In 2022, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC)–Child Care Innovation Fund awarded the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) a planning grant to form a regional child care coalition, conduct regional research, and write an action plan to improve access to child care in Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties. Regional leaders formed the Capital Area Child Care Coalition (CACCC) which is co-led by LEAP, Capital Area Michigan Works!, and the United Way of South Central Michigan. The CACCC convened a coalition comprising representatives from economic development organizations, local governments, child care business owners, parents of young children, and other relevant community partners. The CACCC also worked with Public Sector Consultants (PSC) to facilitate coalition meetings, collect and analyze primary and secondary data, and assist in the action planning process.
Defining Child Care Gaps
PSC reviewed publicly available data, fielded surveys, and conducted discussion groups to gather and analyze data related to parents, child care providers (both business owners/administrators and staff members), employers, and municipal representatives in the region. The top challenges are outlined below.
Child Care Is Unaffordable for Families
Child care is not affordable for the majority of families in the region. For those making the median household income, families are spending 14 percent of their income on child care.
Child Care Business Owners Face Challenges Recruiting and Retaining Qualified Staff
Child care wages are significantly lower than the regional median household income and may even represent a poverty wage for some workers depending on their family size.
Care Families Need Is Not Available
Many child care business owners are unable to staff their child care program sufficiently to the capacity for which they are licensed due to child care staffing issues.
Child Care Business Owners Cannot Access the Resources They Need to Thrive and Expand
Many child care business owners are willing to expand their child care program but lack the resources to do so.
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Regional Action Plan
The CACCC has drawn on the aforementioned data to create a regional action plan to improve the state of child care for Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties. The key points of the plan are outlined below.
Pursue State and Local Policy Change
- Engage in and support policy-change efforts to increase access to high-quality early childhood initiatives.
- Ease administrative obstacles for existing, new, and expanding child care businesses.
- Inform and support policy-change efforts to create wage and benefits parity among all early childhood educators with their K–12 peers.
Create Business Development Supports
- Develop a resource hub encompassing the dispersed technical assistance (TA) resources available to child care business owners and providers and offer additional educational opportunities when existing TA is insufficient.
- Assess existing regulatory processes and procedures that are barriers to business development to inform and support changes to the regulatory processes.
Strengthen and Expand the Talent Pipeline
- Improve access to early childhood education credentials.
- Publicly promote possible careers in the child care industry to expand the talent pipeline.
- Engage and educate employers about how to best support employee child care needs.
Support and Provide Technical Assistance within the Child Care Ecosystem
- Build the capacity of regional Resource Centers to act as navigators for all technical assistance needs.
- Strengthen connection and support for child care providers by facilitating relationships among child care providers and between child care providers and families.
Read more in the full Regional Action Plan.