Friends,

Child care is an essential business operation. And the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed its failing support system. When 39 percent of Wisconsin’s child care programs were forced to close in the beginning of the pandemic, we heard about essential workers scrambling to secure child care so they could support the fight against the pandemic.

But we haven’t heard enough from the child care providers themselves, have we? About their endless commitment in the work and their sacrifices. And about their own survival to advocate for themselves when no one did.

“When I let someone into my house, you become my family.” More than about how Fernanda Leporace cares for the children, she talks especially about how her young son supports her work in providing for the children in her care.  

Corrine Hendrickson has upped her advocacy since the pandemic. “We basically subsidize the industry because parents can’t pay any more than they are. So, we are subsidizing by not taking the wages we should have and deserve.”

“It’s not always been easy, but we’ve made it work,” Silke O'Donnell shared. But after 27 years, she recently shut down her family child care business.

Wisconsin’s quality rating and improvement system YoungStar tries to offer help through various professionalization initiatives. But there are real expectations that YoungStar could do better.

“YoungStar’s pretty hands-off to me, they aren’t really in it to me, they’ve given me two great garbage cans. That’s pretty good because I really liked those but that’s about it.” Nicki Cooper shares.

Abby Abrisham highlights that early childhood educators "have hundreds and hundreds of hours of training that have not been counted because they were not from an accredited university."

The “menial paperwork was not worth the effort.” Denise Mirkin adds.

There is more to learn from them. Why do they strive to give quality care to our youngest children? Why is doing this work important for them?

Listen to their stories. And please don’t forget to watch the Child Care Talks (Back) virtual roundtable conversation when they interact with one another.

All of these stories available in Family Child Care and Professionalization in ECE showcase our public humanities project. We are grateful that we were able to forge a partnership with the UW-Madison’s Center for the Humanities, allowing us to invite Kate MacCrimmon to join in this work. As a former child care provider herself, Kate MacCrimmon helped us explore the realities of the early childhood workforce. We thank Kate for all she did to make this project complete.

Enjoy!

Kids Forward