Pressure Relief: What Cooperatives Can (and Can’t) Do for Child Care

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: [00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Practicing Connection. I’m Erin Carlson-Rivera.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And I’m Jessica Beckendorf. Today, we’re talking about what happens when communities stop waiting for the childcare system to fix itself and start building something different.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: When childcare is hard to find and even harder to afford, the pressure shows up everywhere, within families, employers, providers, and entire communities.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Our guest today is Kristen Forde-Hurckes from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension Center for Cooperatives. Kristen works with communities across the country to explore how cooperative models, especially worker cooperatives, can be part of the solution and what it really takes to make those models work.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Kristen brings a deep background in cooperative development, including years as a member of Union CAB in Madison, where she helped lead member education, conflict resolution systems, and governance work. She’s also been involved in building broader cooperative networks and [00:01:00] bringing a strong focus on the cultural shifts required for shared ownership and participatory decision-making.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hi, Kristen. Thank you so much for joining us on Practicing Connection. I am so excited to talk about what cooperatives can and can’t do for childcare, and what leaders and community members should know before jumping in.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, let’s kick it off by talking a little bit about cooperatives.

You work at the intersection of cooperatives and community economic development. For listeners who may not be familiar with your center’s work, what drew you to childcare as an area of focus? Or you could even more broadly tell us about what the center does and how it’s been involved in childcare.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Sure. So the UW Center for Cooperatives has been around for a long time and does research and education and outreach to promote the cooperative model across sectors. Folks at the center have worked on childcare in the past, but we are [00:02:00] facing a pretty significant crisis, I would say, across the country, and especially here in Wisconsin.

And so our executive director, Courtney Berner, was in conversation with a national leader, and they were thinking about an example called Energy Capital Childcare Cooperative that had some success with employers who came together. One of the primary employers is a cooperative, a utility cooperative, and they experimented with a model where employers led the initiative.

Their question was, “What was their special sauce? What made this work?” And, “Why aren’t there more?”

And so that really was the beginning of this initiative. I have my own background in childcare also. I’ve spent about half of my professional life doing some kind of childcare. So it was a good match for me to take this on.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So when you’re talking with childcare [00:03:00] providers or directors or community leaders about what’s broken with the current system, what do you hear most consistently?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Well, I do think it depends on who you are asking. When we talk to families, of course, the primary thing that’s broken is affordability.

Families are unable to afford childcare, even subsidized childcare, really. Most childcare isn’t subsidized enough. And so families are unable to afford even the true cost of childcare.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That doesn’t surprise me, but I’m curious, does availability also come up with families?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Availability does come up, but I would say that affordability is the primary concern.

But there are wait lists across the region with centers. And if you were to talk to a director of a center, they would tell you that the labor shortage is the [00:04:00] primary concern. There are centers that are operating across the state at less than 75% capacity because we have a labor shortage. To fill that labor shortage, we would need a very large number of new childcare employees to fill that shortage.

And so if you were to talk to childcare professionals, the primary issue would be wages. Childcare providers, meaning childcare professionals, the staff, they’re highly educated. Most of them have some post-high school level of education, and they are in the bottom 2% of earners. And most childcare centers aren’t able to provide any kind of benefits.

And so, you know, people just are not choosing that career anymore because it’s, they can’t afford [00:05:00] childcare.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: So yeah, again, I think it depends on who you’re talking to. But I think for me, after looking at the problem as a whole, the issue is funding. There is a significant gap between the operational costs of childcare and the revenue.

Those expenses, the expenses in a childcare business are fixed.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: About 70%, 67 to 70% of those costs are labor. And those are regulated, right? The state regulates how many staff you need for the group of children that you’re providing care for, and you can’t adjust that. And so those are fixed costs.

Real estate is the other biggest part of the expenses. But there is a gap in what the revenue is and what the expenses are.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So you’ve probably started to get into this a little bit, but I’d love to [00:06:00] unpack something I’ve heard you say before, that the childcare market doesn’t work like other markets. You started to describe what the market looks like, but what does this mean in practice?

Like, why can’t the sector just fix itself through normal supply and demand?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Demand, I would say, is higher than supply, right? But supply is labor. When we’re talking about supply, we’re talking about the childcare professionals who are providing the labor, providing the childcare.

And the way that I’ve started thinking about this is that there’s sort of this economic pyramid. And in order for the economy to be held up, we rely on childcare, because our economy is depending on both parents to be in the labor force. That requires childcare.

And as I mentioned before, our childcare providers are in the bottom of the earners, but they’re holding the entire economy up in some ways.[00:07:00] And so that in combination with the regulations means that this whole idea of supply and demand, well, you have a certain demands, you have a certain number of children that require care. And you must have then a certain number of teachers, right? So there’s no way to adjust that formula unless our legislators change the regulations.

But those regulations are in place to ensure quality care for our children, which, you know, plenty of evidence shows that our brains are, it’s like the most precious time for brain development. And so that quality care, it has long-lasting implications.

There’s tons of studies that show that children who receive quality care in those early years do better in their future education. They’re far less likely to [00:08:00] be incarcerated. They are far less likely to suffer from addiction, things like that. So those regulations are paired with these evidence-based practices that show we need more adults in interactions with young children.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That makes so much sense. It really doesn’t – it’s not a market that works like other markets. That was such a great explanation of that.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So one of the ways we’ve been thinking about how to approach this conversation was, could we introduce the cooperative model as a way to ease pressure on the childcare issue? But cooperatives can come in several different forms, such as parent-led, worker-owned, or employer-assisted.

For communities trying to address a childcare shortage, how do you help them figure out which model best fits their situation?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: It depends very much on who’s at the table, right? Like, who are the stakeholders who are engaging? I can provide some [00:09:00] examples maybe that will best illustrate this.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: There’s a group of folks in Viroqua who came to the center looking for some support, because the owner of a childcare center is ready to retire, and would like to make sure that this childcare center stays in place and that the employees get to continue doing their good work. And so they want to transition to a worker-owned cooperative.

But a childcare business – I mean, the margins are just, like, razor thin, right?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mmhmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: So in order to facilitate that type of conversion, there needs to be a boost in capital. Essentially, in a conversion, the business is buying itself, right? So the business is buying itself from the former owners, and the business wouldn’t be able to carry that debt.

And so, because that particular [00:10:00] childcare center has community support, they’re going to be what is considered a ‘multi-stakeholder cooperative,’ because there are community members who are also equally as interested in making sure that this very important childcare center remains in place in their community.

And so they are raising capital through community memberships. They also have gotten creative with the real estate issue. So a community member has purchased that real estate in order to make sure that it stays affordable to the business, but that the business itself, that the employees don’t have to finance the purchase also of the real estate, right?

And so that’s an example where, you know, it’s very situational, but they brought in the stakeholders that were interested.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And any community member could buy into it. It doesn’t have to be someone who has children or has –

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Right.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:11:00] Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. And so they have, they’re engaging some of their cooperative employers that are part of the community.

They’re engaging community leaders who are part of the community. And parents and former parents who have benefited from the childcare center as well.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. Very cool. Well, let’s dig into an example you brought up at the top of our conversation. The Energy Capital Cooperative Childcare in Hazen, North Dakota.

So you said that eight employers came together to open a center that now serves dozens of kids. Walk us through how that came together. You started to tell us a little bit at the top of the hour, but how did that come together? What was the catalyst? Tell us everything you can about that.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. So there’s, it’s a really cool example of a community, a very rural community who was experiencing what so many rural [00:12:00] communities are experiencing, which is a childcare desert.

And the utility cooperative there, actually, one of the employees who engages with customers and members brought the idea, just in her mind, though, “Well, there should be, we should have a cooperative solution.” I mean, we know that our employees are impacted by the lack of childcare. We know our business is impacted by the lack of childcare because if employees can’t come to work or an employee’s peer is unable to come to work, there are all these ripple effects within our workplaces if there’s a lack of childcare.

And so she was actually given the green light by her workplace to spend work time developing a network of employers who also wanted to address the issue. And so she went door-knocking. She went calling on other [00:13:00] employers saying, “Hey, you know, how do you feel about this? You must experience this difficulty as well. Are you, you know, is this troubling for you?”

And she ended up with, I believe it was nine employers who were sitting around the table for a certain amount of time, who were committed to coming up with a solution together. It ended up being a non-profit. It’s not a cooperative, but their bylaws read like a cooperative.

They’re a non-profit that has community members and employer members who then also are part of the governance of the cooperative. So these employers who were at the table at the beginning continue to govern the childcare center. And they contributed dollars upfront and they continue to contribute dollars.

So, you know, that means that that gap between expenses and revenue that I’m talking about, sort of that subsidy that all childcare [00:14:00] centers really need is provided now by a group of employers in their community. And they continue to operate, not without challenges, but they do continue to operate.

And yeah, this was sort of the impetus of our looking into this. Like, “How could we either duplicate this or improve upon it?”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: It sounds like even though this is a non-profit, it has the soul of a cooperative.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: That’s a great way to – Yeah. Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So what were you finding? You said that you were kind of studying this particular example, even though it’s not specifically a cooperative.

Like what makes it work? Can we do it somewhere else? And what have you found out about that?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah, really good question. I mean, I would say there were some really positive sides, and some challenging sides.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: On the positive side, all of these different [00:15:00] types of employers came together and figured out how they could specifically contribute to the solution.

And each employer had different ways that they could contribute. It wasn’t identical for each employer. Some employers were not able to provide a financial contribution because of the nature of their business. The non-profit medical center couldn’t provide a direct financial contribution, but they could provide their custodial services.

And so that’s what they did. The school district provided meals, a meal program that was shared. And so there were these interesting creative ways of putting together both financial contributions according to what that employer could provide, and these other in-kind donations that made it work. The other interesting thing is that the real [00:16:00] estate, as I mentioned, that’s the other big expense for most childcare centers.

And in this case, a church that was closing, they were either closing or moving out of their building. They sold their building at a very low cost. And South Dakota has a public bank. It’s a state-owned bank. And they had this really interesting program where they could provide a zero-interest loan. And so the real estate cost was also this interesting combination of public/cooperative/private slash, you know, sort of community efforts coming together.

Some of the more challenging pieces are the employers. So there are representatives from each employer on the board, and they are the governing body of the childcare center. And, you know, as you sort of alluded to before, [00:17:00] that, like, the business plan, the financial model, the business struggles can’t be addressed with just, like, looking at supply and demand or when thinking about what the demand is for.

We’re talking about humans. We’re not manufacturing something. And there is a lack of understanding of how childcare businesses run.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Function. Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: The toll that childcare takes on providers. You know, there’s enough of a sort of distance between those governing and those operating it in terms of understanding that that’s a challenge.

And I believe it’s one that needs to be, you know, in future models, does need to be addressed. And in fact, I’ll say that the childcare cooperative that is forming in Viroqua, they are going to ensure that over half of the board [00:18:00] members are workers. So they’re people who work there. Other members can also serve on the board, but they’ll never be in the majority, which ensures that the people who are doing the work are the ones who are informing the decisions.

I think the other challenge, and it’s related, is that there’s a misunderstanding that childcare businesses that are starting up, they don’t just need this infusion of cash in the beginning. And then eventually, they’re going to kind of level out after five years and be profitable, like many businesses are, right?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: They aren’t pilot programs.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: No. Right. And they’re not like other sort of new businesses, where you expect to operate with a loss in the first five years, and then eventually you reach that point where you’re profitable. That’s just never the case with childcare. Childcare is always going to need some form of subsidy.[00:19:00]

Unless you have a center that has, I mean, it’s been modeled out to show, once you reach 100 children, right, you scale up to that size, that’s where you begin to see the numbers work out. That’s a big center.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mm-hmm. That’s like a huge real estate space. That’s tons of employees. That’s a lot.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Right.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. Yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, let’s talk a little bit about childcare workers. And I love your example of how in Viroqua, and that’s Viroqua, Wisconsin, we’ve been talking about, that they’re looking at putting some of the folks who are kind of in the operational pieces of the business on the board. And that’s great.

Childcare workers though are also famously underpaid. And I’m wondering if the cooperative model helps to change that a little bit. Like, did that happen in Hazen? Is it happening in Viroqua or other places? And is workforce compensation something that co-ops are better positioned to address? Or maybe that’s [00:20:00] too complex of a question, but –

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: I don’t think it’s too complex of a question. I wish it was just a simple yes.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mmhmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: But I think I’ve already sort of painted this picture that, you know, the general sort of the revenue and expenses just mean there’s very little to work with, and that’s with low wages. There’s a worker cooperative in Milwaukee called Nestling House. They’re a childcare center that also converted.

And I had a long conversation with their director who is somebody who moved from being a childcare worker for many, many years, and now is the director of Nestling House, the worker cooperative. And all the struggles of operating and working in a childcare center remain. But I asked her, given that’s true, does a worker cooperative make conditions [00:21:00] better?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Like conditions for the workforce.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: For the workers, you know? Yeah. Does it make a difference that you’re decision-makers, that you get to create policy around workplace practices? And she said, “Yes, absolutely.”

So I think there’s definitely something to say for worker cooperatives specifically. In a field like childcare, where it’s low wages, very hard work, and generally speaking, undervalued, right?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: To have the ability to have a, not just a voice, but you get to advise, right? You actually are the decision-makers. That makes a big difference for people. In fact, my colleague, Yanni Lang, just put out a paper on the impact of worker cooperatives on workers’ mental health. And there [00:22:00] is evidence that there is a positive impact.

And as a childcare worker myself, I can say that I can imagine there being some relief in having the ability to decide some things. I say all that, and will also say that in a parallel industry in home care cooperatives. Which don’t have the same level of regulation.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: As the centers, right?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: As childcare.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. Home care, you know, providing care for seniors or people with disabilities in their homes, there’s less regulation, and there’s less real estate, right? So the business model is a little bit easier. Not much, though. However, still, caregivers are very under-paid and with very few benefits.

We have an example of a caregiver cooperative in Wisconsin called Cooperative Care. And they have been known, and across the nation, actually, they’re [00:23:00] known for providing slightly higher wages, providing benefits, and that kind of thing. So, again, I’m speaking mostly about worker cooperatives, which I think makes sense, right?

Because your workers are going to generally do what they can to improve the lives of workers, including wages.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: What do you find is the hardest part of getting employers to say yes to something like a co-op? What objections do you tend to hear, and what would move them forward despite objections?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Well, full transparency, I have not had those conversations with them – that type of conversation with employers yet.

That’s sort of next in our timeline. We’re hosting a webinar, and we’re going to speak with employers regionally about the issue and begin engaging. I will say that in our conversations with Energy Capital, I’m repeating myself a little bit, but from [00:24:00] their point of view, first of all, you know, the employers didn’t want to own the center.

So there was no desire by employers themselves to take on ownership, right? There’s also a difficulty understanding the need in perpetuity, right? That this isn’t just, like, “Let us help you get started, and then you can take it from there.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: So really understanding the financial model and the business model and the need for subsidy.

A subsidy needs to be there in perpetuity. Where that’s coming from is the question right now. Wisconsin’s about to face, well, the end of bridge funding that was put into place during COVID. And there are lots of predictions that there’s going to be closures, even more childcare staff shortages, [00:25:00] higher tuition.

And so that need for subsidy has just increased. Our state has reduced its current level of subsidizing. So that piece for me is what needs the greatest amount of understanding is the business model. The numbers. Why the numbers will never work out, right?

It’s not about childcare professionals doing a better job of running the business. It just will never quite work out without that subsidy.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: It seems like in the childcare industry, you know, if you build it, they will come, but that is not a recipe for success, necessarily.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Well, if you build the childcare center, the parents will come, you know? Yes. There’s supply, but without providing living wages –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mmhmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: The [00:26:00] childcare staff won’t come. And I would say, quite frankly, that is our biggest issue. You know, we’re expecting childcare staff to live in poverty with the average wage being less than $15 an hour. They can go out and work at Target or another retail shop.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: For more.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: For more. And doing what I would argue is far less stressful work.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was working with a childcare group. It was a group of people coming together in a community trying to figure out ways they wanted to work together to address some of the pressures. And I remember telling them, because I don’t have children, I’ve said this before on this podcast, but I do have pets though.

And I remember I was looking into pet care for me to go away for a week. And the cost for pet care for someone stopping by twice a day or even staying at my [00:27:00] house was more than childcare. And no one’s teaching my pet anything. Like, there’s teaching happening in childcare. There’s, you know, there are educational things going on.

There are people who have certain certifications and they know how to teach young children things. No one’s teaching my pets anything. And yet the cost was higher for a week of pet care.

And I told them about this, and they’re like, “Yeah, this is why we can’t keep workers because we can pay those prices.”

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. Well, and we’re, you know, in order for a childcare business to succeed, we’re depending on families to pay tuition. And families can only pay what they can afford.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Right.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Right? So that’s the whole, again, back to that whole business model. It’s like, well, that means that childcare centers, they’re only going to set their tuition at what [00:28:00] families can afford.

Which oftentimes means there’s that gap. And always means that childcare workers are going to get paid less.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Childcare workers and the center directors and owners, I see them go without quite a bit. They’re not making hand over fist profits here.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Absolutely.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So we talked a little bit about some of the ways that the cooperative model can address some of the pressure.

But in our other conversations, you’ve been pretty clear that it doesn’t solve the underlying problem, that more money is needed. But in terms of relieving some of that pressure, where does the co-op model start to hit that ceiling where it’s not relieving enough pressure anymore?

Is it strictly with wages and affordability? Is that pretty much the buck stops there, literally?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. I think that’s it. We can certainly talk about ways that [00:29:00] communities and the cooperative community can be the ones who come together and figure out a mutual fund that’s helping fill that gap. And that’s where cooperatives thrive, is that cooperatives have always historically come together and been formed to address a need that’s not otherwise being met, right?

And it’s a social need, a cultural need, a financial need. One of the challenges with childcare is for us as communities, as however large you think in terms of community, but as a society, to understand that quality childcare is a common good, right? That we all benefit from quality childcare, which means that perhaps we all contribute to the financial abilities [00:30:00] of childcare providers.

Ultimately, we would have them consider that a public good and they would be publicly funded. And I do think that, you know, there are many examples of cooperatives who also do that advocacy work. Energy Capital Cooperative that we’ve spoken of, they’re going to their state capitol, still advocating because they still don’t have what they need to pay their childcare workers.

And as you mentioned, I’m glad that you mentioned that – the administrators, all of them are underpaid. There’s another example of a worker-owned childcare center in Pennsylvania who devotes a day every quarter for their workers to go to the Capitol and advocate for child credits.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Wisconsin Early Childhood Association is putting together a collaboration of employers to do advocacy work [00:31:00] on behalf of the business community in Wisconsin.

And so ultimately, for me this is just me speaking, but that has to be top on our list of solutions. And I do think that cooperatives have, you know, when we talk about the special sauce, it’s a network of people with shared values.

There are seven principles of cooperatives, and one of those principles is ‘care for the community.’ Another is ‘cooperation among cooperatives.’ And those principles you can find on the walls of cooperatives around the world, they are highly revered and they do connect our community.

And so there is power in our ecosystem to address a huge issue like this together, but there also has to be some real understanding of the childcare sector and what makes this particular [00:32:00] sector so tough to address without the contributions, without an expectation to get something specific in return.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mm-hmm. So pivoting a little bit, many of our listeners work in military communities, either on or near installations, in rural, and also in semi-rural areas. Does the co-op model translate well in those contexts? And are there any unique considerations for co-ops that might serve specifically military families?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: I don’t know of any specific co-ops that serve military families. I would say that the cooperative model is perfectly aligned with the sensibility of a military family, right? And the military community.

And that cooperatives are first and foremost democratic institutions. And so when I was first pondering this [00:33:00] question, I just thought, you know, this is what we ask our military to defend, is our ability to practice democracy.

And cooperatives are on the most micro level. They are democratic institutions, which I think is really cool. And so the cooperative governing systems –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mmhmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Have lots of rules and policies and procedures that follow our sort of democratic governing systems.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. So they’re familiar to a lot of people too.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: That would be familiar. Yeah. It would be interesting to develop solutions together that utilize, right, that sort of those fundamental democratic systems.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It seems though, you know, given what you just said, that anyone could start investigating this kind of solution for their area.

So if someone [00:34:00] listening is maybe a program manager or a family services coordinator, or maybe they’re just a community leader, you know, maybe they’re a non-profit leader, maybe they are a council member or something who’s watching childcare access deteriorate in their area or access or affordability, the workforce, right? Watching that deteriorate.

And they’re not a business owner or a policymaker. What’s a realistic first step they could take toward exploring a cooperative model to ease some of that pressure?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: I would say just begin having conversations with the people who they are already in conversation with, right?

Anytime I do any of this work, it’s just about having the conversation over and over again until you find the people where there’s a spark. And eventually, you have the business owners. Eventually you have the policymakers. Especially in rural communities, I find that we’re all just [00:35:00] like one – there’s one person between, you know –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Uh-huh.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Us and that policymaker, the person who’s on city council, and that person is connected to the county, and that person’s connected to the state, right? And same within our business communities.

And so just starting the conversation, talking to fellow parents, neighbors, and looking for the connections that we do have with the people who have influence.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Just start talking.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Just start talking. Just start talking. You’re – It won’t take long until you find something.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Bang the drum a little bit. Like, “Hey, guys, this is a problem. I’m noticing it.” Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah. Yes. I love it. Yes. And, you know, talking about it from different points of view is helpful, right?

So the opening question, “What are you hearing the most, depending on who you’re talking to?” So talking about it from those different vantage points, I think also is going to help [00:36:00] find the connections.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Are there any resources, toolkits, or technical assistance pathways through your center or with partner organizations that communities can access?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: We don’t have toolkits, but we are very accessible at the UW Center for Cooperatives. And so reaching out to any of us through the information request portal, you will hear back from any of us at that point. An organization that we are working with on this project is Cooperative Development Services.

They are out of Minnesota and are also doing this research. They service Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. ICA Group is an organization on the East Coast, but they work nationally, and they have done a lot of childcare work as well. Come to similar conclusions that we have. Their emphasis is also on worker cooperatives.

[00:37:00] But they’re really engaging in questions around real estate. How can we get creative within our community around real estate to at least shrink that part of the pie..

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, not everyone can sell frozen tundra like the Packers did for theirs.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Right. Yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: We’ll make sure to include a link to the Center for Cooperatives, and some of these other organizations that you’ve mentioned that you work with.

But I’d like to switch a little bit to kind of thinking ahead. You spend a lot of time in rooms where people are trying to solve this problem. Where are the areas that you find reasons for hope? Because of what you’ve said, I know that you likely haven’t seen it anywhere where the problem’s solved. It’s done. It’s solved. Great. We can model this. We can follow this model, right?

So where are the areas that you can find some hope? Like maybe it’s some genuine evidence that things can get better?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: You know, I’ve [00:38:00] referred to a couple of examples that illustrate both the challenge, but also, I would say, do illustrate hope.

I mean, you know, Energy Capital is an example of people putting in blood, sweat, and tears to make that happen. And while there is still a lot of struggle, they’re still there. Not only the center, but the people. I mean, a good number of the people who started it are still there. And to me, that speaks to some success.

Similarly, the childcare center I referred to in Milwaukee, the Nestling House, it’s a similar story. I mean, the devotion of childcare workers, and the love that they have for their work does give me hope.

And in Viroqua, one of the childcare [00:39:00] workers, an employee who, the childcare staff, she’s the one who came to me to begin with. She’s leading the cause, right? The center director is now facilitating the entire conversion. And a whole community is rallying around it because they value the program.

And again, the workers love it too. I think at the heart of it for me is the people who choose caregiving as a field of work.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Mmhmm.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Their hearts are so big. They have so much passion for teaching young children. I mean, imagine being in a room full of, like, I don’t know, say 15, you know, zero to three-year-olds. Like, that’s –

JESSICA BECKENDORF: No, I don’t want to imagine that.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: It’s a lot. Anybody who has raised a child and knows what it’s like to have [00:40:00] one two-year-old or one three-year-old or maybe, you know, two or three, you know, I know many, but it’s a lot.

And the childcare staff who do that work, they love it. They love it. I mean, across the board too, right? Like the people who are just fiercely advocating at every level, the folks at Wisconsin Early Childhood Association are amazing. It’s not easy work because there is this lack of understanding. You know, as I mentioned before, these childcare workers, they’re holding up our economy for us, right?

And that’s always been the case. It’s just that for a long time, the childcare providers stayed home, and now they’re not. And so we have to pay people to do this work.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: So I think there is hope. I think there’s hope because we have the people who love to do this work. We need to value them and figure it out.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: What is a question you [00:41:00] wish more people were asking about childcare that they’re not even thinking about?

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Well, this does feel redundant, but that’s okay. Because I do think it’s really important. We’ve all heard the question, like, “Are the kids okay?” And I think that is really an essential question to be asking.

But I think we need to be asking, “Are the people who care for our kids okay?” I think that’s it. Because if they’re not okay, our kids aren’t gonna be okay.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much for the work you do, and thank you for joining us, Kristen.

KRISTIN FORDE HURCKES: Thank you.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Kristen Forde-Hurckes is a cooperative development specialist with the UW Madison Extension Center for Cooperatives, where she supports worker cooperative development in rural communities with a focus on cooperative conversions and participatory governance.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: That’s it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us. If this conversation got you thinking about how [00:42:00] your community is responding to childcare challenges, we hope you’ll share it with a colleague or a partner who’s in that work with you. You can find more resources from the Center for Cooperatives in our show notes, along with links to some of the examples we talked about today.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: We’d like to thank our announcer, Kaitlyn Gobel-Mathis, Maggie Lucas, and Joyce Vaughn for their help with marketing, and Nathan Grimm, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you’ll listen again soon. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.