“Children Learning, Parents Earning, Communities Growing"

Legislative and Budget Priorities

2024 Thriving Families CA Public Policy Principles

The Thriving Families California (TFC), formerly known as CAPPA, is a 47-year network of community-based public and private nonprofit agencies that provide child care and other services to income eligible families in each of California’s 58 counties. Moving forward, this organization will begin speaking with a unified voice providing input on other supports we may deliver to families including access to child care, food, housing, transportation, mental health, domestic violence, home visiting, health care and more coordinated to lift families up from poverty to self-sufficiency. Thru the decades, our services to the community have evolved from child care as a parental work support into multi-dimensional programs that meet the layered needs of struggling parents and marginalized communities. We value being a collaborative partner focused on directing resources and services to meeting the needs of under served and under resourced communities. To strengthen coordinated services for families, TFC will focus on:

Accessibility: Stabilize and fund a well-resourced workforce

1. Secure ongoing and stable funding to support the state’s multi-year commitment to provide 200,000 new child care slots on top of the 107,584 for center-based and family child care provider vouchers funding in the 2020 Budget Act.

2. Maximize blended one-time and ongoing federal and state dollars to honor parental choice of care in all quality settings that best meets the real time working needs of families in California’s 24 hour/seven days per week economy.

3. Establish fair and equitable policies for subsidized parents that that mirror the private market such as reimbursing for child care upfront as well as “holding harmless” family child care providers reimbursed based on attendance.

Workforce: Ensure a well-resourced workforce and sustainable pipeline of new providers for the future that reflects the critical contribution of their services to a thriving economy

1. Compensate early care and education providers through meaningful rate reform that recognizes quality and experience being delivered in early care and learning environments.

2. Address the economic inequity of California’s child care and early learning system carried mainly on the backs of low-income Black and Brown women.

3. Fund a pathway to support individuals that choose Early Childhood Education as a vocation and value its Importance as critical to a healthy and thriving economy.

Communities and Partnership: Strengthening whole family/whole child needs can be successfully addressed when supported with a coordinated network of state, local, community and neighborhood stakeholders

1. Collaborate with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) on building upon community-based programs that are uniquely positioned to talk with parents and support their under-resourced connections to needed services (i.e, child care, nutrition, immigration, housing/homelessness, foster care, mental health, transportation, etc.).

2. Strengthen funding, reduce unfunded mandates, maximize technology and reduce contract barriers in order to create a cohesive delivery system that values a coordinated delivery of programs with allocated monies.

3. Show the data of the working families’ contributions back into the local and statewide economy via taxes through their Return On Investment (ROI) when they are employed and earning.

4. Support a No Wrong Door framework that delivers coordinated resources regardless of access point.

Value: Realize a family focused delivery of coordinated supports and services that result in breaking a cycle of poverty for both the current and future generations.