A Bold and Necessary Vision: Child Care for All
By Stephanie Schmit
This blog is part of a series exploring a shared vision for universal child care and CLASP’s efforts, alongside partners, to turn this vision into a reality. The full series can be found here.
Every vision needs a strong foundation. That is why CLASP has engaged with partners through the Child Care for Every Family Network for many years to rooted in a , centering those with diverse lived experiences, and designed in a meaningful way.
This intentional effort created the shared policy principles that ground all our joint efforts: equity, access, guaranteed care, support for a thriving workforce, culturally and linguistically responsive, financially stable, well-governed, quality, and designed by those most impacted.
Together we envisioned a publicly funded universal child care system that:
- serves all children 0-13+, including additional support for children with disabilities;
- provides free, comprehensive care via center-based child care, family child care in homes, and family, friend, and neighbor care;
- prioritizes children’s safety, development, and well-being; and
- compensates the child care workforce in a way that actually reflects the critical value of their work, and where every worker has a voice in the profession they love.
| A universal child care system is one where every family who needs child care can access it. To create the supply needed to make care universal, providers must be adequately compensated and supported to stay in the field and provide high-quality care. Through fully funded public investment, a universal system ensures cohesive and clear availability and accessibility to care and learning for all families with children, regardless of race, immigration status, income, disability, geography, and other factors that have historically impeded access. A universal system also ensures that the child care workforce is well-paid, provided with benefits like health care and retirement, and has access to training or higher/continuing education if desired, advancement opportunities, and more. To achieve this vision, the lived experience of the families and providers who rely on and sustain the system is centered in policy design and implementation. Ultimately, a universal system ensures that child care is a public good, not a family’s private responsibility. |
The story of these principles is about the “what,” of course, but it’s also about the “how.” These principles were built in partnership with diverse perspectives and people who are directly impacted, including parents and providers, and have guided the Network’s collective efforts across partners. CLASP helped to draft these principles, but also strives to live in them in our day-to-day work as we create and analyze policy and continue to build trusted relationships with those closest to the challenges of the sector.
These principles and the intentional design of the Network have built momentum for a very exciting moment. CLASP is proud to stand with our partners in the Child Care for Every Family Network to launch the .
This campaign is a national movement of partners from across the country who have come together to win free, universal child care for everyone. We are working to create a world where every family has access to the care that they need, when and where they need it. It is an effort that will benefit everyone: families, child care providers, employers, and the economy.
All of the work that CLASP is engaging in to fight back against attacks at the federal level and push progress forward at the state level are in service of the universal child care vision we are trying to achieve and to help us to build the power and foundation for what’s necessary to make Child Care for All a reality.
Join us in this important effort!
To learn more about what it means to build a truly equitable universal child care system, please join us for CLASP’s next installment of Equity Matters, “What if the Current Fight to Protect Child Care is also an Opportunity to Transform it?” on October 22 from 1-2:30 pm ET. Register here.
