ECE Coalition Demonstrates their Commitment to Data with new Child Care Counts Survey

The Child Care Counts program has had an incredible impact on Milwaukee’s early care and education providers. From March 2020 through December 2021, the Department of Children and Families awarded more than $52 million to local providers to help support quality care and improve staff retention and recruitment. All told, these funds supported over 1,000 providers throughout the city.

Yet how much of an effect did these funds truly have? And what still needs to be done to support this essential industry?

That’s precisely what Milwaukee’s ECE Coalition intends to find out. Their new survey, which will be distributed to family and group providers on Monday, January 31, aims to discover exactly how these funds were used and what effect they had on staff, families and overall operations.

For example, were providers able to rehire staff that they’d laid off? Were parent fees reduced? Did they use the funds to support online learning – or just to keep their doors open? The answers to these questions will help the ECE Coalition form a clearer picture of the state of ECE in Milwaukee, including the crucial needs that still exist within the industry. 

Once the survey is completed, the Coalition and their Data Workgroup plan to utilize the aggregated data to create a summary of the final results, which will be distributed out to all participants, as well as to the larger community. (Follow Milwaukee Succeeds on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates!)

Ultimately, this data will inform the Coalition’s advocacy work surrounding policy decisions and future funding for ECE. Their ultimate goal is to improve recruitment, retention, compensation and professionalization of the ECE workforce in order to ensure that all families in Milwaukee have access to quality, affordable child care.