The Child Care Business Podcast

Beginning September 30, 2023, states could be forced to deal with the loss of billions of dollars in federal funding, which will lead to a mass disruption in the child care landscape. The $24 billion that went to child cares was part of a pandemic program, and has been the largest investment in child care in history. Without that funding, 3.2 million children could lose spots in child cares and mo...

Allyx Schiavone had intended to start a new elementary school in New Haven, Connecticut, until she listened to her community and saw the need for an early childhood education center.  In this episode, she talks about partnering with local Quakers to form the Friends Center for Children. Allyx is the executive director of the center, which is supported by a comprehensive emotional wellbeing program...

Think about going to a restaurant. That's an experience you have. It's true in other businesses too, from a coffee shop to a doctor's office to a hardware store. So why shouldn't that apply to a child care center? That's the message of Better Beans Branding in Duluth, Georgia. This company does branding, design, signs and construction and  their clients include child care...

Today's millennial and Gen Z workers are mission driven, tech savvy and they expect to be onboarded and given professional development and coaching, says Kris Murray. Kris is the founder and president and founder of The Child Care Success Company and a leading child care business expert.  In this podcast, she talks about how to help child care staff grow within your organization and the impor...

AJ Crabill has strong opinions about early childhood education and he's quick to dispel any notion that it should start around preschool. He is a champion of ECE, and his education experience includes chairing the Kansas City School Board and serving as the deputy commissioner of the Texas Education Agency where he helped spearhead statewide incentives for school districts to expand their pre...

Dr. Rosemarie Allen has served as an educational leader for over 30 years and her life’s work is centered on ensuring all children have access to high-quality early childhood programs that are developmentally and culturally appropriate.  She’s an associate professor in the school of education at Metropolitan State University in Denver, and other career highlights include serving as Colorado’s dire...

The child care industry is at a crossroads. Many programs are resisting technology to help educate the children in their care and simplify running their businesses.  That's why Procare Solutions surveyed over 100,000 stakeholders to gain a deeper understanding of their child care management software usage, as well as other technologies in place for their business operations.  The results of t...

Child care centers are seeing five generations of employees working together: traditionalists, boomers, generation X, millennials and now generation Z, who are ages 10 to 24 years old.  As this group becomes a larger part of the workforce, it’s important to understand how they’re different from other age groups, says Kathe Petchel. She has been in early childhood education for more than 30 years,...

The story of Procare Solutions begins with a dad who saw a child care center needed help.  That dad was Jeff Blum, and he remembers dropping off his 2-year-old son and watching the center’s owners struggle with their accounting system.  So he wrote them a computer program to help. That program — limited, yes, but incredibly innovative for its time  — can lay claim to being the very first version o...

Ty’Heim Clark, perhaps better known as Mr. Ty, is the founder of The Childcare Whisperer, a consulting business that works with child care center directors to help them meet their goals and take their centers to the next level. His experience in early childhood education started when he was a child and he helped his mother at her child care center. Since then, he has worked as a pre-kindergarten t...

As child care centers struggle to find and keep good teachers and other staff, building resilience is key.  In this podcast, Donna Skea joins us from Quebec to share some tips on doing just that!  Donna is the founder of The Infinite Educator, which provides workshops on all aspects of early childhood education, including on building resiliency in the childcare workforce, which is what she’ll be d...

Aliya Johnson-Roberts, an education and business consultant who leads Consulting with AJR, is the executive director of the Bustleton Learning Center and Pratt Street Learning Center in Philadelphia, serving more than 250 children. Her mother was an in-home child care provider, and Aliya went into the fashion industry before realizing her passion is early childhood education. Aliya has a master’s...

In this podcast, Nicole Riehl, president and CEO of Colorado Executives Partnering to Invest in Children (better known as EPIC), discusses a new Colorado law that will pay for 10 hours a week of preschool for all 4-year-olds, and what that means for child care providers and families.  Nicole was an early childhood teacher for five years and her background includes extensive work with Denver’s pres...

In this podcast, Jacob Stewart, director of state government relations at the Early Care and Education Consortium, describes what individual states are doing to combat staffing shortages in child care. Massachusetts, for example, launched a general, statewide workforce bonus for which child care providers are eligible to receive $4,000 per new employee hired and retained for 60 days.  Georgia, Ida...

Chanie Wilschanski is known as the "school culture doctor" because she can diagnose the root cause of the struggle in a child care center in less that 10 minutes.  She's an early childhood leadership coach and the CEO of Schools of Excellence, and in this podcast she discusses what she sees in those 10 minutes and much more. " You need to understand where you're spending y...

Laura Delgado is the vice president of curriculum and professional development at Learning Beyond Paper, a leader in providing 100% digital curriculum. Laura is a former early learning teacher, center director and owner. She has a master’s degree in leadership in education and more than 25 years of experience in early childhood learning.  In this podcast, she discusses why curriculum is so importa...

We are live from the 2022 National Shared Services Technical Conference presented by Opportunities Exchange in Austin, Texas! In this podcast, we talk with Lisa Polk about leadership. She has 20 years’ experience as an early education teacher, director and owner. She works with Georgia Alliance for Quality Child Care and is an instructor for CDA credential and director training in addition to bein...

We are live from the 2022 National Shared Services Technical Conference presented by Opportunities Exchange in Austin, Texas! In this podcast, we talk with Gary Romano. Gary is the president and CEO of Civitas Strategies, LLC, where he works with nonprofit leaders and entrepreneurs. He’s also an author and has published two books. One is “Small But Mighty,” which helps entrepreneurs launch and gro...

Karla Houghtalin is the program manager in early childhood business management at Southwest Human Development in Phoenix. She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education, curriculum and instruction from Arizona State University.  In this podcast, she shares what’s happening with shared services, a topic that is incredibly relevant in the child care industry today. Karla describes the gene...

Monique Reynolds is the vice president of business support services with Quality Care for Children in Atlanta. She has worked in leadership roles in the child care industry for more than 25 years and has an extensive knowledge of child care business management and early education. Monique previously owned and operated successful multi-site programs and her passion is helping child care business ow...

Carla Ward is an early childhood educator who founded Early Learning Foundations in 2008. She is a certified Wonder-based educator with a background in behavior management and she believes learning goes beyond the classroom. She also hosts her own podcast, “The Everything ECE Podcast.”  She was born in South Africa and now lives in Ontario, Canada, and has been fascinated by the way people learn f...

Jacob Stewart, director of state government relations at the Early Care and Education Consortium, has been closely following the Build Back Better Act and its potential implications on the child care industry. In this podcast, he breaks down what could happen should this act (as it stood at the end of 2021) become law, as well as state implementation.      

In this episode, we talk with Storm Webb, executive director of the National Early Childhood Program Accreditation organization, and with Cindy Lehnhoff, director of the National Child Care Association.   These women have been on the front lines of seeing how daycares are dealing with challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and are closely monitoring the Build Back Better plan being debated by...

 Prerna Richards is the founder and CEO of Together We Grow, an early childhood organization providing professional development, coaching and consulting for parents, teachers and administrators. She’s a coach and early childhood educational consultant.   Her desire to make a difference in the lives of children has shaped her life and her career. When she came to the United States, she had a degree...

Nannette Ray was born at the height of the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi. Her mom was a single parent who worked several jobs and died when Nanette was in the ninth grade, which instilled in her the desire to make her mother proud.  She went on to earn her MBA, own two Kids ‘R’ Kids learning academies and to found and become president of TNR Advisors & Management Consultants, which help...