Families, friends and neighbors receive formal training to fill Colorado's child care gaps
share
WESTMINSTER, Colo. — Families roared and clapped on a sunny Friday afternoon at Oakhurst Park when 120 women walked down a stage and accepted their diplomas after graduation from the Providers Advancing Student Outcomes (PASO) program.
PASO, a 15-week program run by the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, has supported family, friend and neighbor (FFN) child care providers for 19 years. Its most recent cohort graduated 120 participants, nearly twice as many as previous sessions.
As Colorado enters a three-to-five-year freeze on Child Care Assistance Program funding — FFN providers are stepping up and working to formalize the informal care they've long provided for the children in their communities.
American Rescue Plan and Child Care and Development funds — both pandemic-era funding from the federal government — helped fund child care subsidies in dozens of states, including Colorado. Those funds have dried up over the last few years, and the Biden administration enacted a policy in April 2024 requiring states to pay child care providers based on enrollment, rather than attendance, and increase reimbursement rates for infant and toddler care. This prompted a Child Care Assistance Program freeze in 20 Colorado counties.
“We need more providers because child care has just gotten so expensive even before the CCAP freeze,” said Mirla Coronado DeLow, Colorado Parent Coalition director of early childhood education programs. “And now with the freeze, people are having to step up even more.”
PASO program attendees learn about the stages of early childhood development and how to teach children social and interpersonal skills, as well as reading, writing and identifying shapes and colors. Graduates earned the 120 hours required to receive a Child Development Associate credential and are eligible to open a licensed child care center out of their home.
The program is offered online and in person in English and Spanish. Almost all of this cohort’s graduates were Latina.
“We have a problem with the school system, and the achievement gap is really bad for Latino students,” Coronado DeLow said.
A 2023 report from Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes Latino student achievement, found 28% of Latino adults in Colorado earned an associate’s degree or higher, compared to 59% of white adults. A 2017 study from EdTrust found most Latino students who drop out of education programs do so either because of financial hardships or to support their families.
“I think our little kids are the future of the world,” said Liliana Lopez, a 23-year-old Denver resident who graduated from the PASO program earlier in June.
Lopez has a 3-year-old daughter who receives child care services through Denver Head Start. After Lopez applies for her Child Development Associate’s, she hopes to start a daycare center out of her home for her daughter and other children in their neighborhood. She also hopes to receive a bachelor’s degree in education someday and teach in K-12 schools.
“My hopes and dreams are to one day become a teacher and create leaders of the world,” Lopez said. “Future lawyers and doctors, it all starts at this age and I think it’s very important that there are more people who want to be part of this solution (to the lack of child care.)”
Lopez said she learned skills that have helped her raise her own daughter, like modeling patient and kind behavior, and emphasizing those traits to her daughter.
“Whatever they learn at this age will shape their future,” Lopez said.
Lopez said the process of watching children speak for the first time and discover the world around them is rewarding, and its the main reason she likes working with young children.
“I like seeing through their brains at their age,” Lopez said. “It’s fun learning and seeing how they develop.”
Brenda Pinadaocacoa, a 43-year-old Aurora resident who graduated the PASO program, said she wished she’d had access to the program earlier when she was raising her five children. Pinadaocacoa said she learned that birth to five years old are the most important years in a child’s development.
“It’s not just changing the diapers and feeding them, it’s really teaching them,” Pinadaocacoa said.
Pinadaocacoa’s family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was 16. At the time, she said, she knew very little English and no one else in the country. Neighbors and friends helped watch her youngest children, but she said the children weren’t given a proper education prior to entering elementary school. Now, after her training, she hopes to help other parents by teaching their kids valuable lessons from an early age.
“It’s not just come to my house and have fun,” Pinadaocacoa said. “I’ve learned that I need to make a plan.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.