Focus Area: Advocacy in Early Childhood

Grant Amount: $10,000

Based in St. Paul, serves statewide. Established in 1992 to raise the standards in care for children and childcare providers, Child Care Aware provides technical assistance to 14 childcare resource and referral agencies around Minnesota, collects data regarding the supply and demand for childcare, and creates and manages statewide projects. It has been integral in the piloting and expansion of Parent Aware, the state’s quality improvement framework for early care and education programs.

Grant supports advocacy efforts that support the goals of the Transforming Minnesota’s Early Childhood Workforce project, which primarily focuses on creating a diverse, qualified, supported, and equitably compensated early childhood work force that can support the economy and build future academic and life success for Minnesota’s youngest children. The overall goals for the 2025 legislative session include creating a system in which family costs for early care and education are affordable, ensuring that a child’s access to high-quality care and education is not determined by their race, family income, or zip code, and ensuring that Minnesota’s early childhood educators are qualified, diverse, supported, and equitably compensated regardless of setting.