A lawmaker sitting in a House Finance Committee meeting looked up from the bill text and said, out loud, something advocates had never quite heard before: I could get this? That’s awesome! That moment—a conservative legislator genuinely excited about a child-care tax credit—was five legislative sessions in the making.
West Virginia passed a sweeping child care package this spring, and it was not an opportunistic bill that was introduced spontaneously. The legislation was the product of years of relationship-building, two close calls, a strategic retreat held in October 2025, a contracted lobbyist who knew which doors to knock on, and thousands of West Virginians who picked up the phone or typed a message to their legislators and their governor.
TEAM for West Virginia Children—a statewide early childhood policy advocacy organization and the Alliance’s West Virginia state ally—played a big role in that coalition. As did child care providers, parent advocates, the WV Association for Young Children (WVAYC), and a contracted lobbyist.
Pivoting Together for the Win
West Virginia has a child care crisis. More than 200 family child care centers closed in West Virginia in the 24 months leading up to the 2026 legislative session, and 44 percent of children who need child care cannot access it. More than 40 percent of the state qualifies as a child care desert.
“Providers have been telling us it is only getting harder,” says Gretchen Frankenberry, Owner and Principal Consultant, Thrive Collaborative LLC, who works under contract with TEAM for WV on advocacy strategy . “Things like enrollment-based payment possibly going away, the fact that we’re still on a market rate that has not adjusted to the true costs of care—it is only making more providers shut down.”
The business community has also been raising concerns about child care. The Chamber of Commerce had been flagging child care as a workforce development priority. Toyota Manufacturing, one of the state’s large employers, also took notice. Small business owners described losing employees, mostly mothers, who could not find or afford care after having a baby. A state already struggling with low workforce participation rates was watching the problem grow, year after year. The connection was clear: when there is no affordable child care, people make different choices about work.
In spite of the mounting pressure, advocates knew that change wouldn’t be easy. Jim McKay, State Director for Prevent Child Abuse WV and the lead on policy and advocacy for TEAM, knew that most of the same people were in legislative leadership. The House Finance Committee chair, where child-care bills had died in previous sessions, was still in place.
In October 2025, advocates held a strategic planning retreat. They had spent years with what Frankenberry calls “a laundry list”—too many policy ideas, not enough collective focus. That day, they narrowed their focus down to three priorities.
Every member of the coalition walked into legislative session knowing exactly what they were asking for, who they were asking, and what the talking points were. “No matter how focused you think your policy asks are,” Frankenberry says, “focus them some more.”
That discipline mattered for a reason beyond organizational alignment. In prior years, when the list was long, lawmakers could pass a small, symbolic tax credit and declare child care solved. By bundling the three most impactful provisions into a single child care bill—and uniting behind it—advocates made small, one off legislation less likely. “Anything else they did was kind of beside the point,” Frankenberry explains. “This was the child care bill this time.”
In addition to being smarter about the legislation, the coalition also needed an effective champion in the legislature. Team for West Virginia Children had built a relationship with a key GOP legislator who is a retired business leader, and he agreed to lead the charge in the statehouse.
Getting the bill through committee was not enough. It had to survive a Senate Finance chair with competing priorities, a 10-day window after crossover, and a governor who could have vetoed it.
Team for West Virginia Children utilized its online mobilization system—a $4,000 annual investment made possible by the Alliance’s unrestricted general operations grant—that allows advocates to send action alerts and track constituent contacts to legislators. In the final days of session and through the gubernatorial review period, the system tracked 3,344 messages to legislative and executive targets. The governor’s office received 530 of them. The Senate Finance chair, whose cooperation advocates needed to get the bill on the agenda, received more than 300 in just a few days.
“I understand you got a few calls on this issue,” one committee member said to the Senate Finance chair at the start of a hearing. The room knew where those calls came from. Legislators later told advocates it was the most effective and organic constituent outreach they had seen since the West Virginia teacher strikes.
This was further highlighted on Child Care Day at the Capitol—held this year on Groundhog Day, which advocates noted was fitting. The coalition brought providers, families, and children to the building, where they wore matching t-shirts and made their presence known.
Customized and Responsive National Support
In addition to the general operations funding for TEAM for WV Children, the coalition leveraged the Alliance’s support for other key components of the win.
Advocates were armed with lots of data—thanks to the Mapping the Gap dashboard that TEAM built with technical support from Child Care Aware of America (CCAoA). The Alliance funds CCAoA, along with numerous other national experts, to provide tailored responsive support to state advocates. The data became one of the coalition’s most effective legislative tools. The dashboard allows advocates to view data on child care access gaps sorted by legislative district—so legislators can see the slots available to their constituents compared to the need. Further, a CCAoA analysis uncovered the closure of around 200 family child care centers in the prior 24 months—a fact that became a central talking point during session.
In addition to the data, Josh Gruniewicz of Odd Duck an Alliance Responsive Support provider worked with McKay on coalition messaging and designing their appeals in an effective manner through strategic story telling. Together they worked on identifying key audiences, designing narrative leverage, and identifying the messengers who would be most persuasive including the lawmaker and small business owner who spoke passionately for the bill during the House Finance Committee Hearing, and Senators who voiced their support during the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on the bill.
When it came time to decide on legislation to pursue, advocates again tapped the Alliance network. At the Alliance’s CONNECT gathering in the fall of 2025, McKay sought out advocates from other states who had already worked on cost-of-care modeling and cliff effect mitigation. Those conversations shaped how West Virginia drafted its legislation. The next phase of work—helping the state develop rules and a request for proposals for cost-of-care modeling—will rely on that same network of allies who have been down this road before.
A Big Win for Families and Providers
Ultimately, the broad and diverse demonstration of support was not limited to advocates—and lawmakers passed the important bill with overwhelming support. After the bill passed the House of Delegates 89-4 and the State Senate 31-3, the governor allowed it to become law without his signature. Without the hundreds of calls and messages sent by grassroots supporters of the bill, it is likely the Governor would have vetoed the bill.
The important legislation addresses three interconnected problems that have been destabilizing West Virginia’s child care system for years:
First, it creates employer tax credits for small businesses that partner with local child care providers, including family child care homes. Nonprofits can now transfer those credits to businesses with a tax liability, opening the door for providers who had previously been locked out of similar incentives.
Second, the law codifies enrollment-based reimbursement — paying providers based on enrolled slots rather than daily attendance. West Virginia had been operating under this model since the pandemic, but only administratively. With federal rules potentially on the chopping block under the current administration, advocates decided to pursue codification so the protection would exist independent of whatever Washington does next. “If they do away with it,” one of the state’s largest providers told advocates, she would have to reduce the number of classrooms she operates. Enrollment-based reimbursement is what keeps providers’ lights on when a child gets sick and stays home.
Third, the bill calls on the state to transition from a market-rate model to a true cost-of-care model for setting subsidy reimbursements — and takes the first step toward eliminating the cliff effect, the policy design that causes families to abruptly lose child-care subsidies when their income ticks upward. Right now, parents are turning down promotions because the raise would be wiped out by losing their child-care support. The law directs the state to develop a plan to smooth that transition.
The law now exists, but the funding to implement it does not—not yet. Without adequate appropriations, the state could quietly narrow eligibility for child-care subsidies or implement the cost-of-care transition in ways that fall short of the law’s intent. The governor’s administration is in transition; the cabinet secretary overseeing child care resigned on the last day of session, leaving an acting secretary in place.
In addition to monitoring implementation, advocates are also pushing for a workforce scholarship program that would make child care workers automatically eligible for care subsidies if they work 32 or more hours a week—a model several other states have implemented. That bill made it through subcommittee this session and carries real momentum. It also carries a price tag that will have to be fought for.
But the cohesion, focus, strategy and strength of the West Virginia coalition for child care has proven effective due in large part to the support of the Alliance, Rapid Response Providers, and other state allies. Advocates are planning to continue to make their voices heard and ensure that the promise of strong legislation is implemented effectively, so that children and families in West Virginia can thrive.