Empowering Black Family Child Care Businesses: A Celebration of Dreams and Success 

By Margarita Spataro
Child Care Business Coach, Children’s Council

On Thursday, June 15, Children’s Council hosted a special gathering to celebrate the remarkable achievements of ten new Black family child care business owners. These entrepreneurs have been working closely with our team of Child Care Business Coaches for many months, participating in our transformative Family Child Care Fundamentals Workshop Series, and receiving a generous $10,000 start-up grant to launch their businesses.  

Click here to see our Facebook photo gallery from the event. 

The gathering served as a testament to the collective power of our community to drive meaningful change and to support Black and African-American early childhood educators. Attendees learned about the participants’ success stories, shared in their triumphs, and saw firsthand how investing in our educators goes beyond financial support: it is an investment in the future of our children and our communities. 

For the past two years, Children’s Council’s Family Child Care Business Incubator — part of our BizNest suite of programs and services for new and established early educators — has been a catalyst for change in early childhood education, supporting Black and African-American educators through the Mayor’s Dream Keeper Initiative and the Office of Economic Workforce Development.

Thanks to this visionary program, we have awarded $540,000+ in grants and stipends to support our educators while providing a full range of workshops and direct one-on-one coaching.  

By supporting new family child care businesses and nurturing established early educators through this innovative collaboration, Children’s Council has made significant strides in promoting equity and opportunity in early childhood education in our city.  

We are committed to continuing our efforts to create a more inclusive San Francisco for all educators, as well as for the hundreds of children and families they serve. Our evidenced-based theory of change is driving this program and a series of programming and policy recommendations, published in late 2022 by the San Francisco Black Early Educator Policy Council, a program facilitated by Children’s Council.