The Workforce Development Board Announces a New Grant Program Focused on Developing a Job Quality Strategy for the Regional Childcare Workforce

Utica, NY – The Critical Sectors Job Quality Grant Program for Childcare was recently awarded to the Workforce Development Board of Herkimer, Madison & Oneida Counties, Inc. This program aims to implement systems change in workforce development efforts for residents located in the Greater Mohawk Valley region of New York State who are  utilizing childcare as well as those that work within the Child Care Sector.

This research and planning grant program includes residents of Oneida, Herkimer, Madison, Otsego, Chenango, Delaware, Fulton, and Montgomery Counties who are marginalized populations in rural areas, such as unemployed, underemployed, low income, Black, Hispanic, or New American. The program also serves childcare workers who are single mothers. 

The 18-month project will develop a job quality strategy that focuses on pay, benefits, skill attainment, and regulations. Data and feedback will be gathered from individuals who work in the childcare sector, ensuring that childcare workers are involved in developing solutions and improvements regarding their employment.

Goals for this grant include:

• Developing employer panels to address regulatory barriers that impede better wages and benefits
• Creating a panel of historically marginalized workers that includes refugees to increase worker knowledge of employee rights. Urban and rural workers will each have significant roles
• Creating a career lattice that shows connections between childcare workforce entry-level jobs and other careers within this sector and in adjoining sectors so that childcare workers can increase their income along a career pathway

For more information about this grant program, contact Mary Katherine A. Moylan at 315-207-6951 Ext. 103 or mkmoylan@working-solutions.org.

Funding for the Critical Sectors Job Quality Grant Program Round Two is 100 percent funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) in the amount of $398,657.00. Equal Opportunity Employer/Program. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities.