This summer, you can be a Child Care Champion!
Child care continues to be a hot topic among working parents and small businesses across all 50 states. Wait lists are long and, even when families can find child care, they often can’t afford it. And that’s hard on parents, kids, employers, and state economies.
Your Members of Congress will be in their home districts this August, looking to talk to constituents. This is a great chance to urge them to make child care a priority! Included in our Child Care Champion Toolkit is a list of resources to make it easy, including:
- GET LOCAL: State-specific fact sheets with information to use in newsletters, op-eds and more.
- SHARE: Sample social media posts, graphics, and printable signs.
- ACT: A Child Care Champion Checklist with ways to take action this August.
- ALERT THE MEDIA: Sample newsletter and op-ed text to personalize and share.
- LEARN MORE: Briefing books, explainers, and information on the Bipartisan Child Care and Pre-K Caucus.
As always, First Five Years Fund is grateful for the work you and your team do every day to fight for America’s littlest learners and their families! — Sarah Rittling, Executive Director, First Five Years Fund
Get Local: Child Care State Fact Sheets
First Five Years Fund has a new series of state fact sheets with specific details about child care and early learning programs in your state. These contain information on how many children ages 0-5 need child care, how federal funds are distributed, how much parents pay for care, and more. Use them to customize messages — like newsletter items, op-eds and social media — to make sure your Members of Congress know all about child care in your state.
Share: Social Media
Social media is a great way to get messages in front of Members of Congress. Below is a series of tweets you can use to show your support for child care on your social media platforms. We’ve also included printable signs you can pose with to highlight your support for child care, as well as social graphics!
Post Your Support!
Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram
I'm a #ChildCareChampion because child care
- Allows parents to work
- Ensures local businesses can employ workers
- Gives children a safe place to learn
That's why I'm calling on Congress to invest in child care programs that help families in our state.
Child care challenges make it hard for too many parents in our state to go to work . That’s why I'm calling on Congress to support federal child care programs that help more working parents access quality, affordable #ChildCare in our state.
Hey, Congress - investing in child care is a win for working parents, a win for employers, and a BIG win for little kids in our state. This year, be a #ChildCareChampion by investing in #ChildCare programs so families, businesses, and kids can ALL thrive.
Graphics
Use these graphics on social media to show you are a #ChildCareChampion!
- Click to expand, right click to copy, then…
- Print them out, fill in the blank ("moms," "local businesses," "kids in [state]," more!) and snap a photo for social media;
- Or copy and post them on your socials;
- Or share them in your newsletters and notes to fellow advocates in your area.
Act: Five Ways To Be A #ChildCareChampion
Here are the First Five Ways You Can Be A #ChildCareChampion This Summer
1. Use our Child Care Champion printable "I ❤️ Child Care" sign to take a picture and tweet/share it out on your social media channels!
2. Pen an op-ed or letter to the editor for your local paper urging Congress to protect and prioritize child care programs that support kids and working families. (You can find a draft to get you started here!)
3. Share the First Five Years Fund Summer Action Alert with your network!
4. Call a Congressional District Office and request that they prioritize federal funding for child care when Congress returns in September - and urge your networks to do the same!
5. Share the new First Five Years Fund State Fact Sheets with your Members of Congress!
Looking for more ways to be a Child Care Champion? Check us out at FFYF.org.
Take Action!
Members of Congress are making critical budget decisions right now about what program funding to cut and what to keep. And, unfortunately, pivotal child care programs are on the chopping block.
IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION!
Your lawmakers need to hear why child care is important to you BEFORE August! Click here to send an alert to your members of Congress, urging them to protect and prioritize child care programs for your state!
And share this link with friends, family members, fellow advocates, and your social media networks and ask them to do the same. Working together, we can make sure members know how important this funding is to families in your state.
Alert The Media - OpEds and Letters To The Editor
(Fill in the blanks with information from your State Fact Sheet.)
Parents know how important it is to have affordable, reliable child care. But too many families are struggling to find, let alone pay for, quality options. As a result, 1 in 10 employees have to miss work every year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This is in part because the average price of center-based child care was over $13,200 annually, forcing many families to have to make the impossible choice between having a job or affording someone to look after their kids. And it doesn’t help that well over 50% of Americans live in a child care desert, meaning access to child care parents rely on to go to work is incredibly difficult to find. The good news is there’s a solution.
New state-by-state analysis from First Five Years Fund has found that federal child care and early learning programs are critical to helping tens of thousands of STATEians afford the ever-growing cost of making sure their child is cared for in a high-quality environment. But, the analysis also found that the program could, and needs to be, reaching more kids.
As a leader for our state, MEMBER can help secure funding for federal child care and early learning programs. In order to continue helping STATE go to work and grow the state’s economy, this summer, Congress has the opportunity for a rare triple win; they can do something that works for families, for employers, and for STATE in one fell swoop by investing in child care programs. But they need to act, and they need to act now. We hope MEMBER will continue their work to do just that by securing a strong investment in our federal child care programs, which will benefit all families. In doing so MEMBER will continue to make a big difference for the littlest STATEians, their parents, and the economy.
Learn More
- Policy resources for the 118th Congress
- Federal Funding: A Foundation To Child Care (a look at the ways federal funding supports child care while maximizing options for families and providing stability to local economies)
- The First Five Things To Know About: A New Poll Showing Voter Support For Child Care Funding
- House Members: First Five Things About the House Child Care and Bipartisan Pre-K Caucus (and how they can join!)
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