Child Care
When child care is not available to families, there are wide ranging consequences at both a household and a community level. That’s why NMF is leading and supporting collaborative efforts to find and provide innovative and sustainable solutions to unique child care needs.
Practical solutions
Better lives are built when our children are provided quality care and families can enter the workforce on their terms and not be hindered by the lack of available child care in their community.
Step Up
Offering training and development workshops for Northwest Minnesota child care professionals.
Northwest Minnesota Child Care Collaborative
Providing tools and resources for Northwest Minnesota child care providers.
When children thrive, families and communities thrive
Communities across Northwest Minnesota are experiencing a crisis. Ample quality child care options are not available and the result is impacting families, employers, and communities. Our goal is to develop a child care workforce that not only meets the needs of working parents and communities, but also the needs of developing children.
Improving access to care
We incentivize and support child care providers to improve the quality of their care by providing professional development around social-emotional learning for very young children and promoting the Parent Aware rating system. We assist child care providers and communities with financial and capital needs through flexible lending and grant products and we connect providers with business technical assistance.
Resources for providers
If you are interested in becoming a licensed family child care provider, please refer to this detailed guide, created by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. If you are a parent or a provider interested in innovative solutions to child care, please visit the Bemidji Area Rural Child Care Innovation Program site.
Need funding for your child care program?
Make a donation to our Child Care Recovery Fund
News & Ideas
See how our work to improve child care availability is impacting families.
Northwest Minnesota Foundation Pushes more than $780,000 into the Region in First Quarter of FY24
More than $780,000 was loaned or granted out into the region from July through September through the Northwest Minnesota Foundation.
Family, Friends, and Neighbors Child Care event held in Park Rapids
Often used to illustrate the many hands who help lift a child through their development, this phrase speaks to the need for many people to come together to provide a safe and healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, where children’s voices matter.
Step Up child care workshops continue to grow
Five years after launching the Step Up workshops to child care professionals, educators continue to see familiar faces.