Home Based Child Care Haven

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Home-Based Child Care Haven: A Leadership & Advocacy program for home-based childcare providers

MDC’s HBCC team is leading an advocacy and leadership program for home-based child care providers and caregivers across the state of North Carolina. Our participants in this initiative are child care providers representing various types of home-based child care, such as licensed Family Child Care Home (FCCH) providers and licensed-exempt Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) caregivers who lead in their communities. The participants are passionate about working towards a more equitable and inclusive childcare system in North Carolina. They envision a system that benefits the communities they serve in, the children and families that come to them for care, and the providers themselves so they may have dignity and job security where they are given opportunities to grow.

Why Home-based Child Care?

Home-based childcare is often under-resourced, under-appreciated, and even invisible. This type of direct care is essential, irreplaceable, and immovable. Current systems do not include the voices of providers/caregivers and parents in making key decisions for this sector.

Despite the lack of investment in Home-based child care, providers at their own expense and risk go to great lengths to create a haven for the children they serve. Parents look for quality, affordable care from providers they trust and strive for secure relationships with their caregivers. With most of the resources going into federally funded childcare centers. Home-based child care providers who find themselves carrying the weight of their community, have little sense of security for the work they do.

The good news is that Early Childhood Education in North Carolina is beginning to receive the attention that it has long deserved. Legislators, educators, advocates, childcare supporters, and providers are working together to advocate for the change that’s needed to improve the early childhood profession.

Through HBCC Haven, providers build relationships, share information, learn, and grow as valued professionals in this field. At the conclusion of this cohort providers will feel empowered, educated, and equipped with the tools needed to join those finding solutions to make changes.

Program Overview

Launched in October 2023 and inspired by Home Grown’s “Leading from Home National Model”, HBCC Haven: A Leadership & Advocacy Program for Home-Based Childcare Providers references and builds from the expertise that Home Grown, our partner in this initiative, and our current cohort of provider leaders and our Educational Equity team, shares in the field. HBCC Haven is a two-year cohort program that empowers provider leaders to expand their networks and advance change in the childcare system in North Carolina through leadership development, mentorship, advocacy skill-building, and financial support for their work.

HBCC Haven is rooted in transparently co-designing with provider leaders to work collaboratively towards equitable and inclusive systems. This looks like being adaptive and responsive to program participant’s needs and being led by those who are most directly impacted, in this case home-based child care providers. We look forward to the ways that HBCC Haven will allow us to continue to influence policy and increase the ways that providers are “at the table” advancing change across North Carolina.

MDC’s goals for our home-based childcare provider leadership program are:

To invest in and strengthen provider leaders as they work to have a voice in policy and decision-making and grow their local networks of providers and parents.
To create a community of provider leaders that is inclusive of all home-based child care providers, both licensed family child care (FCC) providers and license-exempt Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) caregivers.

Primary components of the program

Through this program providers will:

Identify specific supports each community needs to advance their goals.
Receive technical assistance from MDC and a provider mentor around strategic policy and advocacy training.
Convene meetings and engage local providers/caregivers and parents to identify their needs and articulate their goals.
Receive training preparing them to engage in policy actions, communications, and engagement supports.
Participate in monthly provider leader cohort convenings.
Receive monthly stipends as an investment in their ability to continue this work.

The Cohort

In May 2023, we opened our application to all home-based child care providers and caregivers who were interested in this program. We received many applications from across the state, reflecting the necessity of a long-term investment in HBCC. From this incredible applicant pool came our inaugural cohort, made up of 10 providers and caregivers representing various counties in NC.

If you are interested in learning more about this program, please contact the Education Equity team at [email protected].