. She graduated from the University of California, Davis with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and a minor in Education. She also completed a Certificate in Early Childhood Development.
Katie Tima has 20 years of experience in early childhood education, special education, and reading intervention. She has a B.A.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Minnesota Duluth and holds a K-6 teaching license. She is an RBPD Specialist with the Parent Aware Quality Coach Endorsement and is actively working on obtaining her Pre-K CLASS Coach Endorsement.
Coaches have structured priorities, with specific tasks and goals to promote professional development, training and licensing, offer grant funding guidance, and help providers with their Parent Aware quality rating. They are immersed in the policies and procedures and help ensure providers have their i’s dotted and t’s crossed, too. Coaches:
- Strengthen program quality by supporting clients to use best practices for early childhood education and care.
- Guide providers through the Parent Aware quality rating system and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System.
- Work with Professional Development Advisors to help providers access training to meet their quality improvement goals.
- Advise programs on spending their quality improvement grants.
- Engage with local stakeholders to develop community partnerships that promote high-quality early care and education.
Child Care Start-up & Retention Navigators
Heather Hefter was a family child care provider for seven years in Two Harbors. What started as an opportunity to stay at home with her children during their formative years and financially contribute to her family morphed into a passion for little people and creating a safe place for parents to leave their children. She also went back to school to learn more about child development.
Chris Salgy has worked in the early childhood industry for 28 years. She graduated from the College of St. Scholastica with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. Chris spent 20 years teaching children of all ages in the classroom and five years as a child care center director before becoming a Navigator/Wayfinder in 2022.
Navigators take it one day, one provider at a time. They work within the Child Care Wayfinder system, which is a free one-stop navigation network for child care programs to start up or expand. No two providers, communities, or programs are exactly alike so assistance must be tailored to each situation. Navigators help providers to:
- Access local resources that help them achieve their quality goals, such as licensing and training.
- Navigate the ins-and-outs of opening a child care center or a family child care.
- Better manage the business side of child care e.g. writing contracts, setting policies, or seeking small business loans or grants.
- Work with families to navigate the Early Learning Scholarships program, referrals to Help Me Grow MN, and resources from the Center for Inclusive Child Care.
- Find the support they need, so they can quickly get back to what they do best – care for Minnesota’s children.
Connect with CCA
“Bottom line, we are all about customer service,” explained Jessica Faast. “No matter what a provider’s question or issue is, we work with them to get them to the next best step.”
Are you an early care and education provider or curious about becoming a child care provider in the seven-county region? Reach out to us to talk about your needs, goals, and what support we might be able to give!
TO LEARN MORE contact Child Care Navigator, Chris Salgy.
Chris@NorthlandFdn.org / 218.673.1987
Language Assistance Line
For Child Care Aware assistance in Hmong / Somali / Spanish, please call the numbers below.
- Yog xav tau kev pab txhais lus Hmoob, thov hu rau 651-366-6792.
- Si lagugu caawiyo Af Soomaali, fadlan wac 651-641-6673.
- Para asistencia en español/hmong/somalí por favor llame 651-641-6660.
This initiative is made possible, or funded in part, with a grant from the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families.