What Can Co-ops Do About Child Care? Recommendations for State Leaders
IDEA IN BRIEF
Shared ownership makes child care co-ops very responsive to children, providing a “ground level” view of their needs.
When a crisis hits, co-ops are better able to respond, because they have systems in place instead of a lone administrator desperately trying to pivot, make difficult staffing decisions, or determine how to cut costs.
State leaders - especially state child care administrators - can build on growing interest in building a more resilient child care sector by taking concrete steps to support child care cooperatives.
by Mo Manklang
The child care landscape is a complex, ever-changing environment. How do we balance the need for quality care with the high cost of providing that care? How can our systems spot issues and address them quickly? How do we keep our most experienced, knowledgeable caregivers for the long term?
These questions have become more urgent after COVID-19. The pandemic has underscored how fragile the child care industry is and sparked interest in exploring new models. It’s time to take a closer look at co-ops.
Cooperatives--businesses owned and run by their members--can be a vital solution to many of these issues. They can help build the long-term resilience of the child care sector and help us prepare for the next crisis. Equitable, flexible, and responsive to the needs of children and caregivers alike, co-ops provide an array of benefits to all stakeholders within the system: children, families, workers, and administrators.
Why co-ops?
Cooperatives inherently focus not just on the bottom line, but also on the well-being and benefit of their members. Grounded in the seven cooperative principles, cooperatives center member education, control, and participation, as well as community.
Members may include workers, staff, and clients. From consumer food co-ops that provide access to fresh, high-quality food to worker co-ops that focus on the needs of the workers who own and govern the business, cooperatives are uniquely positioned to address always-changing needs. I have worked in the cooperative space for more than a decade and have seen firsthand the accessibility, benefit, and quality of service inherent to this business model.
Shared ownership makes child care co-ops very responsive to children, providing a “ground level” view of their needs. Co-op owners are close to the everyday issues of the business and have a voice in how systems can be modified to best serve both the children and the business.
Emphasis on feedback and group decision-making allows cooperatives to naturally excel at creating built-in systems for soliciting feedback and ideas, making it easier to learn more about children’s home situations, for instance, or details about their learning or play styles. Additionally, worker co-ops prioritize the professional growth of their workers, connecting them with education and training, which in turn improves staff satisfaction and retention. Ownership, combined with the ability to easily share feedback, makes teachers and staff feel more appreciated and empowered.
A crucial voice during crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a vital lesson: that during times of crisis, frontline workers must be listened to and valued in order to ensure that all people receive quality care, especially in the child care space. When a crisis hits, co-ops are better able to respond, because they have systems in place instead of a lone administrator desperately trying to pivot, make difficult staffing decisions, or determine how to cut costs.
Consider two examples from outside the child care world. In New York City, members of Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) faced the challenge of getting people to work safely despite cutbacks in public transit, cabs, and ride-sharing options. They teamed up with the Driver’s Co-op to fill this gap, helping to start this new business, which has since grown to more than 3,000 drivers serving all of New York City, including the home care workers of CHCA. After the recession of 2008, all of the members of South Mountain, a construction company in Massachusetts, came together to create a plan for future crises and how they would collectively address decision-making and plans. Because of this inclusive, intentional foresight, they weathered the pandemic better than many traditionally structured companies.
Looking through a different lens: rethinking approaches to child care
Now is the time to think differently about models of child care. Cooperative models that include worker voices will help ensure more equitable workplaces that are able to weather the storm of crises; it’s clearer than ever that we must sharpen our focus on the well-being and voice of workers in the child care sector.
Many families have already started down this road. When COVID disrupted their child care, they formed pods to help care for and educate their children. These pods often functioned with a form of collective decision-making between the parents, children, and child care providers. Parents are primed. They’ve done it. They see the advantages.
State leaders can build on this growing interest by learning more about democratic ownership and collective decision-making and the types of businesses—including child care—that employ it:
Visit child care co-ops and see them in action. There’s no better way to see the benefits of the cooperative child care model than to see them in action. Seek out child care cooperatives to understand how they share decision-making and ownership while still delivering industry-leading care. Worker-owners are often eager to explain how their businesses work and share their best practices. You can find a list of worker cooperatives here, including a breakdown by industry.
Understand how our current child care systems do (or don’t) provide meaningful, tangible opportunities for feedback from parents and workers. As child care businesses are assessing how they can get back up to pre-pandemic speed, this is a good time to evaluate current systems, understand how deeply workers have been affected by this crisis, and consider how to move toward more inclusive decision-making structures in the future. The Democracy at Work Institute, our nonprofit arm, has put together Democratic Management: A Practical Guide for Managers and Others, which equips organizations of all kinds to implement these processes.
Create preferences for child care cooperatives that provide quality care. Childspace Daycare Centers in Philadelphia, one of the oldest worker cooperatives in the country, is a leader in the child care community and holds the highest rating from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Childspace also is committed to providing slots for children whose families can’t afford quality care. Though they have consistently provided quality care and collaborate with peers to engage with local and state policy makers, Childspace still struggles to provide commensurate wages because its workforce is tied to the revenue that the state allocates. As a result, the cooperative trains quality child care providers but also experiences a high turnover rate because it is unable to compete with the wages of the school districts. To ensure better retention, policy makers should provide higher allocations per child to businesses that not only provide quality care, but are also committed to training and education.
Dedicate funding to the development of child care co-ops. Provide loan or grant opportunities to child care centers or child care workers interested in forming cooperatives. Such loans could facilitate technical assistance, particularly for conversions when retiring owners pass their businesses on to employees. Explicitly funding child care cooperative development in state budgets is a concrete, long-term strategy to build the resilience of the sector to face down the next crisis. For example, Minnesota recently appropriated funds “to provide business training, mentoring, technical assistance, and loans in order to establish two pilot women-run cooperative child care businesses in low-income urban areas.” Legislators at all levels are already calling for programs to use the cooperative model more broadly, including the Main Street Employee Ownership Act, the Capital for Cooperatives Act, the Emergency Economic Workforce System Resiliency Act, the Regional Innovation Act and the Santa Clara Worker Cooperative Initiative in California. These programs not only recognize the potential for cooperatives in the future, but also build upon the successes of programs like the Rural Cooperative Development Grant, which has a long-standing record of success.
Take advantage of technical support. The cooperative ecosystem is rich with experts who are able to provide culturally relevant support. Cooperative development centers, such as the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Cooperatives, are positioned around the country to help create and grow cooperative child care businesses. The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives maintains a list of service providers, including its own Co-op Clinic, which engages experienced worker-owners and experts to support co-ops. State child care agency leaders should connect with their regional cooperative development centers to brainstorm ways to support the development of child care co-ops in their state.
This moment, in which the entire country is endeavoring to build back the economy after more than a year of continuing crisis, is an opportunity to move past the status quo and create better systems for our children. For more insight on how state and local policy leaders can facilitate cooperation in the child care sector, consult this resource from the National Cooperative Business Association. Policy makers should designate staff to learn about how cooperatives can be a tool for economic and social transformation, creating better jobs and environments for children across the country.
Mo Manklang is the Policy Director for the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, leading advocacy efforts at the federal level, as well as supporting state and local initiatives, and overseeing the USFWC's communications and health benefits work. She has been convening people around cooperatives and social impact for the past twelve years with a variety of organizations, including Philadelphia news and events group Generocity.org, the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance, the Kensington Community Food Co-op, the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, and the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia.
The post was edited by Nancy Vorsanger.