Childcare: What's Working?

We Want to Know What You Think!

The Wisconsin Partnership is a collaboration between Higher Expectations for Racine County and the three other StriveTogether-affiliated organizations in Wisconsin: Achieve Brown County, Building Our Future Kenosha County, and Milwaukee Succeeds. The goal of this collaborative effort is to identify and advocate for a state policy agenda that will enable each community to move further and faster toward its goals for improving access to high-quality early childhood support and systems for all children.

This policy agenda is being co-created with community members most impacted by state’s child care policies - we’re prioritizing engaging parents and caregivers of young children. By taking the time to learn from families about their child care choices, and about what matters most to them when it comes to the success of their young children, we can create a policy agenda that truly reflects the needs of families and has a greater impact on outcomes for our youngest residents.

 “Far too often, policies are made without input from the communities they’ll impact the most. The Wisconsin Partnership is committed to changing this dynamic by putting the voices and expertise of parents and caregivers of young children, especially those from low-income communities and communities of color, front and center in our work of identifying and advocating for state policy change.”

- Daria Hall, Wisconsin Policy Director, Wisconsin Partnership

Over the past six months, we’ve engaged over 90 parents and child care providers in Racine County. These conversations have given us insight into two strategies that we think will impact families most: (1) Increasing compensation for child care workers to increase stability and trust with families, and (2) Simplifying the procedure for benefit programs, like Wisconsin Shares, so families can spend less time working the system.

But our work isn’t over. We still want to talk to more families to get a better idea on what matters most to Racine residents and show decision makers just how many families could be impacted by new, or improved, child care policies. 

Interested in getting involved? See how below:

If you are interested in sharing your opinion on what matters for childcare, please complete our parent/caregiver survey.

If you work in child care and would like to share your voice, please complete our child care provider survey.

If you are interested advocating about child care policy, or having a deeper conversation about your thoughts on child care, contact Elizabeth Erickson at elizabeth.erickson@career2cradle.org.

For more information, go to WisconsinPartnership.org.