“Who here is a CEO?” That was the question our United In Care staff recently asked a dozen family child care providers who run a business inside their homes.
At first, just two raised their hands.
United In Care is on a mission to have these entrepreneurs see themselves not only as child care professionals, but also as business leaders in the community.
Often overlooked within the child care industry, these family child care providers are critical workers within our communities. Many times, these providers serve ALICE families, those who earn too much to qualify for government assistance, but too little to afford necessities, including child care. Knowing their families can’t afford expensive care, these providers often charge less than what it takes to run a sustainable business.
That’s why on Saturday, September 14, our United In Care Bilingual Network Manager Marisol Malloy and family child care provider and co-presenter Nancy Jimenez encouraged Spanish-speaking providers to see themselves as the CEOs they are at the annual Conferencia de Desarrolo Profesional para la Proveedora (Professional Development Conference for the Provider), hosted by Morris County Child and Family Resources.
To emphasize the providers’ roles as business leaders, Marisol and Nancy engaged in role play, using Monopoly money to illustrate what’s called The Iron Triangle – a business model for sustaining an early childhood education program. This model focuses on the importance of three key elements, including maintaining steady enrollment, evaluating overall costs, and ensuring full fee collection.
“Running a quality child care program is not babysitting,” Marisol said. “Young children from birth to three years old, form more neural connections per second than at any other time in a human lifespan. These child care professionals need to see themselves as the brain architects and business leaders they are.”
In addition to the role play, the child care providers learned some fundamentals of how to run a successful business as well as how to present themselves as a high-quality business worthy of investment.
So, when they were asked at the end of the program again — Who here is a CEO? — all 12 providers raised their hands.
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