Child Care for NC: United for Change is an event to lift up the voices of everyone impacted by inadequate and inequitable child care funding. Everyone knows someone who depends on child care, but North Carolinians can’t depend on our current system to survive under these conditions any longer.
Make your voice heard as we work to solve North Carolina's child care crisis.
This urgent crisis calls for urgent action, and we hope you will join this statewide movement of parents, early educators, businesses, and advocates who are united in fighting for our future. This Advocacy Toolkit provides resources, messaging, and tools to help you be an effective advocate for child care. Your story, your commitment, and your action is critically important. Together, we can show our communities and our policymakers just how essential child care is for young children and parents, for businesses and employers, and for our state’s economy.
The Power of Advocacy
The time to be an advocate for child care is now! Every young child in North Carolina deserves an opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. But right now, our state’s child care system is in crisis, and too many children are missing out on foundational early care and learning. Families can’t afford the high cost, teachers can’t afford to work for such low wages, and providers can’t afford to keep their doors open. With federal COVID relief funding about to run out, our state has reached a tipping point. That's why policymakers need to hear from you!
Elected officials want to represent the best interests of their constituents who live in their counties and districts. But very few elected officials have a background in child care, and many don’t have real-life experiences that help them understand the issues facing early educators or families with young children. They need your input in order to make the best decisions with the greatest impact.
We hope that the resources in this toolkit will support you in your advocacy efforts for Child Care for NC. You can do this, and together, we can make a difference!
What Are We Asking For?
Right now, early education makes up just 1% of North Carolina’s state budget. Just 1%. We are asking our state legislators to double that investment in order to provide:
Better pay and benefits for child care teachers
- Child care teachers earn an average of $12/hour, nearly 40% rely on public assistance, and they are more than 7 times more likely to live in poverty than public kindergarten teachers.
- 1 in 5 child care teachers doesn't have health insurance.
- Low compensation and lack of benefits makes it hard to recruit and retain qualified early educators.
Affordable and accessible child care for families
- Child care is the workforce behind the workforce. Parents in every industry depend on child care to be able to work and ensure their family's economic security.
- The average cost of child care for a baby in North Carolina is $9,480/year. That's more than a year of public college tuition.
- Every county in North Carolina is considered a "child care dessert," with multiple families competing for child care slots and long waiting lists for care.
Sustainable funding for child care providers
- Child care providers operate their small businesses on razor-thin margins. Programs rely primarily on parent tuition, but they can't raise tuition because parents can’t afford to pay more.
- Current reimbursement rates for Child Care Subsidy Assistance and NC Pre-K are far below the actual cost of care. Programs are losing money and can't afford to serve low-income working families.
- High-quality child care is expensive to provide. The supply of child care programs in most counties can't meet the demand, especially in rural and low-wealth areas.
Additional Talking Points about Child Care
Child care is essential for young children's development
- Every young child in North Carolina deserves the opportunity to learn, grow and succeed. Early education prepares children to succeed in school and beyond, providing the foundation for their future.
- A child's earliest years are a critical window of brain development. High-quality early education has proven, lifelong benefits.
- All children deserve access to high-quality early learning that will help them be ready for kindergarten, reading at grade level, and prepared for graduation.
- Early education is are building brains and preparing the children who will be North Carolina's future workers, innovators, and leaders.
Child care is essential for families and businesses
- It’s crucial that families have the tools they need to be able to work and support their children with safe and nurturing learning environments in their earliest years.
- Parents in every industry depend on child care to be able to work. A top reason for current workforce shortages is lack of stable, affordable child care.
- North Carolina is growing, with businesses planting roots in our state every day. The availability and affordability of child care is crucial in order for these businesses to recruit and retain employees, and to encourage more economic growth in our state.
- A strong early education system supports our current workforce and builds a workforce for North Carolina’s future.
COVID-19 and Child Care Stabilization Grants
- Federally-funded Child Care Stabilization Grants have kept the child care industry afloat and helped programs keep their doors open.
- These grants provided funding for operating costs, teacher pay, and other incentives to address staffing shortages. The final full payment was in January 2023, with the compensation portion of the grants ending in December 2023.
- North Carolina is facing a funding cliff at the end of this year, with the potential for a mass exodus of teachers when compensation returns to pre-pandemic levels.
- Without an increased investment before that happens, the underlying issues of low compensation, high turnover, and a dwindling workforce pipeline will remain the same and will exacerbate an already precarious situation.
Take Action Now
- Sign the commitment form for Child Care for NC: United for Change and let us know how you plan to participate on April 20th
- Purchase Child Care for NC merchandise! Or use the Child Care for NC logo to create your own.
Sharing Your Story
Sharing your story about how child care impacts you, your family, your child care program, or your community is the single most important thing you can do! There are many different ways to share your story when communicating with policymakers, the media, or even your own network of friends and colleagues. And, by sharing your story in several different ways – taking a “surround sound” approach – you can amplify your message, reach people in multiple ways, and make an even bigger impact.
- Send an email
- Make a phone call
- Post a message on social media (and tag policymakers!)
- Record a short video or post a picture on social media (and tag your legislators!)
- Write a blog or newsletter article and share it online and with your network
- Write a a Letter to the Editor or Op-Ed for your local newspaper
- Share a story with us through our Action Center that we can use in our conversations with policymakers.
Contacting Policymakers
The following templates are provided as a guide to communicate with your own legislators and other key North Carolina legislators who will make decisions about child care funding and policy. Please edit these templates, and keep in mind that sharing your own personal story is always the most effective way to communicate with policymakers.
Below you will find contact information for key North Carolina legislators for this campaign. We also encourage you to always contact your own legislators too, even if they are not on this list. All legislators are important and want to hear from you as their own constituent, and every legislator votes on bills and budgets that impact this child care.
Not sure who your policymakers are?
Social media is a powerful tool to share your story, raise awareness within your own network, and communicate with policymakers. Use the button below to access a social media toolkit with sample messages and graphics, as well as guidance and tips for using social media.
About Us
The Child Care for NC: United for Change planning committee is made up of center-based and family child care home providers, families, and organizations that are committed to long-term policy, program and funding changes to support our state’s early education system and the young children it serves.
Organizational members include: Evolve Early Learning, MomsRising, National Black Child Development Institute-Charlotte Affiliate, National Domestic Workers Alliance, NC Early Education Coalition, NC Head Start Association, and Verner Center for Early Learning.
Credits:
Created with an image by oksix - "Educational group activity at the kindergarten or daycare"