This blog is part of a series that lifts up alumni, partner, and board member reflections in celebration of CLASP Child Care and Early Education team’s 25th anniversary. Steven is a CLASP board member and long time child care and early education expert and advocate.

By Steven Dow 

Amidst the devastating loss of life and widespread calamity of the COVID pandemic, the unavailability of child care and the fragility of the child care and early education systems presented a major impediment to economic recovery and getting people back to work in communities all across the country. What had previously been something of an invisible problem was suddenly thrown into the spotlight of local, state, and national media coverage.   

Expertise was needed to help educate the public, legislators, business leaders, and policymakers about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of our country’s inadequate support system for working parents and our youngest children, as well as for pragmatic and implementable short- and long-term solutions to help ameliorate the conditions that the pandemic had laid bare. Congress reacted by appropriating unprecedented amounts of financial resources, and public systems that had been perpetually underfunded and understaffed were suddenly inundated with resources. 

Enter the CLASP Child Care and Early Education team–built for such a moment. 

Building on its quarter-century expertise, the CCEE team sprang into action from the earliest moments of the pandemic. At the national level, the team worked with other partners and advocates to call upon Congress and the administration to allocate substantial and immediate relief funds, provided technical assistance on strategy and policy, and undertook and published extensive research and analysis. While it ultimately failed to pass through both chambers of Congress, President Biden’s proposed Build Back Better plan included massive investments in child care and pre-k and represented an enormous victory for the CCEE team and other early childhood advocates in having raised the needs of young children to the level that they became the centerpiece of the proposal. 

 As the loci of decision-making shifted to the states and the child care industry experienced massive challenges in reduced enrollment, staffing shortages, and widespread closures, the CCEE team worked with state administrators to provide technical assistance and support in response to the implementation challenges of timely and effective use of all of the relief funds, including CCDF, Head Start, and Early Head Start. The team placed special focus on the impacts that the child care crisis was having on especially vulnerable populations, including infants and toddlers, immigrant children and families, mixed-status families, families involved with the child welfare and justice systems, and those needing non-traditional hours of care.   

As a result of the long-standing and deep relationships that the CCEE team has built with partners at the national, state, and local levels, the team was uniquely positioned to develop and maintain a strong feedback loop between national and state/local advocates, administrators, policymakers, and practitioners to help ensure that the most equitable policies centering those most impacted were being implemented and continuously improved. 

Even as the small but powerful team was stretched to respond to the pandemic demands, leadership recognized the magnitude of the opportunity to capitalize on the long-overdue attention that the country was paying to the fragility of the child care system and inadequate supports provided to young children and families. This led to the CCEE team playing a key leadership role in the establishment of the Child Care for Every Family Network, a groundbreaking partnership dedicated to ensuring that America builds a child care system that offers universal access to equitable, accessible, high-quality, affordable, and culturally relevant child care across the country, with a diverse, well-paid, and well-supported workforce. 

In my years of working at the community level in Tulsa and, more recently, in Houston, I have seen how the policies and legislation enacted in Washington impact children and families on the ground and the organizations, providers, and dedicated early educators trying to serve them.   In my time on the CLASP Board of Directors, I have gained a special appreciation for the enormous amount of effort and extraordinary skill that the talented CCEE team and its partners invest in helping to secure, defend, and expand federal resources and continuously trying to improve the conditions for young children and families, particularly those who are the most vulnerable.   

As the CCEE team celebrates 25 years of being at the forefront of the movement for child care and early education, its current and past staff members deserve all of our thanks, appreciation, and gratitude for a job well done! Based on what I’ve seen from my close-up view on the Board, however, my guess is that they won’t be focused on patting themselves on the back or spending much time looking with nostalgia at the accomplishments of yesterday. They are already looking to build on the successes and foundations of the past as they envision and work towards building the high-quality system of child care and early education that ensures that all children, parents, and providers are thriving and reaching their full potential.   

>> Learn more and register for the 25th Anniversary of the child care and early education team.