The Faces of ECE series is designed to raise awareness of the many early care and education professionals who are supporting one of the most important fields in America today. From the people on the front lines working with children to those working behind the scenes to prop the system up from within, everybody has a role to play and a story to tell. Child Care Matters is committed to sharing those stories.

Early childhood educators have a lot on their plates, but what about those who balance dual roles as educator and business owner? How can someone be an excellent educator and also an expert at accounting, marketing, technology, human resources, compliance, and all the other things that go into the business of early care and education? That’s a lot to ask, but thankfully they don’t have to go it alone. Cue the child care business coach.

I recently had a chance to speak with Danielle Cunningham, program coordinator and business navigator at the Oregon Child Care Alliance about the role these coaches play in the ECE ecosystem. The conversation was an enlightening push-pull between the many wonderful things being done to support our early educators and all the systemic barriers that necessitate that support in the first place. It’s a sobering reminder that despite the small victories happening every day, we still have so much to do to build an ECE system that works for everyone.

Here are the highlights from that conversation, including some of the most powerful snippets in video format:

Background

John: Hi Danielle! If you wouldn’t mind, can you give us an overview of who you are, what you do, and your background in the early care and education space?

Danielle: Yes! My name is Danielle Cunningham, I have been in the field of early childhood education in Oregon for about 15 years and I have played lots of different roles. I started out as a nanny, then went into the center-based child care world, where I was a lead teacher in a 3-year-old classroom. After taking a few years off, I came back as a business owner for a family child care business where I managed about five staff members and had between 16 and 20 families enrolled in the program. After that, I moved into the child care resource & referral (CCR&R) world, where I began teaching, mentoring, and branching into coaching. From there, I moved to the Oregon Child Care Alliance, where I am currently working to build the business curriculum for family child care providers.

John: Whoa, you’ve really seen the field from all sides! This is actually very timely—the Oregon Child Care Alliance is a shared services organization and we’re going to be highlighting the shared services model over the next couple of months. What can you tell us about what shared services means in ECE?

Danielle: Shared services is a newer branch of early childhood education supports. In the state of Oregon (and I will assume every state is a little different), the way that this works is that a shared service alliance is a centralized hub for business practices, training, support, and resources that all our members have access to. At the Oregon Child Care Alliance, for example, we work with a tax preparer who gives our members a discount and a free 30-minute consultation. So instead of hundreds of providers needing to find these things for themselves, we take that off their plate and pool those kinds of resources so everyone can benefit from them.

Business Coaching 101

John: Why do child care business coaches exist? What are some of the systemic issues that necessitate this line of work?

Danielle: What I’d like to start off with is giving us a foundation of “coaching” vs. “advising.” Advising is something where there’s an exchange; an educator is asking us for a resource and we’re giving it to them. Coaching is more of a conversation. It’s a collaborative process where we are problem solving and building out a systematic structure together. So coaching is more getting into the actual human being that’s running the company. We’re really skill building.

With that understanding, business coaches are working with the early educator/business owner to help with the running of their business. Budgeting is one of the top things that we have to work through. How much money do you want to make? How much do you want to charge? How do we track and balance our budgets?

Marketing is another big one that we tend to spend a lot of time on. We help early educators build their contracts, their parent handbooks, and their employee documents. We are really trying to make these businesses as sustainable as possible.

John: That makes a lot of sense. People come into this business because they’re very passionate about working with children; it does feel like a lot to ask for them to be experts in accounting, marketing, human resources, and everything else that goes into it.

Who is responsible for funding this work?

Danielle: The way this works in Oregon is that the coaches actually work for the CCR&Rs. Oregon’s lead agency, the Department of Early Learning and Care, helps to fund that coach’s position for the alliance. So we’re partnering across organizations to build a nice, robust service for providers. Those CCR&R coaches have access to state databases, so they’re really plugged into the early education ecosystem in the state. The Alliance is helping to provide the training and the structure for how the coaching is implemented. The CCR&R is then working with the coach to make sure they have internal supports and are able to leverage state systems to build the sustainability of the program. It’s a really nice way for us to deliver this service to a wider variety of clients.

Mental Health and the Psychology of Early Childhood Education

John: One of the things that really stood out to me in previous conversations was the emphasis you put on mental health, which is something that I don’t think gets talked about enough. What are the biggest threats to mental health for ECE business owners, and what can you do as a coach to support them in that area?

Danielle: It’s such a big question and a big concept. Some of these folks who are running family child care businesses are deciding to run 24-hour businesses. Some of them are opening at 5 am and closing at 5 or 6 pm, and then logging into a training session for three hours after that, and then doing it all over again. Is that really ok? Is that really acceptable for a human being who often has other people in their lives that they’re caring for?

Everybody else gets the early educator’s time and attention, then by 9 or 10:00 at night, these educators have zero time for themselves. So what we’re finding is that the educator has lost themselves. They are struggling to find what they enjoy personally. Unfortunately, too many lose their sense of self because they’re being asked to give all of themselves to the business.

Some of the things we’re working on include:

• Setting boundaries. What is a boundary and how do I enforce that boundary? Whether with children, parents, employees, significant others, or the world around them, these educators need boundaries in place or they will burn out.
  
• The concept of “I’m worth what I am charging.” This is huge with family child care businesses. Often, all the money that comes into the business goes directly back out and the early educator only pays themselves what is left, which is not enough to survive. The guilt and the shame that we hear about wanting to make more money but not knowing how to draw the line so they can feel like what they’re doing is worth the time or even just pay the bills is an ongoing concern.
  
• We try to empower the early educator to understand that they deserve time for themselves, because that’s what a human life is. It can’t just be your work all the time.
  
  

What Does it Take to Start and Sustain a Child Care Business?

John: What’s one skill these educators/business owners need that may not be obvious to those who haven’t gone through it before?

Danielle: Great question. Such a big part of our work is skill building. What we notice when early educators want to start these businesses is they don’t often have the entrepreneurial skills they need to get things up and running. Why would they? So the coach has to deliver that knowledge and help them understand how to practice these new skills.

Writing skills tends to be something we work a lot with. Because you have to write policy, you have to write procedures, you have to write contracts, you have to write marketing copy and parent communications... That’s business lingo, that’s business acumen that they need to understand. What is a policy, what is a procedure, and how do you write those in a clear, concise way?

Digital Literacy as a Critical Skill

John: You talked about a future state where technology—and all the efficiencies it can unlock—is the standard for early childhood education. Where would you say we are right now on that journey?

Danielle: In the practical day-to-day, what are we doing? We’re using Google. We’re using Google Sheets to learn what a spreadsheet is and how to track different things. We’re using Google Docs to share ideas, learning how to add links into a document. We’re learning about ChatGPT, because writing skills tends to be one of those things that is harder for folks, so we show them how to put it into ChatGPT. How do you write this policy? Design me a template. Things like that. We’re trying to leverage technology in other ways to show the early educator that it can work for you. Getting your stuff online does streamline things and it makes things easier, but we have to invest the time. It’s always a question of whether there is enough time in the day to learn this new skill.

Closing Thoughts

John: This has been great. In closing, I’ll ask if you have any final thoughts or advice for anyone who is looking to stand up a new coaching program or evolve an existing program? What should their priorities be?

Danielle: Your priority should be getting your local government to back you up. Your governors, your legislators, everyone who is advocating or should be advocating for this field. The economy depends on early childhood education. This is not just “women’s work,” this is humanity’s work, and we all need to be involved in how to make this successful. There’s always going to be a need for child care, so let’s invest. Employers, invest; government, invest, so we can truly lift up the field.

I’d like to recognize from the bottom of my heart, this is a difficult field. Everyone who’s involved: licensing agencies, CCR&Rs, early education hubs, your local department of human services offices, all of it…You’re all doing great work. It takes all of us coming together to continue this effort. Thank you so much!

Additional Resources

• Connecting Automation to Action: Leveraging CCMS with Targeted Business Coaching (Opportunities Exchange)
• Business Supports Companion Guide for CCR&Rs (Child Care Aware of America)
• Financial Management Coaching Companions for Family Child Care and Centers (Opportunities Exchange)