Inside Voices, Community Conversations:

Connecticut lawmakers called this year’s child care legislation historic, promising expanded access, new funding, and long overdue investment in early childhood education leaving us to wonder will families and provider actually feel the impact.

On this episode of Inside Voices, we join Child Care for CT to break down this legislative session, what’s missing, and why child care has become one of Connecticut’s biggest economic and political issues,  From workforce shortages and affordability to universal child care and special education, we ask: is this a real turning point or just political messaging?

Connecticut families are struggling with rising child care costs, limited access, and gaps in early childhood support. We speak with Courtney Parkerson of The Connecticut Project and Cynthia Willner of CTData Collaborative about new RAPID survey data, and what it reveals about affordability, early development, and where policy is falling short.

Child care costs are rising, family budgets are tightening, and decisions made in Washington are playing out in real time in households and classrooms across the country. In this exclusive conversation, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro examines the growing strain on families and the fight for more equitable access to care highlighting key investments like the Child Tax Credit, Early Start, Care 4 Kids, and support from the Connecticut Endowment, and what it will take for families in Connecticut and beyond to find stability in an increasingly uncertain economy.

What happens when the people who care for our youngest children help shape public policy?

Host Georgia Goldburn speaks with Sandra Dill, a New Haven family child care provider and policy advisor bringing lived experience into Connecticut’s early childhood education decisions. As the owner of Motherlyluv Too Family Child Care and a member of the state’s Early Childhood Education Endowment Advisory Board, Dill explains why stable funding matters, how home-based child care strengthens communities, and how collective advocacy through CERCLE Collab is shifting power toward the people doing the work at a moment when the future of early childhood education is on the line.

Becoming the Teacher She Needed: How the CERCLE FRAME Pathway Shaped Andrene Cross

The real story of immigration enforcement isn’t in the numbers or the politics, but lies in the human cost paid by children, caregivers, and families when ICE shows up without warning.  In this episode of Inside Voices, we sit down with ACLU of Connecticut’s Legal Director Dan Barrett to address how immigration enforcement is reshaping daily life for families in child care programs, schools, and local workplaces. We look at the state’s new guidance, the recent cases shaking Connecticut and Chicago, and the terrifying first 48 hours after a detention when kids are left waiting, parents scramble for answers, and legal protections are put to the test. Dan explains what “sanctuary” actually offers, where the gaps are, and what families and providers can do right now to stay prepared.