For more than 50 years, the Bainum Family Foundation Early Childhood team has worked alongside partners to advance our shared mission of creating a society where all children and families thrive. We have long recognized the importance of learning from birth, always grounding our work in the fact that the first five years of a child’s life are key to their development and growth. Guided by this mission, our foundational work has long focused on helping partners and our communities navigate the challenges of the current child care system. But we know that today’s challenges will not go away without a shift in focus — a transition from navigating the day-to-day to reimagining what a better tomorrow looks like.
Over the past few years, we asked early childhood professionals and families with young children what their vision of an ideal future would look like; they consistently shared three critical criteria with us:
This input serves as the foundation of our WeVision EarlyEd initiative, which we launched in 2022 to shift outdated mindsets and pave the way for public policies that will serve to make the ideal child care real across the nation.
In 2025, after three years of human-centered data collection and mindset-shifting dialogues combined with intense program planning, we announced a cohort of 23 sites across 11 states and Washington, D.C., selected to serve as WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites. These sites are demonstrating in a tangible and practical way that the ideal child care can be made real — right now.
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites are diverse in scope, location, history, families, and children served — and in their business structure. While they are committed to the same vision, their approach and solutions are unique and contextualized.
Here are five ways WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites are moving past outdated, status quo child care models and demonstrating that the ideal is possible:
Families and practitioners are overwhelmed with myriad child care options that define themselves by using unclear and ambiguous labels (e.g., licensed child care, registered child care, family child care, home provider, preschool, prekindergarten, Head Start)
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites provide two clear and distinct child care options:
1. Early Childhood Education Program (in centers, homes, and/or schools)
2. Trusted Caregiver
Child care policies confine families to the option they can afford, while other families are invisible because their child care preference is not counted as a “valid” option.
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites include both Early Childhood Education Programs (in centers, homes, and/or schools) and Trusted Caregivers. Both are valid options for families. Families receive support regardless of the option they prefer.
Government funding for child care is limited to a small subset of families that meet rigid eligibility guidelines or families experiencing a crisis.
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites include both Early Childhood Education Programs (in centers, homes, and/or schools) and Trusted Caregivers. Both are valid options for families. Families receive support regardless of the option they prefer.
Educators working with young children in day care, an outdated and marginalizing term, are not as prepared, respected, and compensated as are their counterparts in the education profession.
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites operating as Early Childhood Education Programs compensate their educators, using public school wages as a guide, and intentionally support their well-being. This helps ensure that they recruit and retain early childhood educators who are skilled and competent in their practice.
Child care regulations vary by setting and funding streams, resulting in some over- and some underregulated child care programs. Some programs meet only five distinct regulatory standards; the majority can afford to meet the bare minimum.
WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites operating as Early Childhood Education Programs meet one set of industry-recognized and holistic quality standards as a baseline. They also document impact on child growth and learning. Equally important, these lab sites are funded to meet the industry-recognized quality baseline.
The WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites are actively leading and shaping the future of child care. What does this ideal look like in practice? What are lab sites experiencing as they make the ideal child care real for young children, families, and practitioners? Here are a few of their reflections and early insights:
— PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAM (CENTER, D.C.)
— PARENT, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAM (CENTER, VA.)
— OWNER AND ADMINISTRATOR, EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROGRAM (HOME, MONT.)
— OWNER AND ADMINISTRATOR, TRUSTED CAREGIVER PROGRAM (FLA. AND COLO.)
Making the ideal real will require us to share implementation data from lab sites and begin to support policy shifts. These early insights are a piece of a larger, more complex research endeavor: the evaluation of lab site implementation to guide transformative child care policies. This evaluation combines quantitative and qualitative methods, and is conducted by third-party research experts. Researchers are evaluating the impact of this more ideal child care experience on young children, families, and practitioners. They are also documenting the policy, regulatory, and financing conditions needed to make this ideal a reality.
In addition, a cohort of advocacy and policy experts are examining ways to better align child care policies and systems with the WeVision EarlyEd Policy Essentials. By supplying data to these interrelated efforts, the WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab sites are serving as a national child care research and policy lab that will help us pinpoint the practical solutions that best advance our work to make the ideal child care real.
the practical solutions that best advance our work to make the ideal child care real.
We are excited to continue working with our partners to shape the future of child care. Our shared commitment to a society where all children thrive and the systems-level change that supports it are proving that the benefits our WeVision EarlyEd Solutions Lab site families are already experiencing are not only possible but also scalable — ultimately demonstrating that the ideal child care in the U.S. doesn’t just exist in our imaginations — it’s already happening.