Max Arias, Chairperson of Child Care Providers United (CCPU), issued the following statement on behalf of the 40,000 child care providers in California represented by CCPU in response to Governor Newsom’s Master Plan for Early Learning and Care: California for All Kids:
“Child Care Providers United (CCPU), representing over 40,000 family child care providers in California, wants to acknowledge the ECE Master Plan released today by the Health and Human Services Agency. This ten-year plan includes a variety of proposals to improve and grow the ECE sector. We look forward to working with the administration, the Legislature, and all advocates who have participated in this year-long process to make this vision of quality, affordable child care for all families and quality early education jobs a reality.
“However, California’s child care system is still in crisis, with providers and the children and working families they serve struggling to hang on. The continuing and growing pandemic, a broken economy, and the systemic racism built into so many of our institutions, both public and private, have resulted in close to 6,000 providers closing their businesses temporarily or for good, thousands of children losing their child care services, and promised funding to address this crisis still not out in providers’ pockets but stuck in a bureaucratic maze.
“It is time for this administration and the Legislature to ensure that the promised funds get to child care providers sooner rather than later, and ensure that providers receive the health protection they need and deserve to remain open, so that we can get to the needed work of bringing this vision to life.”