It’s a two birds with one stone kind of thing—and these are two serious birds! From their post over in Fair Haven, Jessica Sager, Janna Wagner and a team of community-loving, kid-caring advocates support low-income, unemployed women by training them to provide a much needed service in Connecticut’s underserved neighborhoods: quality child care.
All Our Kin has developed a most efficient response to a nagging problem so many parents, particularly single mothers, face—a lack of quality, affordable child care. About eight years ago, Jessica Sager and Janna Wagner put on their thinking caps and sorted out a pretty brilliant solution: they provide jobs and skills training, infuse capital and tax revenue into the economy and improve child care options by training low-income women to run those daycare programs themselves. All Our Kin now trains over 250 parents and educators each year. And they go on to provide care to nearly 1,500 children, most of them from low-income families and neighborhoods, across the state.
All Our Kin’s licensing program provides materials, mentorship and support to unlicensed caregivers to help them meet state licensing, health and safety standards. A report authored by the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis finds that for every $1 spent All Our Kin spends on the program, a spectacular $15 to $20 is injected right back into Connecticut’s economy. Now that’s impressive!
