Nourishing Care: Food Justice in HBCC

Nourishing Care:
Food Justice in
Home-Based Child Care

Advancing racial and health justice by
expanding access to nutritious food and
economic support for Black, Indigenous,
Latino, rural and immigrant communities.

Who We Are

A Coalition Committed to Nutrition Security, Care Justice, and Thriving Communities.

Home Grown in coalition with the National Black Child Development Institute (NBCDI), National Indian Child Care Association (NICCA) and Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition (CSPC) are working to ensure children are well-fed, healthy, and surrounded by care rooted in culture, joy, and belonging.

Together, we share a vision where:
  • Families and home-based child care (HBCC) providers have access to healthy food
  • Cultural foods are valued and funded
  • Scarcity and discrimination are replaced with abundance and opportunity

Why This Matters

Three young children sit at a table, happily making snacks with apple slices and pretzel sticks.
Why Home-Based Child Care

Home-based care supports:

  • 12.3 million children under age 13
  • Including 5.2 million children ages birth to 5

Yet states recognize and resource only 91,000 of these providers, serving just 800,000 children.

Because many operate legally without licenses, they are often excluded from:

  • Child care subsidies
  • Federal food programs
  • State supports

This leaves millions of children and families cut off from critical nutrition resources.

A critical equity issue

Rural and immigrant communities:

  • Experience higher rates of food insecurity
  • Face systemic barriers to nutrition programs
  • Rely heavily on home-based child care
  • Are frequently excluded from economic and care supports

These inequities fuel disparities in childhood health and obesity. We aim to change that.

When children are nourished in caring environments, they thrive.

A young girl slices cucumbers while an older woman prepares salad in a kitchen with fresh vegetables.

What We're Doing

Systems change at the intersection of food access and care.

We support families, providers, and communities by:

  • 1 Removing discriminatory barriers to food benefits
  • 2 Expanding access to programs like WIC, SNAP, FDPIR, GusNIP, and CACFP
  • 3 Increasing state tax credits for parents and providers
  • 4 Increasing access to healthy, culturally relevant foods
  • 5 Strengthening economic stability
  • 6 Shifting narratives about home-based care

Our approach aims to:

  • Reduce childhood obesity risk factors
  • Improve dietary intake
  • Increase nutrition security
  • Support community health and economic stability

Who This Project Centers

Our work is designed with, not for:

  • Home-based child care providers
  • Parents
  • Local advocates

Black, Indigenous, Latino, rural, and immigrant leaders guide every phase:

  • Co-design
  • Advisory councils
  • Pilot implementation
  • Narrative direction
Three circles labeled Provider, Parent, and Child, showing their interconnected relationships with icons.

We center the child–parent–provider triad within community and cultural context.

Smiling woman sits at a desk using a laptop, with a glass of water and cables nearby.

Our Approach

Our four-year plan for community-driven change uses an Equity-Oriented Obesity Prevention Framework to address the structural drivers of inequity. Click the button below to learn more about our approach and project phases.

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Expected Impact

By expanding nutrition and economic supports, this project will:

Reduce childhood obesity disparities
Improve community health outcomes
Support cultural food sovereignty
Strengthen HBCC capacity
Increase access to federal programs
Build durable community advocacy

Meet the Partners

NBCDI logo with silhouettes of children's faces in profile, in shades of brown, and institute name in text.
Logo of the National Indian Child Care Association with geometric Native designs and bold text.
Circular CSPC logo with overlapping yellow and blue circles, and text: Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition.