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Some of my youngest memories are from the playground at Head Start. I remember the routine, the feeling of safety and the sense of belonging that came with having a place to go each day where adults provided me with quality care.
For my family, Head Start meant stability, and that stability gave me a foundation that helped shape my life and my love for early childhood education.
When I was not at Head Start, I was cared for by a neighbor who provided childcare for families throughout our community. Parents trusted her, children felt comfortable in her home and families relied on her care to make work possible.
That kind of care existed long before formal systems or federal funding streams. Today, it is often referred to as Family, Friend and Neighbor care, or Family Child Care. At the time, it was simply how families supported each other.
That care existed before the federal Child Care and Development Fund was established in 1990. It existed before subsidies, reimbursement systems, applications and eligibility requirements. It has always been part of the childcare system’s backbone, particularly in rural communities and areas with fewer childcare options.
Decades later, it feels like a full-circle moment as I now support and advocate for the same care that helped raise me. I have spent years supporting early childhood education and workforce development while building early educator apprenticeship pathways and working alongside family childcare educators who open their homes each day to care for children. Through this work, I have seen what happens when we invest intentionally in children and the adults who care for them, and I have also seen the consequences when that investment is withdrawn.
Mississippi is now experiencing the latter.
In 2025, cuts to the Child Care Payment Program, combined with the decision to pause applications, pushed the childcare assistance system into crisis.
Providers who were already operating on thin margins have been forced to reduce services or consider closing. Families who depend on childcare to maintain employment are losing access, often with little notice and few alternatives. These impacts are rippling through communities across the state, particularly in rural areas.
Eboni Delaney of the National Association for Family Child Care visits the federal Administration for Children and Families in Washington, D.C., to discuss childcare issues. Credit: Courtesy photoA recent report documents what childcare providers across Mississippi have been experiencing for months. Funding shortages have caused significant harm to programs and the families they serve, and since the data was collected, conditions have continued to worsen. More providers are reporting instability, and more families are being left without reliable care.
Family childcare educators are central to this conversation because of their unique role in meeting families’ needs. These programs offer flexible hours, mixed-age care and long-standing relationships with families that cannot be replaced overnight. In many communities, particularly rural and low-access areas, family childcare is the primary option available. When these programs are destabilized or forced to close, families often have few, if any, alternatives.
None of this was unpredictable. Childcare does not operate on margins that can absorb sudden cuts or prolonged uncertainty. Early childhood educators still have rent to pay, food to purchase, utilities to cover and staff to compensate, regardless of whether payments are delayed or assistance is paused.
Programs like Head Start were created with the recognition that supporting children early strengthens families and communities over time. Childcare plays a similar role. It is essential infrastructure that allows parents to work, businesses to function and children to grow in stable environments.
The solutions before us are practical and achievable. Childcare providers need predictable, uninterrupted funding to plan, staff and keep their doors open. Families need consistent access to assistance so they can work without fear of losing care.
Mississippi must treat childcare as essential infrastructure for its workforce and economy, with stable funding and timely payments rather than temporary fixes or pauses.
As a native Mississippian, a product of Head Start, and someone who has spent a career building early childhood systems, I know what is at stake. When we fail to invest in childcare, we have gravely missed the mark as a society.
Mississippi once invested in me, and that investment made a lasting difference. Every child in this state deserves the same opportunity, and the responsibility now rests with our leaders to ensure that opportunity is not out of reach.
Eboni Delaney is the director of Policy and Movement Building at the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), and a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
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