By Javacia Harris Bowser | For The Birmingham Times
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to improve childcare in Alabama.
In this case, Women’s Foundation of Alabama (WFA); the United Way of Central Alabama (UWCA); ASL Creative Strategies; Childcare Resources and several other organizations partnered to offer an 8-week program that focuses on the business side of owning a daycare facility with the goal of helping participants open centers that can provide affordable and high-quality services.
The initiative is part of WFA’s Advancing Alabama Childcare Accelerator with the United Way of Central Alabama and its Early Learning Acceleration Institute (ELAI) that also includes Success by 6, which works to improve the quality of early learning for children in childcare settings.
“The [ELAI] was generated from the Early Learning Action Network, which is a collaboration that has existed since 2014, and it has the best and brightest minds in childcare,” said Katrina Watson, Senior Vice President of Community Impact for the United Way of Central Alabama.
“Through our collaborative efforts that have existed for 10 years, we have heard directly from centers that they needed additional funding for expansion and that expansion funds don’t exist,” said Watson, who added that additional partners included the Department of Human Resources, childcare professionals and center leaders, and more. “Part of our role is to hear what community needs are and then to develop solutions for that.”
United Way assisted with and helped streamline the application and selection process for WFA’s Childcare Accelerator and provided $25,000 grants to three participants of the program. (All participants received grants thanks to support from other local and national partners.) Additionally, United Way provided more than $100,000 to WFA to help fund the business development coaching that the Childcare Accelerator offered.
“Overall, our mission is for us to care for the community, and one of the most important ways to care for the community is to support early childhood development and education,” Watson said. “We believe that every child deserves the tools to succeed, and early learning is key for that. Our six-county region has areas considered to be a childcare desert … So, if we can increase access to quality childcare, then we are giving children the tools that they need to succeed. Ultimately, they’ll be kindergarten-ready, which will, in turn, help them perform better in school, increase their likelihood of graduation, and be both college and career ready.”
ASL Creative Strategies
WFA Childcare Accelerator received funding from the Kresge Foundation and essential support from Childcare Resources and ASL Creative Strategies, a firm founded by Alycia Levels-Moore that specializes in helping businesses and organizations launch new programs.
For Levels-Moore, being a part of this project was a no-brainer.
“I’m a mom of four,” Levels-Moore said. “Childcare is a big part of how I’m even able to do all the work that I do. Childcare providers who are equipped and who are passionate about the work they do, provide support to women who are doing the things that really keep the world going.”
Zhaundra C. Jones, Vice President of Philanthropy and Learning at the Women’s Foundation of Alabama and the brainchild behind the accelerator, said Levels-Moore was the first person she called when she knew she wanted to revamp what WFA and Childcare Resources had piloted “to create a full-on business-focused accelerator to really pour into childcare business owners.”
“I respect the Women’s Foundation for the work that they do and to provide them with the support they needed was a privilege and honor,” Levels-Moore said. “I also respect Zhaundra for who she is and the role that she plays in the ecosystem. Anything I can do to support that I was going to do, hands down.”
ASL Creative helped find some instructors for the accelerator and provided coaching, curriculum development, project management and online learning space for the program.
Being a partner was a way to make a positive impact not only on the participants but the communities they represent, Levels-Moore said.
“When we support women, we support communities,” she said. “Every community needs a safe place for their children to go so that parents can work, so that they can add to the bottom line of the economy. When women are successful, the community can’t help but to be impacted and to thrive because of them.”
Childcare Resources
Catrice Pruitt, Director of Programs at Childcare Resources, helped kick off the eight weeks of learning by serving as one of the first instructors.
“We talked about various topics that are important to operating and managing a childcare program, making sure that they had some foundational knowledge,” Pruitt explained. “So many of the owners who are doing this great work come into this field because they have a passion for children. They see a need and they want to fill the gap in their communities, but they may not know how that looks from a business lens as far as budgeting, planning, projecting, and strategically thinking through things.”
Pruitt believes that helping childcare center owners build their businesses on solid foundations will not only help strengthen the workforce of today but of the future too.
“This sets the foundation for education,” she said. “This is the groundwork and if we can have children ready to enter school, then we know that they’re going to be successful academically and they’re going to be successful in life.”
Additionally, several other organizations – including Success by 6, Jefferson State Community College’s Child Development Program, Alabama Partnership for Children, and the school readiness program Small Magic – collaborated for a resource fair. These connections, as well as the cohort model of the program helped participants build a sense of community and the social capital that could help sustain their businesses.
WFA has already been asked to implement a childcare accelerator program in Limestone County and is in talks with groups from Montgomery and Huntsville too.
“We don’t purport to have all the answers,” Jones said. “But we’re trying to figure out how we can continue to represent the voices of childcare workers, the women that are working in that space, and help professionalize this space so that people see it as providing the value that it actually provides.”
Learn more about Women’s Foundation of Alabama at wfalabama.org.
