Who We Are

The Child Care & Early Learning Division

Home child care providers across Illinois are united in SEIU Child Care & Early Learning, a division of SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana. Every day, nearly 40,000 providers care for children through the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program while their parents work or attend school. Some of us provide care from sunrise to sundown every day, while others primarily care for children before and after school, at night or on the weekends. Some of us care for one or two children of family or friends, while others are licensed to care for more children. No matter how different we may seem, we share a priority of making sure that all Illinois children receive quality care and early learning.

Home child care providers first began building our union in 1996, when child care providers across the state struggled to get by on low rates, with no benefits. Together, we rallied and lobbied in Springfield to successfully raise reimbursement rates for providers in the Child Care Assistance Program and stop cuts that would raise parent co-pays and create waiting lists for child care. We also worked with child care and early learning advocates to fund quality care initiatives and to expand pre-Kindergarten early education.

In 2005, Illinois home child care providers became the first in the country to hold an election to unite our voices in SEIU. Later that year, we negotiated the ground-breaking first contract for child care providers anywhere in the country, winning significant CCAP rate increases, incentives for training and quality care through rate add-ons and first-ever funding to provide quality, affordable healthcare for thousands of Illinois child care providers through our SEIU Healthcare Illinois Child Care Fund.

Since 2005, home child care providers across the country have united in SEIU to strengthen their voices for quality care for all children. Nationally, SEIU unites hundreds of thousands of child care and early learning professionals in a movement for quality, affordable care for all children.