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Founding the California Child Development
Corps
In California, as in most states, child care teachers and
family child care providers have historically lacked a statewide
organization that represents their voice in the public policy
arena, or that bridges the concerns of the entire center-based
and home-based child care workforce. That changed in California
in December 2002 with the founding of the California Child
Development Corps. Below is a history of how this network
went from idea to reality in one year.
The Coordinating Team
In the spring and summer of 2002, child care advocates and
labor nonprofits formed a Coordinating Team to discuss how
they might facilitate the building of a statewide network
of child care teachers and family child care providers. Coordinating
Team partners included the Center for the Child Care Workforce,
United Way of the Bay Area, the Labor Project for Working
Families, the Center for Labor Research and Education, and
the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, the latter
three groups based at the Institute of Industrial Relations,
University of California at Berkeley. The Coordinating Team
received planning grants from the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation and United Way of the Bay Area’s Success
By Six Initiative.
County Meetings
The Coordinating Team decided to work closely with child care
workers and advocates in several "charter" counties
-- Alameda, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Mono, Nevada,
San Joaquin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Solano.
Members of the Coordinating Team attended meetings or otherwise
communicated with teachers and providers in each of these
counties during the summer and fall of 2002. Through these
meetings and communications, teachers and providers identified
their issues of concern for a new representative organization
of the child care workforce:
- Ensure continued funding of CARES and similar programs.
- Increase funding for teachers and providers to attend
conferences and trainings, by offering paid release time
and reliable substitute pools.
- Expand a campaign for affordable health care insurance
for family child care providers and center-based teaching
staff.
- Create more accessible, conveniently located and scheduled
high quality professional development opportunities (e.g.
community college classes)
December 2002 Founding Conference
On December 8, 2002, four-person delegations from each of
the charter counties met in Danville, California, for a three-day
leadership training and founding conference. Collectively,
the conference participants represented California's ethnic
diversity and the diversity of the child care workforce. Conference
participants enthusiastically endorsed the idea of forming
a new statewide network of child care teachers and family
child care, and thus became the founding members of the California
Child Development Corps. At Danville, these new Corps members
considered a variety of possible campaign issues to work on
in the network’s first year, and ultimately selected
compensation/CARES, universal preschool, health care, and
professional development. In addition, Corps members agreed
that building a larger membership was a high priority.
The Future of the Corps
Immediately after the founding meeting, the new California
Child Development Corps got to work, and conducted a successful
postcard and letter-writing campaign around the continuation
of CARES funding. Members of the Corps look forward to increasing
the Corps's involvement in advocating for better policies
on behalf of the child care workforce and young children in
California. |
