Home Grown is grateful to the Biden-Harris administration for proposing changes in response to both the needs of families to access affordable, quality child care and to the needs of child care providers to earn a family-sustaining wage for their critically necessary work offering high-quality child care. Our recommendations aim to ensure that all home-based child care providers, who constitute a vital part of the sector and serve approximately half of the children in care, can share in the benefits of the changes proposed by the administration and help meet the need for high-quality, accessible and affordable child care. Here we share our comments in response to the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families proposal to amend the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) regulations.
Alexandra R. Patterson is the Director of Policy and Strategy at Home Grown. Her work focuses on policy solutions that equitably distribute resources to home based child care providers and strengths based frameworks for understanding quality in home based child care settings. Her passion for early childhood is driven by a centering belief in access to quality education for all as a social justice issue.
Responding to Crisis: Cash Aid in Times of Disaster
Emergency funding is deeply ingrained in the work of Home Grown. Home Grown has developed a national team of organizations and partners to design and set up of the Home Grown Home-Based Child Care Emergency Fund for Severe Weather & National Disaster Response.
Student Loan Debt is a Critical Factor in the Early Educator Compensation Crisis
Home-based providers earn the lowest wages in the child care system, with many making just $10,000 per year, while continuing to serve underserved families. Despite their essential role, they are often left out of policy discussions and loan forgiveness programs, contributing to ongoing financial strain. This new fact sheet sheds light on the earning challenges for family child care providers.
Home-based Child Care Providers Share Reflections on Their Hispanic Heritage
In the United States, immigrant stories can start differently but eventually resemble each other. Leticia Barcenas and Claudia Valentín live in diagonally opposite corners of the country—Portland, Oregon, and New Orleans, Louisiana, respectively—they come from different countries—Mexico and Honduras—and began their American Dream with different plans—Leticia wanted to work to make money and support her family; Claudia looked for ways to educate young people in the diaspora—but they eventually discovered that their destiny was inevitably tied to the success of child care in their communities.