Category: Blog

Home Grown’s Response to the White House Student Loan Forgiveness Announcement

The Biden-Harris Administration’s announced student loan relief plan has the potential to significantly aid home-based providers and the early childhood workforce. Loan forgiveness lifts the burden of student debt from a workforce experiencing a great deal of material hardship, and represents progress towards restoring dignity and economic security to early childhood professionals. As federal and

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How Wendy Advocates as an FFN Caregiver

Family, friend and neighbor (FFN) caregivers make up the largest component of home-based child care providers in the U.S. Over 11.5 million children under the age of 12 are cared for by an FFN caregiver daily. FFN caregivers are the grandmothers, aunts, abuelitas, and other caregivers who support families and communities with child care. FFN

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Reflections from a Provider Mentor

As a family child care provider and network leader of over 20 years, I have seen the challenges providers face when looking for access to a seat of the table for advocating for systemic change. Recently I have had the opportunity to participate as a mentor for Home Grown’s Leading from Home initiative. This past

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Subsidy Access for Home-based Child Care Providers

The $5.9 billion child care subsidy program, also known as the Child Care and Development Block Grant, is our country’s primary government child care support for working families – and it is broken. Only 12% of eligible children access this crucial funding.1 Contrary to popular belief, this is not merely a budget issue. 37 states

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Generations of Kids Get Their Smarts and Their Resilience in Home-Based Child Care

Enrolling my children in a home-based childcare program “was the best decision I ever made,” says Lisa, who still gathers with lots of other alums for Benu’s summer barbeque. Benu “is everybody’s mom,” according to Lisa. She’s raised dozens of children, become the surrogate aunt or grandma to their working parents, and is a mentor teacher for other home-based childcare providers in California.

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