Resources & Partnerships

WECA has worked with many communities across the state to bring the Wisconsin Early Education Shared Services Network (WEESSN) Tier 3 to support child care providers. WEESSN’s valuable suite of services has sparked increasing interest in how it can bring expertise, resources, and collaboration to meet the needs of providers, families, and communities. WEESSN is:

Relationship-Based, Start to Finish

WECA invests in ongoing conversations with those community partners who are working to strengthen and support child care programs in their region because this work deeply engages community partners. We know each community has unique child care challenges. By listening carefully, we are able to identify customized service delivery.

A Trust-Builder

WECA staff understand we all want the child care crisis solved now, yet there is a tangle of intersecting forces that have brought us where we are today. WECA builds trust with community members and child care programs by showing up and investing in the work. Our staff have deep lived experience in the child care field as both center-based and family child care program leaders, and therefore understand what challenges the field is navigating.

Collaborative

WECA staff have scaled WEESSN programming a half a dozen times and counting, so we know the steps that have made this successful. WEESSN helps guide feasibility and implementation plans and is responsive to the unique needs of each community in the process. This involves investigating local context, engaging partners with funding requirements and opportunities, and working directly with child care programs to explore and gauge feasibility. WECA prioritizes communities that have committed to securing additional funding for expansion into their region.

Are you interested in a discussion?

High quality child care is the backbone of a thriving community, and the evidence is clear that investing in children’s care and education makes a difference. If you are interested in learning more or joining this movement to stabilize the system of child care in Wisconsin, please contact us.

WEESSN Collaborations

The Wisconsin Early Education Shared Services Network was inspired by conversations within the community to address the supply and demand of child care issues that plague this sector. This work is made possible by the generous support of our partners, funders, and  collaborators alike – all of whom are at the heart of this program. Our local, regional, and national partners understand that valuing and supporting child care impacts everyone in the community, promotes economic development, and improves health outcomes.

We thank everyone who has partnered with us, made investments, and shared resources. We would also like to recognize partners who have made in-kind gifts, denoted with an asterisk, to support this important work.

National Partners

A critical group of other national supporters have been supporting WEESSN and providing consultation and/or financial contributions to help scale and build sustainability of the network, including:

CCA for Social Good granted WECA the state license for this virtual shared services platform, Wisconsin Shared Early Education Resources (WISER) that offers over 1600 nationally vetted resources (many downloadable and customizable) and discounts (services and supplies) to member early care and education (ECE) programs. Every ECE program that is a member of WEESSN receives full access to these resources and monthly newsletters highlighting new content.

Opportunities Exchange is a national shared services clearinghouse that offers technical assistance from Louise Stoney, seen as a national preeminent expert on Shared Services, to WEESSN staff.

The Wisconsin Infant Toddler Policy Project with funding from Pritzker Children’s Initiative includes policies and budget priorities to expand shared services as a mechanism for growing the capacity of high-quality infant and toddler ECE.

Children’s Funding Project works on two levels in Wisconsin: looking at state and local level revenue options using the Funding Our Futures framework.

Schmidt Futures’ Alliance for the American Dream contributed significant funding to kickstart the Dane County cohort within the We Care for Dane Kids initiative.