NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The Alliance for Early Success has announced that Louisiana is among the five states that have been selected for Child Care NEXT, an initiative to support in-state coalitions that are ready to mount long-term campaigns to achieve transformative change in their state’s child-care policies and funding.
The lead organizations in Louisiana are the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children and the Wilcox Academy of Early Learning.
Groups from 36 states submitted proposals, and the five selected states will receive deep, ongoing support to develop and implement campaigns that achieve transformative state child-care policy. This includes multi-year funding as well as access to national expertise and peer support from other states in the group.
Planning for this initiative began in 2020 with funding from Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates, and it has received additional support from Imaginable Futures, Spring Point Partners, and the Richard W. Goldman Family Foundation.
“Child care is in desperate need of a demonstration that moves beyond tinkering around the edges and shows the powerful ripple effect that a bold change can have in economic vitality and family well-being. And states are where those kinds of creative policy solutions are born and proven.” said Helene Stebbins, executive director of the Alliance for Early Success
Child Care NEXT is organized by the Alliance — a 50-state early childhood policy advocacy nonprofit — and is guided by a steering committee of 15 national policy and grassroots organizations. The concept was originally developed by Elliot Haspel, Program Officer for Education Policy and Research at the Robins Foundation in Richmond, Virginia.
Child Care NEXT aims to demonstrate how major structural change in state Early Care and Education (ECE) policy can make fundamental differences for children, families, and the economic vitality of their communities and states.
