“No matter where I go in our region, people are talking about child care. Employers, local leaders, economic developers, early care and education providers, parents, grandparents … everyone is concerned about it,” stated Northland Foundation President, Tony Sertich.

Our work to increase regional availability of and access to quality child care falls into four broad categories: (1) equity to help create more child care spaces in the region, (2) state-funded child care scholarships for families, (3) training and business consulting for child care professionals, and (4) advocacy to spur solutions at the local, regional, and state levels.

Start-up and Expansion Grants

The child care business takes a lot of heart and hard costs: meeting strict building codes, cribs and high chairs, playground equipment, and more. Financing a new facility or expanding an existing one can be a heavy lift for child care entrepreneurs. With recent funding of $240,000 through the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the Northland Foundation will be able to make equity investments in the form of grants to eight-to-ten child care center projects. When completed, they are expected to add 500 new, primarily infant and toddler slots. The latest DEED funding is an increase over similar, smaller awards received in 2017, 2018, and 2019 which totaled $300,000 altogether and helped support 16 projects.

There is a great need for many more spaces – the regional shortfall hovers around 4,800 slots – and for financing assistance to help start-up and expansion projects come to fruition. In August, we conducted a survey to get a better sense for the number of “shovel ready” child care projects in the region. Nearly two dozen respondents outlined projects totaling over $5 million.

Clearly there is appetite to develop more child care in the region, and Northland continues to seek resources to boost child care creation in our rural communities.

Early Learning Scholarships

Starting in July 2017, the Northland Foundation became a Minnesota Early Learning Scholarships administrator for the seven-county region. With approximately $2 million made available in funding each year, the Foundation team processes applications for scholarships offering up to $12,000 per year to help eligible families afford Parent Aware-rated child care or preschool programs.

“We cannot thrive as a region unless fundamental community assets like access to quality child care are a reality for all families in all our communities.”

 

Tony Sertich, President

Northland’s longtime Parent Aware Pathways work is a fitting counterpart for Early Learning Scholarships, as it helps to increase the number of rated programs available to families who qualify for a scholarship.

Training and Technical Assistance

High-quality child care requires more than a building and supplies. It also takes knowledge and skills to provide developmentally appropriate care that prepares children for kindergarten and beyond, and it takes business savvy to successfully manage the business.

In 2013, we launched Parent Aware Pathways to help child care providers embark on Parent Aware, Minnesota’s voluntary rating system for program quality. We have worked closely with Child Care Aware of Minnesota-Northeast District to offer hundreds of trainings at no cost to providers. Thanks to state agency and foundation funding partners, more than one-third of licensed programs in our region have now earned or are in process of earning a Parent Aware rating—one of the highest attainment levels of any region in the state. Other training and technical assistance includes:

• supporting mentoring opportunities for licensed child care programs and family, friend, and neighbor caregivers;
• connecting child care providers to business development and consulting resources like First Children’s Finance, Business of Child Care, the Northland Small Business Development Center, and others; and
• assisting with community planning to develop local solutions to increase the supply of child care.

Information and Advocacy

The Northland Foundation is among a growing number of private and public sector organizations working individually and collectively to move the dial on child care. Northland and many other partners have persistently pushed child care to “top of the list” of every community conversation. What we all know is that the current child care system is broken. And we need child care to work, not just for our families, but also to make our communities more livable and improve our economy.

We and our partners are doing what we can to help within the current system, but much more needs to be done. Fixing the system is not the responsibility of child care providers, who are busy doing amazing work with our children. A challenge of this magnitude, with so much at stake, calls for engagement by the business community, civic leaders, school districts, and – most importantly – policy makers.

“Early care and education can and must be solved with policy and investments that empower Minnesota families to provide the best life they possibly can for their children and our communities.” Tony Sertich

As conversations and decision-making about the future of child care continues, the Northland Foundation is working steadily across all four strategies to help families, providers, employers, and communities move forward toward solutions.