California Cooperatives: Today’s Landscape of Childcare Cooperatives

This is a chapter of a larger report called California Cooperatives: Today’s Landscape of Worker, Housing and Childcare Cooperatives. In this chapter, Childcare Cooperatives are presented as a strategic path to addressing California’s childcare crisis. A cooperative that is organized as a charitable non-profit whose members are parents and childcare workers is offered as an ideal model to promote better jobs for childcare workers and optimal care for children and families. The positive effectiveness of childcare cooperatives is supported by research and numerous examples. Recommendations are presented for supporting the growth of this time-tested model. This chapter includes an annotated bibliography and list of California Childcare Cooperatives. By E. Kim Coontz, with Hilary Abell and Ricardo Nuñez (2021)