Unlocking Prosperity: Supporting Family Child Care | Jessica Sager | TEDxNewHaven

Our nation’s child care system is in disrepair. Lack of access to high-quality early childhood education for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, limited child care options, and impossibly low wages for educators are fueling this crisis. However, a highly capable workforce exists that is ready to solve this crisis: family child care (FCC) educators — and it may be the key to prosperity. Jessica Sager, co-founder and CEO of All Our Kin, is an unwavering advocate of child care reform, focused on uplifting family child care, which stands at the nexus of equity, education, and the economy.

Twenty-five years ago, when Jessica founded the organization, no one in the U.S. was talking about home-based care. Today, thanks to the work of All Our Kin and the educators and partners the organization serves, there has been a shift. Public systems are now acknowledging the power of family child care and investing accordingly.

Jessica continues to raise awareness of child care as not only important but also necessary work. A graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School, she is a Trustee of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund, Vice-Chair of the Low Income Investment Fund, a Board Member of Social Impact Partners for Connecticut, and a Lecturer on “Child Care, Society, and Public Policy” at Yale. She is also a Pahara Aspen Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow.

In 2020, she was named to the CARE 100 list of Americans doing the most to re-imagine and re-humanize our care system, and in 2024, she received the Heinz Award for the Economy. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx