Cooperatives have been around for 200 years yet currently have only the tiniest footprint in child care. The democratic ownership and governance structure of cooperatives has significant potential to better support the development and aspirations of historically underpaid child care professionals while delivering better outcomes to the young children in their care.

This conversation with experienced coop entrepreneurs will highlight innovative approaches to increasing the availability and quality of child care through the growth of employee-owned child care businesses, mutual aid networks, and the conversion of existing businesses to employee ownership, as well as policy innovations and investment opportunities to support and strengthen cooperative child care.

Leslie Borell is the founder of Carefully, a collaborative platform for sharing care, organizing pods, co-ops, and mutual aid

Emma Rubin is a Senior Cooperative Developer and the Interim Director of the ICA Group's Child Care Initiative. In her role, she supports the development of worker cooperative child care centers and cooperative networks of home-based child care providers

Teresa Mansell is a founding mother of Childspace, a worker-cooperative child care business in Philadelphia.

Joe Waters is the co-founder and CEO of Capita, an ideas lab working to ensure a future in which all children and their families flourish.

Jessica Mason is the co-director of Start.coop, a business accelerator developing the next generation of co-operative entrepreneurs.

Elias Crim (moderator) is the editor of Ownership Matters, a biweekly newsletter for the Founders and Funders of the emerging Solidarity Economy.

Co-ops and Child Care