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Members and officers agreed that the Coalition should focus on staff training, coordinating resources, advocating on local and state levels, and maintaining a SACC network. Since the SACC Clearinghouse was reaching the end of its funding period the Coalition took on the development of a newsletter and the coordination of the statewide SACC Symposium.
One of the projects created by the coalition is the Center for the Child Care Workforce. It was the Child Care Employee Project, at a time when low compensation and high turnover in the child care workforce were rarely talked about. As these problems became more serious, discussion and action for change came about. In the year 2000, the situation is utterly changed: the staffing crisis is now at the heart of the child care policy debate, and the link between good jobs for child care teachers and providers, and good care for young children, is almost universally recognized. .
Much of this recognition is traceable to Child Care Workforce's work, a consistent track record of research, documentation, advocacy, training and organizing around the issues of better compensation and working conditions in the field of early care and education. They have persistently gotten the word out, even when it was unpopular to do so, and have now placed these issues squarely on the child care agenda. With their encouragement and support, teachers and providers in a number of communities are now becoming advocates and leaders on their own behalf. .
The central mission of Child Care Workforce is to improve the quality of child care by improving child care jobs for teachers and providers. They are retaining and rewarding skilled and stable child care workers, by assuring better compensation, working conditions and opportunities for leadership and professional growth in this field. Research has consistently shown that the presence of consistent, sensitive, well-trained and well-paid caregivers is the central ingredient of good care for children.