Financing Child Care in the United States - Ewing Marion Kauffman ...

CHILD CARE MATTERS: A QUALITY
CHILD CARE INITIATIVE OF
SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA
(PHILADELPHIA, CHESTER, DELAWARE AND
MONTGOMERY COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA)
DESCRIPTION
Child Care Matters is a privately funded initiative designed
to improve the private and public understanding of, and
investment in, quality child care. Child Care Matters
combines direct assistance to improve quality at more
than 100 child care homes and centers, with systemic
work to engage business, increase media coverage and
improve public policy and financing for child care within
state and city government.
WHEN ESTABLISHED
The initial planning for Child Care Matters occurred
over a nine–month period starting in June 1996 with
financial support from the William Penn Foundation.
Implementation funds were provided by the William Penn
Foundation starting in 1997 and are committed through
2003.
ANNUAL AMOUNT
The total project budget is $17.85 million. The William
Penn Foundation has committed $14.1 million and the
United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania raises $3.75
million in matching funds from individuals and local
philanthropies.
SERVICES FUNDED
Child Care Matters is a multifaceted initiative, which
simultaneously works to improve program and staff
quality in child care homes and centers while seeking
improved public sector decision–making and investment
in child care through public policy advocacy. The initiative
includes communications and business engagement
components to enhance the public policy advocacy of
Child Care Matters. A paid media campaign informs the
public about the benefits of quality child care. The ad
campaign is supplemented with efforts to secure greater
reporting on child care in the local media. The business
engagement component works with area employers to
increase their understanding of how child care affects
their bottom line and aids the work force. It educates
business leaders, particularly those who employ
hourly–wage employees, about the child care needs of
their work force, the value of investing in child care and
opportunities for joining with Child Care Matters staff to
work on public policy activities.
Through its service component, Child Care Matters seeks
to provide a continuum of support to assist family child
care homes and centers to attain and sustain improved
quality. Depending on location, child care programs may
participate in the Neighborhood Project or the Regional
Quality Initiative.
The Neighborhood Project works intensively with family
child care homes and centers in two low–income
neighborhoods in Philadelphia, providing them with
private subsidies to enroll low–income children, T.E.A.C.H.
scholarships for their staff, start–up funds for family child
care, and the funds, technical assistance and professional
support from experienced field staff to develop and
implement a quality improvement plan resulting in
accreditation. In these neighborhoods, up to $60,000 for
equipment and facilities improvement is made available
to child care centers, and up to $5,000 is made available
to family child care homes. In the first three years of the
project, two centers, and six family child care providers
attained accreditation.
At the outset of Child Care Matters, a private subsidy
program was created as part of the Neighborhood
Project. This helped low–income working parents on the
waiting list for the state's subsidized child care program
enroll in programs participating in Child Care Matters. As
of 2000, the private subsidy was being phased out, since
the Child Care Matters advocacy efforts to increase
public sector funding and income limits for subsidized
child care were successful.
Family child care has been a significant point of focus
for the Neighborhood Project. A service continuum was
designed to increase the supply of family child care
homes by 45 in the Neighborhood Project areas.
Unlicensed, informal and sometimes illegal home–based
providers are helped to meet state and local regulatory
requirements. Field–based staff provide technical
assistance, and up to $1,000 in start–up funds.
The Regional Quality Initiative is available on an open,
competitive basis to family child care homes and centers
throughout the Southeastern Pennsylvania region,
providing 175 T.E.A.C.H. scholarships and quarterly bonus
payments to 40 accredited providers that enroll children
from Pennsylvania’s subsidized child care program, Child
Care Works.
The central mission of Child Care Matters is to improve
state and local public policy for child care. In its first three
years, Child Care Matters was able to bring together an
often disparate child care community to define and realize
local and state objectives for child care public policy.
Successes in quality improvement include the state's
initial investment in the T.E.A.C.H. educational scholarship
program ($500,000 in FY1999 and FY2000 and $1.5
million for FY2001); an allocation of the state's
competitive quality improvement grant funds to be used
in support of accreditation; and establishment of a $2
million statewide Health and Safety Enhancement
program. Child Care Matters also focused its attention on
the funding and design of the subsidized child care
program, Child Care Works, and helped to lead a
successful statewide coalition effort to improve funding
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