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Shelter offers rare support for homeless families: a child care center

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Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Early Childhood newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about early learning. Subscribe today!

Several years ago, officials at Pathways, an Alabama-based nonprofit that provides services and shelter for women and children who are homeless, learned that their clients needed more than a safe, temporary home: They needed child care, too.

At the time, toddlers and preschoolers spent their days in adult shelters, sometimes with strangers, when their parents went on job interviews, to meetings or attended training sessions. Many parents didn’t know they could receive childcare through federally-funded options, like Head Start, or they lacked the resources needed to enroll their children and the transportation to take them to a center. Pathways officials considered offering a qualified babysitter to families, but quickly realized more was needed.

“We realized we can do way better than that,” said Casey Cunningham, development director at Pathways. “We can provide a high-quality, early childhood licensed child care environment, which is what we want all kids to have, but especially kids who are starting out with less.”

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Jackie Mader

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