In the wake of the developing COVID-19 pandemic, many childcare facilities and schools are closing, causing added strain on employees and businesses during this already challenging time.

Join Let’s Grow Kids and VBSR as we share resources and guidance to support the child care needs of your “essential” and “non-essential” employees. We’ll also review the current status of state and local policy around child care, and hear an update from the child care field, including which child care facilities have closed, which are staying open, and how your business can help support these facilities.

Meet the presenters:

Emily Blistein is the Business Strategy Director for Let’s Grow Kids. She works with business leaders throughout the state to elevate the importance of child care as a fundamental support to our businesses and economy. She has also leads an HR Pilot program working with businesses in diverse industries and regions to develop child care benefits and policies that work for their business and employees.

Sarah Kenney is Senior Policy Director for Let’s Grow Kids. She has more than twenty years’ experience advocating in Montpelier and DC for public policy, working for many years on behalf of survivors of sexual and domestic violence and now on early childhood education. She helps to lead LGK’s policy and field teams, mobilizing Vermonters and policymakers in support of lasting change for young children and families.

LouAnn Beninati is the Director of Program Viability Strategies at Let’s Grow Kids, focusing on sustainable child care businesses. Previously, she was the coordinator of the Step Ahead Recognition System- STARS, taught early childhood courses at local colleges, and was a child care program executive director for many years.