Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative

10/24/2026

What do we have to do on November 3rd?

GET OUT THE VOTE!!!

10/24/2026

Voting starts in preschool. Watch a Mississippi child care center use V is for Vote: a song at morning circle, books children take home, voter ID cards with a fingerprint, and voting booths where parents and children vote together. Download the lesson plan: https://www.mschildcare.org/post/v-is-for-vote-building-civic-engagement-in-the-preschool-classroom

10/23/2026

Our "V is for Vote" Lesson Plan offers all kinds of cool activities to civically engage children, including this skit! Take a look :)

10/23/2026

Thank you to every provider who joined today's V is for Vote training. Missed it? Download the lesson plan: https://www.mschildcare.org/post/v-is-for-vote-building-civic-engagement-in-the-preschool-classroom

Over the next two weeks, we will share V is for Vote activities you can try in your classroom.

Civic engagement can begin long before a person is old enough to cast a ballot. It begins when children learn that their voices matter, that choices can be made collectively, and that participating can help shape their families and communities.As part of our Child Care Changemakers: Leading the Way....

10/21/2026

A drop in child care funding results in children missing critical care in a conducive, learning environment, moms or dads having to quit work, and providers having to lay off staff or close altogether. These are the impacts of the state's failure to invest in child care.

In a special report, we've been digging into a childcare crisis that's hitting Mississippi families right in the wallet.

10/21/2026

10/19/2026

The lack of access and the question around affordability for child care are policy choices made by people that we elect. We are failing Mississippi families when do not decide to support child care.

09/22/2026

Now, this is dangerous. And Mississippians should be paying attention.

A reported federal proposal could fundamentally change how our nation’s limited child care dollars are used—allowing some married households with a stay-at-home parent to receive payments from the same federal fund that currently helps low-income parents afford child care so they can work, attend school or participate in job training.

Here’s the problem: the proposal reportedly does not add more money to the pot.

That matters.

The Child Care and Development Fund is already severely underfunded. According to The Atlantic, federal data show that in a typical month, five out of every six families eligible for child care subsidies do not receive them, and roughly four out of five current recipients are single mothers.

Expanding who can draw from an already inadequate fund without increasing its resources could mean fewer dollars available for working families—and less revenue flowing to the child care providers who depend on subsidy payments to keep their doors open.

We should not pit stay-at-home mothers against working mothers, nor should supporting one group of parents come at the expense of another.

If policymakers want to provide financial support to parents who choose to stay home with their children, that deserves its own conversation—and its own funding.

Do not raid child care dollars to do it.

Child care allows parents to work.
Child care allows mothers to remain economically secure.
Child care keeps businesses staffed.
Child care providers are small businesses and employers themselves.

We should be putting MORE resources into child care—not asking an already underfunded system to stretch even further.

For Mississippi, where families and providers are already dealing with limited child care assistance and tremendous demand, this is a federal policy discussion we need to watch very closely.

Child care is infrastructure. Child care is economic development. And working families cannot afford to lose it.



Read The Atlantic article:

J. D. Vance has a terrible proposal.