SEIU Local 535

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Stronger Together.

SEIU Lcoal 535 is the union for family providers

Blanche Williams, licensed family child care provider

"If we spent today on early child development it would be just a small bit of what we spend on prisons and police. And the difference it would make for today's children and tomorrow's world would be phenomenal," said Blanche Williams who operates her licensed family child care center in Bakersfield.

It would mean our country might finally be able surrender its status of being number one in the incarceration of its own citizens. It would mean that children social workers in county agencies would see an improved environment for families and children and an improved environment in their own lives as well. (According to state regulations a child can be in a child care setting for up to 23.75 hours a day before falling under the definition of foster care.)

These goals are part of the reason SEIU Local 535 has taken on responsibility to improve the lives of child care workers and the children they care for in Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, Kern, and Tuolumne counties. There are approximately 4,000 child care providers spread out over thousands of square miles in these eight counties. Breaking down the sense of isolation is one of the aims for the effort-along with increasing the stability of the providers' funding, enhancing their professional status, and empowering them as advocates for the all important task of early child development.