Making Space:
Leading Perspectives on Child Care Facilities
Making Space: Leading Perspectives on Child Care Facilities is a series of thought leadership pieces produced by NCFN Members.
The Making Space series explores the importance of high-quality child care facilities, challenges to financing and accessing this vital infrastructure, and the role of intermediaries in achieving innovative solutions to increase the quality and affordability of child care facilities.
NCFN is excited to announce four new thought pieces; Read the first installment below!
Thoughtful Spaces
Connecting Children with Nature through Thoughtful Facilities Design
LIIF, Build Up CA, and Build Up San Mateo County recently published a report on the critical role of high-quality child care facilities in fostering children's connection with nature. The paper highlights the positive impact of nature on children's mental and physical development, including increased creativity, reduced stress, and improved cognitive and motor skills. Addressing the decline in children's outdoor playtime, particularly in communities of color, the report advocates designing child care environments that integrate natural elements both indoors and outdoors.
Developing Spaces
Clearing the Path for New Child Care Supply: Solutions for Child-Friendly Planning, Housing, and Community Devlopment.
NCFN Executive Committee member EPIC, recently published the first installment in our 2024 Making Space series titled: "Clearing the Path for New Child Care Supply: Solutions for Child-Friendly Planning, Housing, and Community Development." This thought piece highlights important opportunities to support the development and sustainability of new early child care and education facilities with policies and programs that recognize the value of child care as community infrastructure. Read the full report on their website.
Making Space Matter
The Path to the Child Care and Early Learning Facilities Our Kids Deserve
NCFN Co-Chair, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, released this report and toolkit as the eighth installment in NCFN’s Making Space series. The interactive, step-by-step guide includes various resources on facility development and related strategies to help assess existing state and local supports for child care facilities. With the toolkit is also a learning module that gives leaders the information and tools they need to develop a detailed, actionable plans, using the categories of data/information, funding, policy, regulation, partnership and technical supports.
Nurturing Spaces
The Ecology of Early Childhood Facilities
NCFN Member and original co-founder, Carl Sussman, published a paper to connect research on developmental psychology to practical considerations for designing and creating high-quality early care and education facilities
This is the seventh piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Exploring Equity Considerations in Child Care Lending at CDFIs
NCFN Executive Committee Member Self-Help engaged BennettWeston Consulting to analyze how Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) consider racial equity in their efforts to support early care and education (ECE) providers.
This is the sixth piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Rayitos de Sol
CEI’s Support of a Bilingual Child Care Provider in Milbridge, Maine
NCFN Member Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) produced a video featuring Rayitos de Sol, a child care business in Milbridge, Maine, that recently participated in CEI’s Child Care Business Lab program.
This is the fifth piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Capitalizing Child Care
The National Landscape of Grants, Loans, and Community Development Capital in Early Childhood Education
NCFN Executive Committee Member Reinvestment Fund identifies and maps the financial institutions and intermediaries that help finance the child care industry — including the child care business operations and physical facility spaces.
This is the fourth piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Child Care Next Door
Investing in Homes as Child Care Infrastructure
NCFN Member Mission Driven Finance delivers a video featuring three family child care providers and highlighting an innovative real estate investment strategy aimed at providing affordable, child care ready homes to family child care providers.
This is the third piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Building Better for Families
NCFN co-chair Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) highlights the benefits of co-locating quality ECE with affordable housing, and details emerging policy strategies to support these efforts.
This is the second piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.
Journey to Becoming Early Childhood Facilities Champions
NCFN Executive Committee Member IFF shares a multimedia piece highlighting two Detroit-based child care providers on their journey to become child care facility champions.
This is the first piece in NCFN’s Making Space Series.