UNITED IN CARE
WE ARE UNITED IN CARE
IMPROVING CHILD CARE ACCESS THROUGH COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
Tuition Assistance for Families • Business Supports & Training for Providers • Innovation for Communities
Families need reliable child care and early childhood education. Providers need support to grow their businesses. United In Care delivers both through a bold-community-based model that taps into local resources by expanding affordable options for ALICE families and equipping child care providers with tools, training, and connection they need to build strong and lasting businesses.
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The result
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Families gain trusted options.
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Providers grow stronger.
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Communities benefit when families feel financially stable and children are set up for success.
BRIDGING CHILD CARE GAPS
Working Together to Strengthen Child Care
Child care keeps our communities moving, helping parents work, supporting children’s development, and anchoring local economies. Yet too many families struggle to find or afford reliable child care, and many providers shoulder the demands of running a business alone, without the support that makes their work sustainable.
The result
Every caregiver can work and every family able to access reliable care that supports their goals and their child’s development.
For many families, child care feels out of reach. Center-based child care in New Jersey can cost up to $20,000 a year, placing an enormous strain on ALICE families living paycheck to paycheck. At the same time, nearly half of New Jersey residents live in areas without enough high-quality child care (First Five Years Fund, 2023). These shortages fall hardest in communities where options are limited, and waitlists may stretch for months, including:
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Gloucester County and Southern Jersey region
English | Spanish
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Warren County and Northwest New Jersey region
English | Spanish
United In Care opens the door to a brighter future by bringing families, child care centers, and home-based providers together, and making reliable care more attainable for ALICE families across New Jersey.
Here is how United In Care helps to strengthen child care:
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Affordable options for ALICE families through tuition assistance.
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Business and professional support for centers and home-based providers.
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A proven connected community model that expands the growth and supply of child care in New Jersey.
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Quality improvements through education, mentorship, and belonging.
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Recognition and Comradery through a trusted and respected network that elevates providers together.
Child care should not fall on families or providers alone. When we work together, we can build a future where child care supports every family and strengthens every provider.
BUILDING A BETTER CHILD CARE MODEL
A Proven Path to Better Child Care
Grounded in strong community relationships, United In Care began as a five-year pilot in Gloucester, Hudson, Morris and Warren counties. Working closely with providers, families, and community partners, we tested new ideas, strengthened local networks, and gathered insights to understand what families and providers truly need, all through the ALICE lens.
All 31 participating family child care providers gained new tools, new confidence, and the support to build high-quality, enduring programs.
Delivering Results
United In Care’s grant-funded pilot program (2020 – 2025) helped to shape child care in New Jersey.
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Families received $3.4M in tuition assistance, making child care more affordable.
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Providers received $10,000 each in start-up capital support.
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100% of rated United In Care family child care providers have earned 4-5 stars (out of 5), making this community-based model a powerful engine for quality improvement.
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90% of United In Care providers enrolled in Grow NJ Kids, meeting the state’s top quality standards.
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100% of providers strengthened their business with upgraded technology, software, financial systems, and budgeting tools that improved stability and income.
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Every provider gained high-quality program/classroom materials and equipment, setting them up to reach and maintain top-tier quality ratings.
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Families paid no more than 14% of income on child care, a life-changing shift for ALICE households normally priced out of child care.
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Providers delivered 3 million hours in care to 170 + families who would not have qualified through state subsidies. This supported parents’ employment and education opportunities.
Today, we continue our work in the following New Jersey counties, and we’re proud to share our model with partners outside New Jersey, including Brown County, Wisconsin.
Meet Our Steering Committee Members and early childhood education experts, whose compassion and guidance helped bring United In Care to life, a program created and proudly led by United Way of Northern New Jersey.
STORIES OF IMPACT
Every day brings new stories of impact. Across New Jersey, United In Care is listening, learning, and innovating to strengthen child care for families, providers, and communities. We invite you to explore how collaboration and creativity can transform challenges into opportunities.
Reaching for the Stars: Growing with Grow NJ Kids
Building Budgeting Prowess, Boosting Affordability
United In Care: Rebuilding Dreams
Helping ALICE Working Parents and Child Care Providers Rise
STRENGTHENING NEW JERSEY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS
Promoting Professional Growth Through United In Care Academy
Child care providers give so much to our communities, and they deserve support that helps them succeed. We have a simple goal, to help providers deepen their skills, grow their businesses, and continue to offer the high-quality care families rely on.
The United In Care Academy offers:
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Training that strengthens everyday practice without duplicating existing resources.
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Tools and coaching to help providers run self-sustaining businesses.
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Access to state and national experts.
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Exclusive professional development, coaching and courses created just for our network.
The result
A more skilled, knowledgeable, and sustainable child care workforce, and stronger businesses for every provider who participates.
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I was very old school. Everything was in a book. Now, I am learning all these new things. It’s a good thing, all the new technology.
– Jenny Kok, Jenny’s Family Childcare, Phillipsburg, NJ
The Academy expands access to professional development already offered by state-sponsored and private organizations. It adds expert-led training and coaching that strengthen skills, confidence and long-term sustainability. Participants also gain exclusive entry to specialized United In Care courses, opening doors to learning opportunities they might not find anywhere else.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) training teaches providers how adversity affects neurological and biological health throughout life, the impact of childhood trauma on population health, and how protection, prevention, and promoting resilience can improve health, safety, and productivity. United In Care partners with Project Self Sufficiency to provide this training.
A book club also accompanies this training where providers read books related to topics discussed.
Happiness is Running Through the Streets to Find You: Translating Trauma's Harsh Legacy into Healing is a recommended reading. This book club is coordinated by United In Care.
This Academy is a parent education series that focuses on preparing young children for school entry before they begin their school career. Topics include Getting Ready To Read, Brain Development and Learning On The Go. In addition to the lesson there is also a family meal and free giveaways and books included in each session. This series is run in partnership with local school districts.
The CARE Training provides information for those working with special needs children and children struggling with learning loss. Topics cover the indicators of developmental delays, understanding different behaviors, building inclusive programs, and coaching and mentoring techniques. This is a seven-week training course and is a joint effort created by United In Care and Norwescap.
Topics in this overview session include a discussion of services, how to discuss the program with parents, making referrals and working with the clinicians. An overview presentation on Early Intervention is offered for all family care providers through a partnership with Family Link of NJ.
Visit the FamilyLink website
Visit the Family Matters website
This series promotes positive development in young children by building the capacity of the multidisciplinary workforce serving infants, toddlers, young children, and their families.
Keeping Babies and Children in Mind is offered as a seven part series through Montclair State University’s Socio-Emotional Formation Initiative.
This training provides information for caregivers on evidence-based practices that promote young children’s healthy social-emotional development. This model helps providers build skills for supporting nurturing and responsive caregiving, create learning environments, providing targeted social-emotional skills and supporting children with challenging behavior. The training is conducted by Montclair State University.
Trainings cover working with students with challenging behaviors and offers practical advice for specific situations. United In Care partners with school districts to provide one-on-one training as well as group training.
Program on hold. Contact Amanda DiScala for more information .
Virtual cooking classes led by a nutritionist offer step by step instructions in preparing a meal while initiating conversation around meal preparation and healthy eating. Families enrolled with a United In Care provider are offered free groceries/ingredients for each meal to be prepared while participating in a Zoom cooking class. The class is offered in partnership with local grocery stores.
This training covers key aspects of running a family child care business. Classes focus on a wide range of business topics from marketing to budgeting and saving. The classes are offered in both English and Spanish. United In Care partners with Child and Family Resources of Morris County and All Our Kin, a national nonprofit organization that trains, supports, and sustains family child care educators, to hold this 10-week series.
Providers learn to prepare and maintain budgets and fiscal responsibility for their business. Volunteers and United In Care staff meet with providers and work through their program budget line items, help them calculate key metrics, and teach them how to create a budget from scratch.
Spanish speaking providers have access to several different English As a Second Language options. These include weekly one-hour conversational ESL classes via Zoom with a United In Care team member and more formal ESL classes at county colleges. United In Care partners with Warren County Community College and the County College of Morris to provide these classes.
The providers learn basic computer skills, how to navigate the internet, and how to operate Windows and programs like Outlook, Word and Excel. United In Care provides access to formal community college computer classes as needed as well as to United In Care staff members who individually lend their time to help troubleshoot computer issues.
Providers have access to regional and national child care conferences which provide learning and networking opportunities. Providers have been able to attend the following conferences:
The National Association for Family Child Care Annual Conference
Professional development classes for family care providers are hosted by each hub center. Topics range from health and safety to developing centers within the classroom to literacy training. Some of these training courses also help fulfill the yearly professional development needs of the family care providers.
In addition United In Care supports individual professional growth opportunities on a case-by-case basis related to business development, quality improvement and professional and personal growth.
INTERESTED IN JOINING UNITED IN CARE?
If you are a child care center or home-based family child care provider located in one of our target geographies and interested in joining United In Care, please reach out to Amanda Krause DiScala or Discover How You Can Join Our Network.
HOW WE'RE HELPING FAMILIES
Every family wants care they can trust, a place where their child feels safe, supported, and able to learn.
United In Care partners with local, high-quality providers and connects eligible ALICE families with tuition assistance to make child care more affordable. When families have access to reliable care, everything becomes possible: steady work, financial stability, and a stronger future for their children.
United In Care Offers Families:
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Access to quality, affordable child care
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Access to tuition assistance
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Access to healthy food and nutrition education
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Access to local resources
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Access to stronger community connections
The result
Children learn in nurturing environments, and parents can work knowing their kids are in good hands.
Find a Family Care Provider Near You
If you are a family located in one of our target geographies and want to find a United In Care child care provider near you, please reach out to Susan Cohen or Connect with a Member of the United In Care team for more information.
TRACKING OUR PROGRESS
We believe in learning, improving, and sharing what works.
United In Care collects real-time feedback from families, providers, and centers to measure progress in areas like:
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Affordability
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Child care supply
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Provider business health
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Quality improvements
Together with BCT Partners of Newark, we created an interactive dashboard for the Pilot Program (2020 – 2025) that brings our five-year pilot results to life with clear insights and measurable impact
Use the links in the upper right-hand corner to navigate between Dashboard pages. All pages show data for all United In Care providers in the default view. Use the “Filter by Location” buttons to show data for one or more of the Alliances. Please note the date of the most recent update is shown in the bottom right-hand corner.
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At A Glance: Hover over the four main impact metrics to see change over time.
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Goals: Hover over the Capacity graph to see values at each time period.
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Partner Satisfaction: Hover over the satisfaction meters to see change over time.
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Provider Overview: Use the “Select Duration” filter to view data for a selected period. Hover over the Hours of Care and Enrollment graphs to see values at each time period.
Expands to District 11
This data collection and analysis is led by the United For ALICE research team. Data is collected on a regular basis via surveys of key stakeholders.
UNITED IN CARE CHAMPIONS
Celebrating the Partners Who Help Make This Work Possible
United In Care exists today because of bold philanthropic leaders who believed and invested in our vision for child care. Their support helped launch the pilot, strengthen dozens of child care businesses, and open new opportunities for families, giving us the wings to expand this model in New Jersey – and beyond.
We thank New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund, Overdeck Family Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, United States Congress, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey Health Initiatives, Barclays, and Reinvestment Fund.
As we look ahead with excitement to grow this model, we invite mission-driven partners to join United In Care.
CONNECT WITH US
Have questions? Want to learn more or get involved?
Contact the United In Care Team or Amanda Krause DiScala. We’re here to help.