EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION: A WIN FOR CHILDREN, PARENTS AND THE ECONOMY

Since 1995, ensuring quality early care and education for San Francisco's children has been a top priority for Coleman Advocates. While many of the city's services are dependent on state dollars, we believe that our local government must continue to play a stronger role to support the early care system.

Our current goals include:

• Preserving and augmenting San Francisco's multi-million child care investments.
  We will monitor every local child care expenditure and work through every budget process to see that the city continues child care subsidies for working families; child care training, facility and quality enhancement programs; and multi-million dollar initiatives for wages, benefits, stipends for child care teachers/providers. We will work to continue to expand the local wage programs so that we continue to meet need, and to expand the city's ability to address major funding gaps created by state cuts.
  
  
• Ensuring that the intent of the city's universal preschool legislation is carried out.
  San Francisco has a unique opportunity to design one of the country's only fully-funded universal preschool programs. Coleman will be well represented throughout the process – monitoring the progress and outcomes, as well as participating in the planning and oversight.
  
  
• Strengthening individual leadership and institutional capacity of the local child care field.
  We will continue to help develop the advocacy and organizing capacity of the feiled through periodic advocacy and budget campaigns, media and organizing skills trainings. We will provide ongoing technical support for local and regional child care networks, including the SF Family Child Care Association, SF CARES Development Corps and the SF Child Care Providers Association.
  
  
• Engaging new partners in building broad institutional support for child care.
  We will put particular emphasis on engaging parents, as well as other issue groups that do not yet see child care as a relevant issue.
  
  
• Continuing to explore innovative child care unionizing models.
  We will work with family child care providers and others, in partnership with the United Child Care Union in Philadelphia and AFSME.
  
  

Key Partners

San Francisco boasts one of the most diverse early childhood advocacy networks in the country. The leadership of the local human services department (DHS) contributes significantly to the development of a sustainable child care infrastructure and one-of-a-kind investments in the City's child care workforce. Additionally, the First Five Commission and Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families (DCYF) have innovative partnerships in key early care initiatives. And the child care field itself has an enviable landscape of community-based partners and constituent-led networks. Together, these elements combine for a formidable political force in San Francisco and beyond. Listed below are some of Coleman's key partners in working to improve the early care and education system in San Francisco:

• SF Department of Human Services (SFDHS) – county welfare department, oversees local TANF program, WAGES + for child care teachers and family child care providers, loan subsidy program for child care centers, and child care subsidies for low-income families
  
  
• SF Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families (DCYF) – city department that oversees the Children's Fund (property tax set aside for children's programs) and supports nearly 200 community organizations, including child care centers and family child care providers.
  
  
• First Five Commission – funded by state tobacco tax dollars targeting investments in families with very young children, the Commission is a key partner and funder in the city's early childhood network.
  
  
• Child Care Planning & Advisory Council – state-mandated body responsible for setting child care policy priorities for the county. Comprised of stakeholders jointly-appointed by Board of Education and Board of Supervisors.
  
  
• Wu Yee Children's Services – local resource and referral agency that administers the SF CARES program and the WAGES-Plus program for family child care. Founder of the SF Child Care Providers Association.
  
  
• Children's Council, SF – one of California's oldest resource and referral agencies, administers most of county's child care subsidies for working families, supports for family child care providers, trainings, host for local Parent Voices chapter, and the WAGES-Plus program for teachers and providers via contract with SF DHS.
  
  
• Family Child Care Association, SF – SF's largest membership group of more than 250 licensed child care providers, run a Provider Resource Center, citywide referral services, and substitute reimbursement pool.
  
  
• SF Child Care Providers Association – advocacy group of directors and child care professionals, created in 1998 by Wu Yee, center directors, and Coleman Advocates. A leading voice on child care in San Francisco.
  
  
• Parent Voices, SF – local chapter of statewide advocacy network of parents fighting for child care for working families, sponsored by CA Child Care Resource & Referral Network, based in SF.
  
  
• United Child Care Union – unique partnership with AFSCME-affiliate based in Philadelphia, PA, and Bay Area family child care associations, led by SF association. Coleman Advocates provides technical support.
  
  

History of SF's Multi-Million Child Care Agenda: Organizing & Opportunity = Success!

In late 1995, the Miriam & Peter Haas Fund asked Coleman Advocates to replicate its policy successes on behalf of youth by using its unique advocacy model to build a political voice for the City's under-served constituency: families with very young children.

The City already had a number of elements in place. San Francisco (one of 19 cities nationwide) had implemented the Starting Points Initiative, a citywide policy and planning vehicle for families with young children. Oversight was provided by a 24-member Early Childhood Interagency Council (ECIC), including various early childhood stakeholders, among them Coleman Advocates' Executive Director, Margaret Brodkin. The Children's Fund already provided some local dollars for child care, and the City was home to the Low Income Housing Fund, a community-based alternative lender. The fledgling Family Child Care Association had just selected its new leadership. Finally, the city's highly-regarded resource and referral agencies, Wu Yee Children's Services and the Children's Council, each had a history of institutional credibility on child care issues.

The passage of federal welfare reform legislation in late 1996 gave child care stakeholders the opportunity to shape the city's child care agenda for much of the next decade. Newly-elected Mayor Willie Brown convened a citywide Welfare Reform Task Force, out of which housing, immigrant rights, and child care emerged as priority issues. In Summer 1997, at the urging of child care stakeholders, the Board of Supervisors (led by then-Supervisor Susan Leal) set aside a historic $2.5 Million in local funds for child care! This included subsidies for working families, investments in family child care, and expansion of latchkey programs. The City also launched a first-ever child care facilities fund, a public-private partnership that grew out of discussions between Coleman Advocates, the Low Income Housing Fund, the Miriam & Peter Haas Fund and the Starting Points Initiative. The following year, Supervisor Mabel Teng unveiled a $2 Million for a High Quality Child Care Fund at the first-ever Baby Brigade (organized by Coleman) with hundreds of parents, providers, and toddlers at City Hall.

Over the next few years, the early childhood organizing campaign would boast a stunning series of budget victories, including:
- California's first county-funded CARES program, to encourage and reward more than 1200 teachers and providers pursuing higher education and remaining in the field;
- A locally-funded health insurance program for uninsured family child care providers, modeled after a similar program in Rhode Island;
- A groundbreaking wage initiative (WAGES-Plus) to raise salaries of underpaid child care teachers and providers, the only such program in California.
- A local program to support quality infant-toddler programs in centers and homes, funded through the county First Five Commission
- A unique local-federal partnership to provide capital acquisition funds to child care centers, with subsidized loan repayments via the county human services department.
In less than a decade, San Francisco's early education field has evolved from a fragmented employment field into an organized and potent political force with an enviable record of budget successes. In 2004, an amendment to the city charter passed that will fully fund universal preschool in San Francisco. Indeed, the city's early childhood field has been a driving force behind many of the policy victories achieved on behalf of San Francisco's children and families. Coleman Advocates is proud to be a part of these impressive achievements.

Strategies & Tactics

Coleman Advocates has utilized a number of strategies and tactics in building a sustained, citywide advocacy voice for child care in San Francisco. These include:

• Coalition Building – e.g., Young Child Advocacy Caucus, Organizing Roundtable, etc.
  
• Direct Action and Mobilizations - e.g., Baby Brigade, 1000 Kids March, etc.
  
• Budget & Policy Advocacy – SF CARES program, Health Insurance for providers, etc.
  
• Media Advocacy
  
• Leadership Development & Skills Trainings – Child Care Leadership Conference
  
• Negotiation with City Officials
  
• Civic Engagement – e.g., Speak Up for Kids Day at City Hall
  
• Technical Assistance – SF Child Care Providers Association, United Child Care Union
  

Coleman Advocates' Executive Director serves on the county First Five Commission and is an influential voice for policy planning and strategy in the City's early childhood field. Additionally, the SF Child Care Providers Association and the Family Child Care Association have assumed significant leadership roles in organizing and engaging teachers and providers in strengthening the advocacy voice for child care and early education.