The Community advocacy stipends help partner organizationskeep up the pressure and urge legislators to support funding for child care and other early childhood policies.
There is no question that child care has become a major political issue. From the presidential debate stage to local town halls, more policymakers acknowledge that child care keeps America running. Despite the spotlight on child care, the country is still waiting on robust policy solutions to address the child care crisis. In West Virginia, advocates are looking for innovative ways to advance the cause, and recently launched a Community Advocacy Stipend program to build the constituency for child care in the state.
The child care landscape in West Virginia mirrors national trends. According to a recent First Five Years Fund poll, more than 90 percent of West Virginia voters believe it is important for working parents to have access to and afford quality child care. Child care is undoubtedly a popular political issue in West Virginia that cuts across party lines and demographics. However, policy change has been difficult to deliver, and advocates say there is still “unfinished business” in the legislature.
“We have this tension between a lot of discussion about child care, recognition that it’s an issue–but not a lot of movement on solutions,” says Jim McKay, a state director for TEAM for West Virginia Children (TEAM). “Forty-six percent of the state does not have access, so there is a real gap for child care that remains high.”
In 2024, advocates in West Virginia were looking for new ways to capitalize on this window of heightened interest in child care, and TEAM developed a new stipend program to do just that. TEAM has begun distributing community advocacy stipends to partner organizations to ensure they keep up the pressure and urge legislators to support funding for child care and other early childhood policies. The stipends facilitate one-on-one conversations between advocates and policymakers by providing funding to organize community events, purchase food and supplies, develop handouts and fact sheets, and even supply child care for staff and attendees.
The stipends are highly flexible–grantees dictate their approach and decide what works best for their community. The stipends give opportunities to local advocates who want to shift policy and help them inform policymakers about what is happening on the ground. According to McKay, the goal is to facilitate “relational organizing” and mobilize grassroots support on behalf of kids and families, amplify local voices, build relationships, and educate the policymakers themselves about the different solutions.
The West Virginia Association for Young Children (WVAYC), for example, used its community advocacy stipends to conduct a series of 11 child care town halls across the state this year. The events are hosted in partnership with local child care providers, who are responsible for finding business leaders and parents willing to tell their stories. In addition to elevating parent, provider, and business perspectives, WVAYC presents findings from a dashboard developed by TEAM, and Alliance Rapid Response Partner, Child Care Aware of America (CCAOA), to show child care gaps and break down the issue county by county and district by district.
According to Kristy Ritz, the Executive Director at WVAYC, the child care town halls provide an opportunity for policymakers to hear directly from members of their community in a relaxed environment that makes them more receptive to calls to action. Ritz recounts the story of a legislator who was initially skeptical but was moved when he heard the struggles parents and providers face firsthand. The message from the presentation resonated, and a few days later, he stood up for child care in the legislature. “We went from within five days saying he didn’t understand why we thought the government should pay for other people’s children to be in child care, to filing an amendment to a budget for additional child care funding.”
“That was pretty spectacular,” she says. “He listened. We really made an impact.”
All together more than 450 community members participated in local events supported by the Community Stipends, alongside over 50 policymakers, including statewide officeholders, state legislators, local mayors, county commissioners, and more. Notable attendees included new WV Attorney General J.B. McCuskey and the new State Senate President, Sen. Randy Smith.
There has undoubtedly been progress in West Virginia, but a different set of challenges will emerge as the newly elected governor and members of the state legislature have begun the 2025 legislative session. Budget constraints caused by billions of dollars in tax cuts will also make investing in child care challenging, even with bipartisan support.
“We need more money. That is the solution for most of this,” McKay says. “We are going to need to come up with the money somehow, and hopefully, our new administration will do that. The power of relationships will be at least one of the key factors in that.”
TEAM will continue investing in relational organizing to advance child care policy. It is planning a morning “biscuits briefing” with with the new members of the legislature on March 20th, and working to secure a meeting with the incoming governor to discuss child care. TEAM also plans to continue distributing community advocacy stipends, which have proven to be a creative solution to develop and deepen relationships between policymakers and advocates, create new early childhood champions in the legislature, and lay the groundwork for future advocacy.
“We have the white paper and the research that says we need solutions, but the political reality is going to come through relationships,” McKay says. “We will not get everybody, but I think we have moved the needle.”
