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Dear Jessica,

Last week President Biden announced the framework of an agreement for the Build Back Better Plan, which includes a $400 billion investment in childcare. Through your advocacy, we have reached a major milestone on the way to securing unprecedented federal funding. Congress is now working to finalize the agreement and votes will take place in the coming weeks. See the policy section below for sample social media posts to help build support in Congress for this historic plan!

On October 20th, All Our Kin joined Senator Jabari Brisport and other elected officials to visit our very own Isaura Matos of Little Giants Group Family Day Care. Isaura spoke with Senator Brisport, Senator Jamaal Bailey, Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie about how to fix New York State’s child care system so that it works for families and educators. Her message was powerful, emotional and deeply reflected the concerns of so many family child care providers. We're grateful that over 100 educators join the virtual listening session that evening.

You can see some pictures from the visit here and a short video here. We are excited to continue advocating at the state level for increased compensation, benefits, and professional development for family child care educators. If you have an interest in participating in future advocacy events, we'd love to work with you! Please email our New York Policy Director, Steven Morales at steven@allourkin.org.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

As always, we continue to send our love, friendship and support!

In Solidarity,

The All Our Kin Team

Progress in Federal Funding

After weeks of intense negotiations, the President and Congressional leaders have reached agreement on a framework for Build Back Better. Thanks to your advocacy, investments for child care and pre-k were largely protected from cuts, despite major reductions in the overall size of the bill. Child care and early learning are now slated to receive $400 billion in new funding over 7-10 years! There is no way to underestimate the significance of this milestone.

What Happens Next?: Congress will revise Build Back Better legislation to follow this agreement. We will monitor the legislation to ensure it continues to recognize the needs of family child care educators. All members of Congress will review, discuss and vote on the legislation. This could take anywhere from two weeks to two months. We’ll keep you posted as the process unfolds. 

What You Can Do: The agreement proposes paying for new investments by raising taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations -- some of whom don’t pay anything now. If you take home less than $400,000 a year ($450,000 for couples), your taxes won’t increase! Major corporations are likely to oppose this plan. You can play an important role by building support for the plan through social media. For a social media toolkit, click here. Be sure to see the selfie at the end! 

This Story is Mine: Using Wordless Books w/ Young Children

Wordless books are a treasure for early childhood educators. They can be used to help young children develop confidence and abilities in many different literacy skills, including vocabulary, sequencing, storytelling and language-visual correspondence. Join us for a fun and interactive session where you'll explore the many uses of wordless books for children of any age, who speak any language. We'll dive into the bold art these books contain, and practice creating stories while learning to support young children in their own storytelling. This series promises to be a rich early literacy experience you won't want to miss!

This two-part virtual series will be held in English only and is open to a small group of approximately 15 educators. A Spanish version of this series will be offered in Spring 2022. It’s inspired by the teachings of the late early childhood educator Sandy Malmquist. Once your registration is confirmed, plan to attend the first session with 1-2 wordless books from your local library, art supplies like crayons or markers and blank paper. Certificates will be issued for 3 hours of professional development. Please make sure you can attend both sessions before registering. Upon registration you'll receive a confirmation email and details to follow.