Planting the seeds of 'communities that can hold families, so they can hold their kids'

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There are lots of challenges in early care and education. EdNC’s early childhood team writes about them often.

So when there’s an opportunity to write about a solution — work that is actually making a difference — it feels like a breath of fresh air.

That’s how I felt talking with the team at Southwestern Child Development Commission (SWCDC), a private nonprofit that serves as the regional Child Care Resource & Referral agency for the western part of the state.

For the last two years, SWCDC has been busy creating the first statewide system of support for an often overlooked part of the state’s early childhood network: family child care. Daniel Bates, the statewide family child care project manager, made sure I knew that licensed family child care includes both family child care homes and centers in residence, which are home-based programs that can serve a larger number of children.

This detail was important because Bates, the team at SWCDC, and the project they have led are all about the details. They took time to listen to the field about the details of their experiences — from the specifics of the licensing process to the tricky conversations providers navigate with parents to the complexities of building codes that vary from town to town.

Then they made sure providers had access to people who understood those details and could hold their hands through it all. Through 17 family child care consultants, mentors and peer groups, and funding for start-up costs and business skill building, the team helped 53 programs get started. Since April, they’ve heard from another 200 potential providers after a recent marketing campaign.

The funding to do this work (through a state legislative pilot and a state contract with federal funds) is drying up at the end of June. Bates and the team said they hope the lessons they’ve learned carry forward as state leaders ask how to expand child care access.

In many ways, the team told me, the work was just getting started. Bates said the following about the regional consultants: “Good people plant trees, knowing that they may not live long enough to sit under it.”

I see trees being planted through the work of WNCSource to support and expand the early childhood workforce, which is providing pay raises and wraparound support to teachers in western North Carolina while recruiting new professionals to the field. Since 2022, they have hired 161 new early childhood professionals and reduced vacancies from 44% to 11% with funding from the private foundation Dogwood Health Trust.

For the last few months, Katie has told the stories of tree-planters through the Profiles in Care series, a project illustrating that care and education are inseparable, especially in a child’s first five years — caregivers educate, and educators care. Her most recent profile brings to life the work and passion of Dr. Ellie Erickson, a pediatrician at Duke Health in Durham and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke University’s School of Medicine. Erickson is redefining and expanding the role of a pediatrician, with a goal “to create communities that can hold families, so they can hold their kids.”

Erickson references the work of D.W. Winnicott, an influential pediatrician in the 20th century, who said: “There’s no such thing as a baby. There is a baby and someone.”

As we move into the thick of summer, I’m feeling grateful for the babies and the “someones” in my own life and in my work life.

EdNC is operating on a modified summer schedule in July. Early Bird will be back in your inboxes in August. Thank you for reading, for welcoming me in your classrooms, and for inspiring and challenging me.

Until next time,

Liz Bell

Email Liz Bell

Liz Bell is the early childhood reporter for EducationNC.