Hello, partners. We welcome your engagement in efforts to harness and align assets to advance local, regional, and state action in service of a re-imagined early childhood care and education system. With this Newsletter we aim to inform our community about the need for systems change and engage our community in advocating for needed action.
Coordinated action to get supplies to child care programs.
Child care providers continue to provide essential services to children and families and Child Care Resource & Referral agencies supported their efforts to maintain health and safety standards by coordinating PPE supplies issued by the state. The Community Response Fund provided $8000 locally, serving as a great example of government, business and philanthropy coming together to provide ongoing assistance. Child Care Resource & Referral in Kimberly served as the pickup site for locally dispersed CARES funded products such as bleach, disposable masks, and non-medical supplies. 
“Child care is a workforce development issue.”  The Post-Crescent took an in-depth look at how child care impacts workforce availability and productivity and highlighted innovative steps some Fox Valley Region employers are taking to support employees in accessing and affording child care. Read the article here.
Federal COVID-19 relief. Under the federal COVID-19 relief bill passed last month, Wisconsin will receive an estimated $147 million for the child care sector. These funds can be used to support providers facing reduced enrollment and increased costs of serving children safely, reduce family co-payments, pay staff salaries, provide care for the children of essential workers regardless of income, and support costs related to reopening. For more on what’s in this bill, see here.
State budget advocacy. Members of this Regional Alliance and other Fox Valley organizations have voiced priorities for advancing child care access, affordability, quality, and workforce in the upcoming state budget to the Governor. Read the letter we sent here. In addition, child care advocates made their voices heard at the Governor’s Budget Listening Sessions as this quote from Gov. Evers in the Wheeler Report makes clear, “...we had several budget hearings virtually. The early childhood group, they were well organized. Even when we were talking about infrastructure issues, like broadband and roads, their argument was that early childhood education is an infrastructure issue. If we didn’t have strong early childhood education, it would cause our economy to fray.” Read more here.
Advocacy training.  On January 28th from 12:30-1:30pm the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, Supporting Families Together Association, Wisconsin Head Start Association, and Kids Forward are hosting a free virtual training on effectively communicating with lawmakers that will feature insights from Senator Luther Olsen and Sandy Lonergan, Chief of Staff to Senator Dale Kooyenga. Register here

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