Marquette County Child Care Coalition continues work on pilot program

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - Step by step, the child care business lab pilot program will be coming to Marquette County.

It will train and license at-home daycare providers to address the need for child care in the community.

Deb Dupras is the program director at Great Start to Quality UP Resource Center. She said the coalition has a better idea of what the pilot will look like.

“We have been planning our timeline, looking at our curriculum and licensing requirements and are seeing what other partners we need at the table,” Dupras said.

Dupras said the foundation of the curriculum will be based on the state’s family child care business training.

“We want to not only teach them best practices and navigate the system of child care but also be able to connect them with other individuals so they have a cohort and can network moving on,” Dupras said.

The Lake Superior Community Partnership Foundation has also hired a staff member to help with the program.

“Their main job will be coordination,” said LSCP Chief Executive Officer Christopher Germain. “So, the program will include speakers, subject matter experts, content development and mentorship. This person will be in charge of making sure everyone accepted into the program get what they need and is moving through it well.”

Dupras said applications will be out at the end of February or early March.

“We will hopefully start in mid-April and we’re looking at a 10 to 12-week session. And we’re trying to make it all face to face but there might be some room for doing it virtually,” Dupras said.

In order to launch, the coalition needs to finish the curriculum design, complete branding and start marketing the program.