About the Crisis Response Coalition

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On April 22, 2020, the board of directors for the Virginia Alliance for Family Child Care voted to form a coalition to support family child care (FCC)  business owners as they cope with the unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From its beginning, the vision of the Coalition has been to bring together the vast array of stakeholders that impact the success of FCC business owners. While much of the focus to date has been on maintaining the availability of safe, high-quality child care for Virginia residents, the Coalition recognizes that the over two thousand family child care providers in the state are also over two thousand small, mostly women-owned businesses. Their survival affects not only the availability of child care but the economic engine of their communities.

The Coalition is working to bring in stakeholders from across the state who represent a diversity of interests, but all agree on the necessity to both sustain and grow high-quality FCC business in the Commonwealth.  

As of late May, the Coalition has moved far and quickly. We have established the following goals for our initiative.

• Help FCC business owners find and/or utilize the information and resources they need to cope with near term challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic.

• Help FCC business owners prepare to be successful once the pandemic is no longer a threat.

• Enhance the cooperation and collaboration among the myriad of agencies and organizations in the Commonwealth that seek to support and connect FCC business owners.

• Continually refine our efforts to support FCC business owners and partners as we develop a better understanding of the need.

These goals are distilled in the mission of our initiative: through a dedicated network, provide reliable information and resources to empower our diverse FCC providers to survive and thrive through and beyond COVID 19.