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Investing in Low-Wage Workers: Lessons from Family Child Care in Rhode Island |
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While child care is one of the fastest growing occupations in the country, most employment in this field is precarious and low-wage. This report profiles a group of largely Latina and African American women living and working in some of Rhode Island's poorest neighborhoods who were determined to improve family child care both for low-income families and the women who provide the care. Their Day Care Justice Co-op was established in 1999 with assistance from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation as part of a national, multisite initiative focused on sectoral employment. The Co-op was a membership association of family child care providers who came together to create services that supported their work and to push the state to improve the economic status of these jobs. The Co-op's roots extend back more than a decade to a gathering held in October 1990 at the headquarters of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality), a multi-racial, multilingual community organization based in South Providence that had been a vehicle for low-income people of color to organize and fight for social, economic and political justice since 1986. DARE member and family child care provider Pearlie Mae Thomas invited other home-based providers from local low-income areas to attend a meeting about issues pertaining to their work.
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