Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 11, 2004

Contact: Kim Thomas, Kim Johnson
Phone: 707.421.7229
Fax: 707.421.6495

New Child Care Facilities Planned for Solano County

Fairfield, CA – The Children’s Network of Solano County was recently awarded a substantial grant to build new child care centers and make significant improvements to existing centers throughout Solano County.

The $153,000 grant, to be dispersed in equal payments over the next three years, will be used to launch the first Constructing Connections Program in Solano County. A statewide program supported by the Low Income Investment Fund, Constructing Connections is designed to strengthen the facilities development expertise of child care operators and intermediaries and to increase the capacity for new investment in child care facilities. The program's ultimate goal is to create 15,000 new child care spaces in cost-effective, ADA-compliant, childcare and preschool facilities throughout California.

“We are honored to have been chosen for this grant," says Children's Network Executive Director, Kim Thomas. "We are the only organization chosen in northern California, largely due to the high need we have in Solano for the development of high quality child care centers. Solano families have missed out on their fair share of government assistance with the cost of high quality care, in part because of our limited capacity to provide the needed settings. Now at last, working in partnership with others, we will begin to turn that disappointing history around.”

The partnership consists of several organizations whose work will focus on a combined effort to build local financing and constructing resources, improve Solano County's regulatory and funding environment to better support child care facilities development, create and strengthen collaborations between the care and community development sectors, and improve the capacity of those collaborations to develop child care facilities. The Affordable Housing Affiliation, a local developer of low and moderate cost housing, will serve as a key partner providing their expertise in the planning and integration of community resources in affordable housing developments in Solano County.

Other partners include the Solano County Child Care Planning Council, a Children's Network affiliate whose mission is to ensure that all families and children in Solano County have access to quality and affordable child care, to ensure adequate funding for all forms of child care services, and to enhance the quality of available care, and on whose behalf the Children's Network applied for the grant. Constructing Connections is made possible by the Affordable Buildings for Children’s Development (ABCD) Initiative, developed and supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and funded by the First 5 California Children and Families Commission. First 5 Solano Children and Families Commission has allocated an additional $130,000 in matching funds to the project, and both the Children’s Network and Solano Family and Children’s Services will contribute matching funds.

For more than twenty years, the Children's Network has provided a united voice for the children of Solano County. It promotes programs that support families, secures funding for children’s services, influences policy at the local and state level, helps families access services, and collects and publishes data on the health, safety and well-being of Solano County children.