Our Founding
The Empire State Campaign for Child Care (ESCCC) was founded in the wake of threats to cut the New York State child care subsidy program during the 2017 state budget negotiations. Together, legislators — led by leaders of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, the Women of Color Task Force of the Black, Hispanic, Puerto Rican and Asian Legislative Caucus, and the Assembly Task Force on Women — and advocates fought back
In July, 2017, representatives of 50 organizations came together to share concerns and ideas. Together, we envisioned the creation of a statewide, powerful grassroots movement, one that centers and is driven by the experiences and needs of parents and child care providers, with the capacity to educate and motivate our elected leaders to dramatically expand and transform New York child care. In October 2017, we became the Empire State Campaign for Child Care.
Our Goal
We are working toward a child care system that is free of means testing, with no income, immigration status, or parent activity requirements. We envision a child care system that compensates child care educators equitably and adequately, on par with their public school counterparts. We strive to build a system that is culturally-responsive and is coordinated and aligned with the many systems families and children rely upon to thrive, including home visiting, early intervention services, preschool special education, afterschool, and prekindergarten. This system recognizes and funds child care as a public good, not a private service.